Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy?

Factual Questions
1

After a 2 week visit by my father (who I’ve had an off and on relationship with for years) was cut short by a week and a half, I’m looking into what it is exactly that he’s done.

My father has a tendency to accuse me of feeling certain ways (angry, upset, etc.) about things, even though I tell him that I’m not feeling that way. Additionally, it seems like he tries to bring up hurtful subjects, or say things to me that are hurtful, just so that he can comfort me when I’m hurt. This seems to be some kind of internal need for him, to make him feel useful and wanted. My question is: What is this called? The closest thing I’ve come up with is Münchausen Syndrome by Proxy, but I’m not sure that it is exactly right.

Here is the wikipedia definition of MSbP (which correlates to other definitions I’ve found:

Fabricated or induced illness or factitious disorders, originally and more commonly known as Münchausen syndrome or Münchausen syndrome by proxy (MSbP), are insidious disorders in which injury is deliberately and gradually inflicted upon a person usually for gaining attention or some other benefit.

Does this qualify as the “some other benefit” or is this something else entirely? Feel free to ask any questions about this situation you like. I doubt he reads the boards. Also, I apologize if I put this in the wrong thread.

2

It doesn’t sound like Munchausens-which involves hurting someone deliberately to gain attention. Muchaunsens Syndrome is where you inflict harm on yourself constantly, making yourself sick, for attention-often for years. By Proxy is when you do so to others-mostly parents to their children. It’s suspected that these kids have some disorder-instead-and only years later was the abuse uncovered.

(Like say, you’d feed your child poison, or deliberately inflict injury to break limbs, so that everyone would fawn all over you and you’d get sympathy and the like. A very scary disease).

It doesn’t sound like your description of your father.

3

No, that’s nothing like Munchausen’s. It’s not clear what’s going on (not enough detail, but there are a few possibilities.

First, Munchausen’s is usually abut faking an injury or illness in order to elicit sympathy and emotional connection. If “By Proxy”, then the offender is faking someone else’s sickness in order to get sympathy for themselves. Offenders are known to pretend their children are ill, or even really poison or kill them, in order to become the center of attention. (Yes, the individuals are seriously twisted, vite, evil people. A remarkably perceptive and very brief look occurs in The Sixth Sense.) There are other, less monstrous versions of Munchausen’s, however; they are not all Satan Incarnate O’er the Earth.

Now, your father might be engaging in Displacement or Projection, where he is pretending his emotions are yours. This enables him to ignore his own issues and convince himself that you’re the problem. It also has the beneficial (to him) effect of diminishing you and building up him. He gets the pleasure of the anger and hate, and then gets the pleasure of judging you for it. (And if anyone claims not to know these pleasures they are either Saints or liars, and the smart money is on the latter.) But it could also be some other form of personality disorder.

Now, understand that none of these things are mental illnesses. Crazy people might have a paranoia* that they are really sick** or that their daughter is, but Munchausen’s, and the other mentioned issues, are much colder forms of emotional manipulation. They may tell themselves they aren’t really hurting anyone, or whatever they use to dream peacefully, but they definitely know what they are doing on some level. Projection can be more unconscious, but deep down there’s certainly some awareness going on, and maintaining the projection is hard work, requiring considerable mental gymnastics.

*Panaoia means any fixed, unchanging delusion.

**Most hypochondriacs are not deluded, AFAIK.

Anyway, this is not really diagnosable. It does not at all sound like Munchausens, but what it is cannot be diagnosed over computer wires. The only ay to know for certain would for a trained Psychotherapist of some stripe to look at your father.

4

For the record, I didn’t think it was MS, in any form. But it’s the closest thing I can come up with. What I’m really looking for is what it’s called when a person hurts other people so that they can then make them feel better? It’s almost like sadism, but not. Well, not unless there’s some form of sadism where the person gets their rocks off not by hurting others, but from making them feel better (and thus hurts them to instigate the latter).

I feel like it’s akin to a firefighter who starts fires because he likes putting them out.
He hurts people because he likes making people feel better.

If it’s not MS, when what is it? I know he’s got loads of other problems, but this is one that I can’t quite name. MSbP is the closest in my mind, because he hurts others, not so he gets sympathy, but so that he can comfort them, which I thought maybe fell under the “other benefits”.

5

See the Sixth Sense for a good example of MBP.

6

I’ve heard on more than one occasion that certain authoritarian leaders use a method to bust down their subordinates, and then build them back up…into the raw materiel they need to achieve a goal.

Was/Is your father something like a supervisor, or a military drill instructor?

7

Not that I know of. It’s not character-building that he’s doing. I’ve been in the military, I could recognize that. It’s really more of something else. I could swear there’s a name for it, but I can’t put my finger on it.

It’s definitely abuse though. I would liken it to someone who hurts animals when they get angry, and then acts very contrite and comforting to the animal (since most animals forgive people like that). Except it has little to do with the animal feeling better; it’s just for him to personally feel like he’s a good caregiver.

He just seems to feel best when he is hugging someone and saying sorry. He acts abusive and hurts people to put himself in the situation where he can do that. I know the feeling. I’ve felt it on my own sometimes. Just wanting to make everything “all right” after I’ve been a complete ass. I’m just looking to see if it’s an actual condition.

8

Actually, that’s a clasic abusive relationship pattern. Cause emotional (or physical hurt), then heal the relationship. Classic attempt to force others into emotional dependancy.

9

I have seen it-I was trying to think of a book or movie where I HAD seen an example of MBP, but it was eluding me. :smack: Dammit.

smiling bandit-Maunchausen’s Syndrome (by Proxy or not), is INDEED a psychiatric disorder, it’s not simply manipulation.

10

Does anyone know what happened to the girl in the highly publicized case in the late 90’s early 2000s. I remember seeing it on some 20/20 type show; they finally removed the girl from the mom and last I heard she was supposedly illness free.

It’s one of those hundreds of stories I’ve heard about but lost track of…I know it isn’t much to go on, but if someone can remember the story and people involved, I’d like to know the final resolution.

11

Precisely! And in the shorter term, the abuser gets to vent their aggression, which then clears it from their emotional system, and THEN they can feel bad about what they did. The anger and tension is gone and they are the furthest away from another buildup of tension possible, so there’s no tension, frustration, and anger keeping them from feeling compassion.

It’s a little like how you can be ravenously hungry, then eat a big meal, and after the meal, food seems positively disgusting to you. From a certain point of view, it seems like you’ve gone 180 about food in a short period of time. How can one person think food is wonderful then find it disgusting?

With an abuser, however, the food is you.

12

There was a chilling Law & Order where the woman killed her newborns because she got off on the sympathy everyone had for someone who had lost a newborn. She went through at least three kids before they figured it out.

And a House where a wife was poisoning her husband with gold because she liked the attention.

13

My first thought on reading the OP was the Enneagrams Type Two, " The Helper". All Enneagram types have a good and a dark side. On the dark side, their good traits have been twisted and perverted into some kind of… well, evil.

14

:confused::confused::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

15

Sounds like a sexual fantasy perhaps, where getting spanked or giving a spanking might give them a sense of sexual power? Just guessing?

16

Since this thread is more than four years old and no substantial new factual information has been provided, I’m closing it.

Colibri
General Questions Moderator