You can call me Lightning Bug, Lightning, Bug, or Firefly. My pronouns are he/him (here at least) and I'm an anxious mess. I have a whole laundry list of problems, physical and mental, but the ones that I feel matter here are Borderline Personality Disorder and Generalized Anxiety Disorder.
WHAT THIS BLOG IS?
This is going to be a place for me to discuss my experience with health anxiety, bpd and possible munchausens. I want to remain anonymous, so I made a separate sideblog to discuss this.
WHY AM I DOING THIS?
Because I want to know if I have munchausens or not, if you want a simple answer. The long answer is that I want a space to learn more about myself and my experiences and engage with others that have similar experiences. In the long run, I would love to be sure on what's going on in my head, but in the short term it's more that I need to talk about this stuff without worrying ill be "found out" by those closer to me.
ANY NOTES:
This blog is a sideblog so if you follow there's a high likelihood you won't get a follow back. This is not anything to do with you or your blogs, and more to do with concern over my privacy.
you know what, so what if i just want attention and approval? what the hell is wrong with that? why is it so embarrassing to want to be loved, to want to be known, to want to be accepted? why do i have to self-flagellate over the desire to be appreciated and talked to and cared about? i am going to go eat a rock
Doctor Please - strikeclasskrill - Wings of Fire - Tui T. Sutherland [Archive of Our Own]
The fic is short so I'm also posting it here below the cut if you don't wanna go to ao3!!
Boxelder was known for being reckless. She was always getting hurt, usually minor injuries that would heal on their own after a while, but sometimes she would do something that would result in a bigger injury, one that required seeing a healer. She didn’t know why she did what she did. There was no benefit to touching Flamesilk, no real reason for getting close to Venus Dragontraps, she just did. And every single time she did something reckless, she ended up right back here, on this woven bed of silk and leaves, being tended to by her loving Evergreen.
“Let me guess,” Evergreen said exasperatedly, wrapping Boxelder’s black and yellow claws with bandages. Her own claws were a beautiful autumn gold that transitioned to a bright green, autumn orange and light brown dusting her like a light rain. “You saw a cute animal and simply had to jump into a giant thorn bush?”
“You know me so well,” Boxelder laughed. The truth was, that was a lie. There was no reason to jump into a giant thorn bush. In fact, she had to go out of her way to even get there in the first place! Of course, she wasn’t looking for it, no, she was looking for something else entirely that just happened to be in the same general direction as a thorn bush big enough to trap and hurt a Hive-Leaf hybrid such as herself. It wasn’t her fault she dove too early and got ensnared, that was just bad luck!
“What am I going to do with you…” Evergreen mumbled affectionately. She carefully dabbed at the bleeding scratches along her neck with a cloth. These cuts wouldn’t need any bandages, just a quick disinfection would be fine, but Boxelder wished they did need them. Imagine how dragons would react, the questions and concern they’d give Boxelder at seeing her covered in bandages on more than just her legs.
“Are you alright?” One would ask.
“Boxelder, what happened!” Would say another.
“That looks so serious!” Would chime one more.
They’d be so concerned for her health, for her injuries, and she’d just laugh it off.
“I’m fine,” She would say, “I just got stuck is all.”
But her wounds weren’t bad enough for that. And no one would care anyway. No one but Evergreen.
“You should really be more careful you know, I have other patients I have to care for besides just you.” Boxelder knew that, she was well aware of that, but hearing always made her feel…jealous? Guilty? Some combination of the two that seemed to intertwine with her love for Evergreen. She didn’t want to take from other patients, other injured dragons who got here through truly unintentional means, but she wanted Evergreen to take care of her, to heal her wounds and speak to her gently and tell her it’s alright, the pain is real and she’ll fix it.
Boxelder stared down at her bandaged claws, the scars on her palms serving as reminders for her past actions that led her to this very bed many times before. She remembered getting these when she held blaze silk to “see what would happen”, and what had happened was she got burned. Deeply unpleasant experience to be sure. But Evergreen had held her claws in her own and dressed the wounds with such care, such patience. It was part of the reason she fell in love with her in the first place.
“You’re good to go!” Oh no. “Try not to get yourself stuck again, ok?”
“No promises!” Boxelder couldn’t promise, she knew if she did she’d only let Evergreen down.
Evergreen bumped her snout against Boxelder’s and turned to go tend to her other patients, leaving the hybrid to her lonesome. She wished it lasted longer, that Evergreen had taken more care of her and sat here with her. She would just have to wait until she got hurt again. Maybe the next time would be worse, maybe she’d get swept up in a storm or break a wing or something. She wouldn't go looking for storms, of course not that'd be crazy, but if one happened to strike... Boxelder sighed and left the healer's tent. Maybe she would go to one of the hives, show off her bandages. Maybe the Silkwings would care. She would fake a limp, just to be sure.
A Care Person is an individual chosen by a person with Munchausen/FDIS to take care of them. They make the pwFDIS feel seen, trusted, and cared about. A Care Person may:
Assist in a pwFDIS’ daily life
Act similarly to a therapist for a pwFDIS
Engage in roleplay with a pwFDIS
Or simply, be comfortable for a pwFDIS
…among other things!
Image ID: A flag with five horizontal stripes. The first stripe is light pink, the second stripe is a darker pink, the middle stripe is white, the fourth stripe is yellow, and the fifth stripe is tangerine. There is a symbol of a stethoscope in the center making the shape of a heart. End Id
The first light pink stripe represents affection and love of any kind. The second dark pink stripe represents vulnerability between a Care Person and pwFDIS. The third white stripe represents the many ways a Care Person can help a pwFDIS. The fourth yellow stripe represents patience. The fifth orange stripe represents understanding.
The center symbol represents the medical aspects of FDIS, and the ‘nurse’ role a Care Person often takes. The heart represents affection.
@your-fave-has-munchausen - I was making this completely separately from your post, and I figured now would be a good time to post it. You can of course make your own still, but I assumed you’d want to see this anyway. :)
having factitious disorder and also have a psychotic disorder is all about wondering. ill come out of a horrible paranoid episode and wonder if I fabricated it. wondering if ive just convinced myself I have a psychotic disorder. even though I know that my Munchausen syndrome makes me lie about physical ailments, I wonder if im just unaware of it making me fake mental conditions too
Saline Munchausen is a term with people with FDIS/Munchausen Syndrome who do participate in roleplay or other forms of indulgent behavior to help deal with urges.
Discharged Munchausen is a term for people with FDIS/Munchausen Syndrome who do not participate in roleplay or other forms of indulgent behavior. This could be for many reasons, such as trauma or a desire not to encourage urges to engage in more harmful behaviors.
So. I got hurt. For real. I can't put pressure on one of my legs. Can't call an ambulance it's not serious enough for that, but can't drive. It hurts pretty bad. And the people I live with are saying I'm lying about it. So life is fucking great.
So one of my friends mentioned a mutual friend and like. Told me how life is been shitty to him lately. Which is like, I do feel sorry for him and I do worry. I just wish someone would worry about me.
I have been unemployed for almost a year, with 2 attempts in just this last year and multiple hospital stays. And I just feel so. Uncared about. I feel like i always have to fucking, cry wolf. To get people to care it has to be huge. I can't just attempt, I have to keep attempting and cutting and being horrible.
I hate drinking because once I start to sober up I always get like this. No one would care if I just,, disappeared.
Someone I know has been diagnosed with a degenerative spine disorder. Now I'm sitting here, offering comfort, while feeling disgusting. My brain is like, heyyyyy what if you hurt yourself and end up in the ER?????? THEN they'll care!!! Fuck fuck fuck fuck. I hate this I hate myself
Real talk I think my dream life is being one of those sad little wet dogs that gets rescued and then becomes internet famous for having some debilitating sickness and managing to survive and stuff. I think that would fix me.
Telling a few people I'm sick with a mild cold is somehow more exhilarating than the time I had some random guy try robbing me while I was sitting on the couch
Wondering if the medical abuse I experienced as a kid (my whole life actually hold on) has any play on my current behaviors. I wasn't like. My caretakers did not falsify medical issues or cause symptoms in me- but I was regularly ignored and told I was over exaggerating.
I have this one memory. I was sick, really really sick. I was slurring my words, couldn't see straight, couldn't keep anything down. And I was on the bathroom floor, sobbing, covered in my own vomit. I was begging my mom to take me to the ER. But she wouldn't. Because she didn't want me to throw up in her car. The next day, my brother got the same symptoms. And she immediately took him in. This also happened to happen on my actual fucking birthday.
Idfk. I just. The only time my parents listened about medical stuff was when I was in immediate danger of dying. Like when I had a fever of 105 with the flu. Or when I had my first asthma attack. Or when I lost control of my legs and was momentarily paralyzed.
I think that's the root cause of this. That and the overall neglect I experienced. Yes I experienced medical neglect, but it was just one piece of the puzzle.
I also was forced to be on multiple meds I didn't need to be on, as well as refused meds I did need. Some of it I understand (refusing me a med that could've helped due to the addiction risk/ my parents addiction history)
munchausen culture is wishing people understood the difference between regular imposed on self and by proxy so you can find actual research and others with it instead of being lumped in with abusers and only finding abuse cases (and usually only gypsy rose's case)
I've discussed it at length before, but I am still of the opinion that "by proxy" is a misnomer and could be argued to not even be a real thing, Anon, as the "by proxy" denomination seems to be used purely for the benefit of the masses having yet another scary boogeyman abuser label to gawk at. It carries the cadence of "narc abuse." I really do wish they would drop the diagnosis already—I mean, they've already got a different term that doesn't demonize the mentally ill: medical abuse.
But even if they did, I'm afraid the true crime sensationalists always eat that shit up. They've got their claws so deep into it that our own disorder is a footnote at best among the mainstream. A shame.
I honestly don't think this arrangement even benefits the victims of medical abuse (tho i'm not one so if any victim of medical abuse wants to correct me on this, you are welcome to reach out any way you want) because focusing on the abuser, claiming the abuser had a mental illness, imo takes focus away from what actually matters, which is the victim. In my opinion it makes so much more sense to focus on medical abuse survivors and the trauma they've experienced than in what could have caused the abuser to carry it out, is that really relevant? I think an angle that is often overlooked in this and all the similar kind of discussions is that it's not just about erasing stigma from the so called "abuse disorders" but also holding abusers accountable. You can't hide behind a diagnosis, abuse is always a choice and it's always wrong. We need to stop making excuses for these people at the expense of mentally ill people. Medical abuse survivors deserve to be recognized for what they survived and not for what their abuser may or may not have had.
This is a very good point, Panda. It's a common issue with a lot of topics like this that blow up in true crime spheres. People always seem more invested in the spectacle of the perpetrator, rather than the work of supporting the victim. We're not victims of medical abuse ourselves, either, but I do think what you said rings true. We shouldn't be wasting time coming up with arbitrary labels of evil by armchair diagnosing abusers, when the abusers can and will just use it as an excuse to keep doing what they're doing.
Sometimes I'm like. "Oh I have nothing wrong with me I'm fine" and then I realize that "normal" people don't think about replicating diff3r3ntially_k3lly (written like that so yall can't find this by searching the actual handle)
