If you don't mind me asking, how do you think it would be best for the people in your life to react to your munchausens? I have someone in my life atm who I strongly suspect has munchausen syndrome. I struggle a lot with feeling irrationally angry at them despite being very aware that they're mentally ill and are clearly not in a position to control their behaviour (it doesn't help that they're kind of taking advantage of our shared partner by pushing her to care for them, although I don't think this is an intentional plot of evil-ness). They also lie a lot and gaslight our partner. I have a chronic illness that's ruined my life and the whole situation feels like a slap in the face when I'd do any thing to be healthy. I'm aware they're sick (just in a different way than they'd like others to think) and objectively their munchie behaviour has led to them missing out on many, many things. It's not the first time I've known someone who has this problem - I had a friend who used to injure herself then rub dirt in the wounds so she could go to hospital, and she regularly lied about being sick in other ways. I'm not really certain what the most helpful way to respond to this is? Is there anything you wish people who struggle to feel empathetic towards people with your condition understood?
Okay, so I had to sit on this one for a little while because it's teetering right on the edge of bad faith and didn't sit right with me how it's a bit insensitive in its wording. However, I think this is an important discussion to have so I didn't want to trash it or tongue-in-cheek reword it, either.
I have someone in my life atm who I strongly suspect has munchausen syndrome.
So right out of the gate I need to say you have literally no jurisdiction to make this assumption. I see that you're prescribing this person with Munchausen to give them the benefit of the doubt, but nothing you have told me in this ask has given me any indication to believe that this is the situation.
In particular, a lot of your descriptions of this person's outward behavior has been mean-spirited (gaslighting, taking advantage, and other connotatively negative terms) without taking into account the actual internal reasons behind their behavior beyond nebulously attributing it to mental illness and thus not being in "control" of their actions. That's a bit reductive in the nuance of what mental illness is and how it affects us. It completely dismisses any of our own internal reasoning as inherently meaningless, and that's where you've shot yourself in the foot regarding understanding where we're coming from.
So given all that, I do not feel comfortable armchair-diagnosing this person (I don't feel comfortable armchair-diagnosing ANYONE, frankly. That's their own conclusion to come to.) and as such am similarly uncomfortable assuming that their experiences are exactly the same as mine or any other munchie I know. So going forward, I am going to talk about my experiences, as though I were the one in this situation. Whether or not they match this person is completely irrelevant because I am not in their head and you haven't given me any indication that you have any idea or interest in what their motivations are.
I have a chronic illness that's ruined my life and the whole situation feels like a slap in the face when I'd do any thing to be healthy.
From a munchie's perspective, I need to make this perfectly clear: This is not, has never been, and never will be about you.
Munchausen Syndrome is NOT a romanticization or glorification of disability. We do not look at other disabled people and think "Oh, that looks great, I want to be like that!" You are completely irrelevant in this situation and I need you to put your ego on the shelf for a second because like I said before, this is about OUR internal experiences, and those experiences are fundamentally different from yours. If you don't take the time to think about things outside your own perspective to see how things might make sense to us, then you're not going to get anywhere.
So let's take a look in my head for a minute. I have Munchausen, and so I find comfort in being ill or injured. Why is that?
For me, it's rooted in a history of neglect, where the only care I ever got was received when I was ill or injured.
It's rooted in a neurosis of Functionality, where I feel the need to compulsively push myself to be responsible and capable and self-sacrificing to my own detriment unless some outside force of illness or injury forces me to stop.
It's rooted in this unexplainable Rot I have in my heart and soul, where for whatever reason it feels like no one truly understands when I try to articulate how much I am suffering, because on the outside I look perfectly Functional (thanks to the aforementioned neurosis), and so the only way to externalize it becomes to make myself unquestionably Not Functional.
This is just the tip of the iceberg to my personal neuroses that led me to munchie behavior (I didn't even touch on the disconnect between the Rot and the severity of my trauma), but you may notice that the common denominator is that for whatever reason, I feel like people don't care about me or my problems unless those problems are loud and obtrusive enough that they have no choice but to care.
Is there anything you wish people who struggle to feel empathetic towards people with your condition understood?
And that's where I take most of my issue with your ask, Anon. It sounds like you're trying to care, and I commend you for that, but you're not taking the time to look past the behavior itself to reckon with the Rot underneath that makes it all make sense. It sounds to me like you're so focused on the negative aspects of their behavior, and what it's taking from you rather than what's going on in their head about it. Having empathy for someone with Munchausen Syndrome starts with making an effort to care about us on the inside, because the whole Point is that nobody acknowledges what's on the inside and so we feel like we have to externalize it somehow so you all HAVE to look at it.
When we first puzzled out I had Munchausen, my Care People let me rot in bed for like a week. They sat down and listened to me ennuipost for hours and hours and hours, trying to make sense of the Rot inside me and put it into words that felt right. It helps to know that they know the Rot exists and that they care to know and hear about it.
I'm doing a lot better now. I'm capable of some base level of Functionality between my symptoms. I feel more heard when I ennuipost about whatever nebulous thing is eating at my soul on a particular day. Sometimes it's easier to play pretend. They'll scratch my arm for me, gently enough that it doesn't break skin, and then coo over how much it must hurt and then tenderly wrap it in one of those boxing hand wraps that look like gauze and kiss it better. A kind lie to make me feel better when I can't articulate the Rot.
If the person you're talking about does have Munchausen, they're playing pretend for a reason. Telling a cruel lie to try to cure the Rot inside them because no one listens to the truth.
Listen to the truth. Find the Rot. And then find kinder lies to help them soothe it.
