One Internet area seemed to point out that they believed Munchausen was not a mental illness, psychiatric disorder and that they felt if someone had Munchausen it did not necessarily mean they were simply trying to get attention. What do you think?
We at RoseMeade's Wellness Nook believe Munchausen is a mental illness and should be addressed accordingly. Unfortunately, the 'why does it happen' will be individual to each case and the secrets or reasons may never be known even to the person with Munchausen. Is this a repressed emotion from past abuse to the parent? Do the parents honestly feel their children are ill? Please write and let me know what your answers might be.
This month I want to tell you about Melinda. Maybe not a lot of you readers will relate to Melinda. However, I write each month to reach those who are out there in the world not being related to. I write for the few... not the many.
Melinda has a behavior pattern called Munchausen by proxy. Most people have only heard about Munchausen because of the news reported on television. This problem does not strike every home. In fact, statistics remain low (thank goodness.) Melinda has a problem that she is most definitely convinced she is powerless over. She cannot make her mind stop thinking about how ill her children are. She is thinking either Jerry is sick or that Carol is getting ill, or so on.
Let us now meet Miss Melinda Munchausen:
Let me proceed in a narrative way to show you how that powerlessness shows up in Melinda's life as well as in the life of her family. By presenting this article this month, I am not asking you to do anything at all except to be more educated about the problems that face our world. Maybe by being a bit more educated about Munchausen's you will be able to be a little more consoling to someone who has the behaviors written about here this month. Maybe you will be able to comfort someone who has suffered the abuse of someone with the behavior patterns. You could find yourself one afternoon watching television and a program appears about a woman or a man having been reported has having Munchausen, and you will actually find yourself understanding more of what they inform you of. One statistic that baffles me is that 98% of the documented cases are women. Let us visit Melinda now and see if we can try to understand why. It is my hope that judgmentalism will slip away if only a fraction and cause you to be an empathetic person, not sympathetic person.
