Munchausens by Internet.

It seems that there is now a term for those irritating people who occasionaly invade online support groups, Munchausens by Internet. Like Munchausens and Munchausens by proxy, they invent illnesses in order to get sympathy and attention from others. There are places to seek advice on dealing with these kinds of sick individuals.

I frequent any number of web forums, some dealing with very sick kids, some just regular chat places, but on all I have come across at one time or the other, people apparently suffering from MBI, or as I like to call them LYING ATTENTION SEEKING SICK BITCHES because sadly other than one case, they have all been women.

Despite popular belief, not all MBI's fake illnesses. They will fake ANYTHING in order to get attention, in my experience. I have in the last few years for example seen people ( though another word would be more appropriate!) who claim they are being abused by their partner, sometimes physical abuse, sometimes emotional, claims of being raped, of finding out their child has been abused, that they are being evicted, that they are being stalked by a bloke on the net, that they have been robbed, that their mothers neighbours cat has cancer .... you name it I have seen it, some and they all fall down on one thing. They forget that people TALK to each othger. So when they tell person A one version of events, then person B another version, they do not seem to realise that person A and person B talk to each other as well!! Or they mix up their stories on the forum to which they are lying. That I always find highly amusing, one site I frequent has members who will 'out' the perpetrator, linking all the relevant posts to prove the person is nothing but a stinking liar.

It is also noticeable that these people always find a major 'crisis' occuring just when somebody else is in need of some major attention or help. I have seen that so often I can almost predict what 'crisis' will occur next and how it will progress!! Clever me !!


Do these people deserve our sympathy? Is it a case that they are suffering from a genuine mental illness and need help? Or is it that they are by nature just the most selfish, uncaring, self centred twats that ever lived ?

Part of me says they are mentally ill and need help, but know again from experience that most of them refuse o admit that they are ill, so to try and get them to seek help is a waste of time. So are they really ill ? Whatever, they wind me up something chronic. I wish they would remember the maxim.. 'There is always someone worse off than you ' ... trouble is they want to be the person who is worse off in order to get all the attention.

Feel free to share your thoughts.