History Main / MunchausenSyndrome

!!!By Author:
* Julie Gregory's haunting memoir, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAAUQjrxECg ''Sickened'']], chronicles the author's 20 years of abuse at the hands of her severely narcissistic mother and schizophrenic father. According to the memoir, not only would her mother regularly tamper with her diet and prescriptions, but she also continuously pressed doctors to perform disturbingly invasive procedures in order to get the desired diagnoses.
* Creator/StephenKing:
** In ''Literature/{{It}}'', Eddie's mother uses Munchausen by Proxy to keep him under control.
** ''Literature/{{Misery}}'': Annie's treatment of Paul (and the babies she murdered as a nurse) has shades of this.

!!!By Titles:

%%* A large plot point in ''Literature/SharpObjects'' by Gillian Flynn.

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* ''Main/PlayedForLaughs'' in ''Series/ArrestedDevelopment.'' In her spare time at school, Maeby disguises herself as Surely Wolfbeak, a young girl paralysed in a wheelchair. She poses as Surely to scam people for donations but also to receive popularity amongst her cohort.

* The Australian Show ''Series/ReviewWithMylesBarlow'' has Myles reviewing sympathy in the second season. In search of sympathy, Myles lies and hurts himself.
* The mother in "The Masks" episode of ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'' was either this or a hypochondriac. She complained about how she was braving a serious illness to visit her dying father, and many other instances in the past were implied.
* In ''Series/NipTuck'', Christian discovers that his most recent patient, Rhea Reynolds, who claims to be a victim of an infamous serial rapist who cut up her face, actually mutilated herself and was never attacked, and suspects she is suffering Munchausen's. He takes the lie personally, as he was ''actually'' assaulted by her alleged attacker and has PTSD as a result.
* ''Series/ThePractice'': AmoralAttorney Hannah Rose helped a client to walk away with rape by pointing out the victim had been previously diagnosed with Munchausen, despite the dubious nature of why the doctor who made that diagnosis decided to do it.

-->'''Attorney Walsh:''' My client is sick, Your Honor, but she cannot stop. Whenever she's under stress, she will make herself ill.
-->'''Casey Novak:''' Well, then, gee, why don't we let her off before she injects herself with HIV.
* An episode of ''Series/CallTheMidwife'' features a patient doing this, shedding blood into a urine sample to make herself seem as though she has cholera (the nurse is able to tell the difference between how blood could get into urine). A bit sadder than most examples, as the woman doesn't even expect to get attention from friends, family, or society at large; she's just so isolated that forcing a public healthcare worker to attend to her is the only form of contact she can receive.

* The ''Wings: Mama'' trailer for the Music/BTSUniverse reveals one of the characters' big secrets: the reason [[spoiler: Hoseok]] is "sick" and being treated at the hospital is because he was diagnosed with Munchausen.

* In ''Fanfic/ForgivenessIsTheAttributeOfTheStrong'', the reason Yoichi, first One for All user, was so sickly was because his mother poisoned him to keep him from leaving her. [[spoiler: And because All for One ''kept'' poisoning him when they became adults to keep Yoichi dependent on his protection. Yoichi knew this and hated his brother for it.]]

* The 2020 film ''Film/{{Run}}'' features this. Sickly, paraplegic teenager Chloe, discovers that her "mother", Diane, is actually a woman who abducted her as a child, and the majority of her ailments are actually ''induced'' by the medications Diane is giving to her, including her ''paralysis''. Diane turns homicidally violent when her ruse is exposed.
* ''Film/TheSixthSense'' had the ghost of a little girl who had died after being poisoned by her mother in order to gain sympathy from outsiders. After her death, the mother turned her attention to her little sister. The girl's ghost gets Cole to find a videotape she had made showing the poisoning which he shows to the father, who angrily confronts his wife at the post-funeral service.

* Creator/StephenKing's ''Literature/{{It}}''. Eddie's mother uses Munchausen by Proxy to keep him under control.
* Another Stephen King example: ''{{Literature/Misery}}.'' Annie's treatment of Paul (and the babies she murdered as a nurse) has shades of this.
* In the ''Franchise/DoctorWho'' [[Franchise/DoctorWhoExpandedUniverse Expanded Universe]] short story "Monsters", one of the eponymous monsters is the protagonist's mother, who has Munchausen by Proxy. When the protagonist tries to tell her about the ''alien'' monster, the mother's response is to gleefully cart her off to a child psychologist.
* A particularly chilling example is PatriciaCornwell's ''Literature/TheBodyFarm'', in which a teenage boy is murdered and [[spoiler:a woman, instead of feeling sympathy for his parents, is jealous of the attention they get and thus kills her own daughter in order to get the same attention and sympathy.]]
%%* A large plot point in ''Literature/{{Sharp Objects}}'' by Gillian Flynn.
* In Tana French's ''Literature/InTheWoods,'' the detective protagonists discover strange bouts of illness in the medical records of the murdered girl and speculate Munchausen by proxy. [[spoiler:Although this guess proves incorrect, they're right about one thing: she was being poisoned by a family member.]]

* ''Literature/SavingMax'': [[spoiler:This is half of Marianne's motive, the other half being MadScientist. She's had two children before, both of whom died from her abuse. Her only surviving child Jonas has been diagnosed with autism and intellectual impairment, but he wasn't born that way - he has ChildhoodBrainDamage from a seizure induced by Marianne, who has trained him to display autistic behaviors such as self-injuring on cue. She laps up the attention she receives from her children's illnesses and deaths.]]

* ''Series/TheBlacklist'' has the team tracking someone abducting mothers. They're pulled into it when Red's ally, Senator Panabaker's daughter-in-law Sheila is found malnourished. The team track to a building of several mothers in the same state, all with sick children and wonder what psycho is doing this. However, they soon realize all these mothers were targeted because they were ''making'' their kids sick. The kidnapper, Ava, lost her sister when their mother poisoned her and is now out to punish women who do the same. Panabaker doesn't want to believe it until the tests prove the only thing wrong with her granddaughter is the drugs she's being fed. Ava is stopped (even as the team admits they sympathize with her) and all the mothers, including Sheila, are arrested. The team reflects on how Ava's actions were extreme but still ended up saving kids from their horrible mothers.
* ''Series/{{Scrubs}}''. DiscussedTrope
-->'''JD Narrating:''' The Stanleys' child was sick, and I just spent the last 20 minutes asking them awkward questions to rule out the possibility of child abuse.
-->'''Mother:''' Who would smother their own child?
-->'''JD:''' You'd be surprised. There's something called Münchausen Syndrome. where a parent will intentionally harm their child to get some attention on themselves.

* ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit'' had this exposed in "Sick", a case that actually centered on [[{{Expy}} a thinly-veiled Michael Jackson analogue]]. The grandmother of the second accuser is the one proven to commit abuse of the child, having poisoned her with mercury and claiming it was cancer. They make a deal for immunity on defrauding the millionaire, but Novak still decides to prosecute her for fraud for all the hundreds of thousands she's raised through donations for the "illness", as well as attempted murder. The woman tries to claim that she's "sick" and can't stand trial, but Novak dismissively comments "No one's that stupid" and everyone will see she's just greedy.
** Another episode, "Pathological" (this one being RippedFromTheHeadlines being based on [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Dee_Dee_Blanchard Dee Dee Blanchard]]), features a mother who poisoned her 15-year-old daughter with drugs her entire life, putting her in a wheelchair she didn't need and causing her to have seizures. When this is revealed, the daughter gets better and ends up killing her mother in self-defense.
* The Dee Dee Blanchard story itself was dramatized in the Creator/{{Hulu}} miniseries ''Series/TheAct''.
* The original ''Series/LawAndOrder'' series also had an episode featuring a mother who had several children and killed each one, claiming that each child inherited and then died of a rare genetic disorder in order to gain sympathy. She also tried to harm a foster child.

* In series two of ''Series/TheBridge2011'', Saga deduces that Martin's nanny has been doing this to his son. It turns out that [[spoiler: she has herself been a victim of it.]]
* In Season 3 episode 5 of ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'', Sam and Dean investigate the spirit of a girl who is close to death and in a coma ever since her mother made her drink bleach to gain attention and pity.
* A case on ''Series/{{Elementary}}'' sees Sherlock and Joan discover that a son killed his mother because he discovered that she had spent years drugging him with his grandfather's heart medication to make him think he was ill. However, Joan has little sympathy for the son, considering that he also killed the doctor who told him the truth about his mother's actions, despite the fact that the doctor only learned about the issue because she had been committing fraud (using the names and contact details of other doctors to write bogus prescriptions) and would have almost certainly lost her medical license and been sent to prison for nothing more than trying to help the boy.

* PlayedForLaughs in an episode of ''Series/ItsAlwaysSunnyInPhiladelphia'' when Mac poisons Dennis with blended foods that upset his stomach disguised as protein shakes [[WithFriendsLikeThese in order to nurse him back to health and prove that he's dependable]].

* ''Series/MidsomerMurders'': In "[[Recap/MidsomerMurdersS23E4 Dressed to Kill]]", Gill Templeton is deliberately aggravating her son's Rocco's anemia and telling him that he has leukemia, so that she scam the village into paying for him to travel to Florida for treatment; planning to take the money and Rocco and disappear.

* Music/{{Eminem}} was a victim of this as a child. His mother would have him think he was sick when he wasn't, causing him to take medication he didn't actually need, possibly leading to his later issues with drug addiction
-->My whole life I was made to believe I was sick when I wasn't
-->Now I grew up and I blew up and made you sick to your stomach, doesn't it?
-->- "Cleaning Out my Closet"

* In series two of ''Series/BronBroen'', Saga deduces that Martin's nanny has been doing this to his son. It turns out that [[spoiler: she has herself been a victim of it.]]

* ''Main/PlayedForLaughs'' in ''Series/ArrestedDevelopment.'' In her spare time at school, Maeby disguises herself as Surely Wolfbeak, a young girl paralysed in a wheelchair. She poses as Surely to scam people for donations, but also to receive popularity amongst her cohort.

* Some VisualKei rock musicians. Music/{{Kisaki}} and [[Music/YoshikiHayashi Yoshiki]] are often mentioned in reference to it. Kisaki is the more clear-cut case, having actually faked illnesses to the point of getting surgeries for them, and had even stolen others' hospital photographs for his own. Yoshiki may or may not be a case since his conditions are real, but he has inflicted most of them on himself and doesn't take care for his health to prevent them from worsening and he gets a ton of sympathy even for drinking himself into the hospital--though he likely doesn't do any of it ''with the primary motive of being given sympathy'', so whether he's a case of Munchausen or simply of not taking care of his health is debatable.

* In the ''Franchise/DoctorWho'' [[Franchise/DoctorWhoExpandedUniverse Expanded Universe]] short story "Monsters", one of the eponymous monsters is the protagonist's mother, who has Munchausen's by Proxy. When the protagonist tries to tell her about the ''alien'' monster, the mother's response is to gleefully cart her off to a child psychologist.

[[folder:Literature]]
* ''Literature/EthanFrome'': Zeena has Munchausen Syndrome.
[[/folder]]

* A particularly chilling example is PatriciaCornwell's ''The Body Farm'', in which a teenage boy is murdered and [[spoiler:a woman, instead of feeling sympathy for his parents, is jealous of the attention they get and thus kills her own daughter in order to get the same attention and sympathy.]]
* A large plot point in ''Literature/{{Sharp Objects}}'' by Gillian Flynn.
* In Tana French's ''In the Woods,'' the detective protagonists discover strange bouts of illness in the medical records of the murdered girl and speculate Munchausen by proxy. [[spoiler:Although this guess proves incorrect, they're right about one thing: she was being poisoned by a family member.]]

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[[caption-width-right:350:"[[WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfJimmyNeutronBoyGenius They really oughta put something like that in bold print.]]"]]

[[folder:The Internet]]
* As mentioned at the top of the page, [[{{Fora}} web forums]] are occasionally visited by online personas that, over a period of months or years, will develop severe progressive illnesses, often of a vague or indeterminate nature and with conflicting symptoms. Some of the more severe cases will kill off the persona and post an obituary as a family member, then create a new persona to start the process over again.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Film]]

* ''Series/{{Scrubs}}''. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OClhuzy6d2o "Don't smother your kids."]]

!!Munchausen Syndrome

!!Munchausen by Proxy

* ''Literature/EthanFrome''. Zeena has Munchausen Syndrome.

* ''Main/PlayedForLaughs'' in ''Series/ArrestedDevelopment.'' In her spare time at school, Maeby disguises herself as Surely Wolfbeak, a young girl paralysed in a wheel chair. She poses as Surely to scam people for donations, but also to receive popularity amongst her cohort.

* The mother in "The Masks" episode of ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'' was either this or a hypochondriac. She complained about how she was braving through a serious illness to visit her dying father, and many other instances in the past were implied.

* Some VisualKei rock musicians. Music/{{Kisaki}} and [[Music/YoshikiHayashi Yoshiki]] are often mentioned in reference to it. Kisaki is the more clear-cut case, having actually faked illnesses to the point of getting surgeries for them, and even stolen others' hospital photographs for his own. Yoshiki may or may not be a case since his conditions are real, but he has inflicted most of them on himself and doesn't take care for his health to prevent them from worsening and he gets a ton of sympathy even for drinking himself into the hospital--though he likely doesn't do any of it ''with the primary motive of being given sympathy'', so whether he's a case of Munchausen or simply of not taking care of his health is debatable.

[[folder:WesternAnimation]]

* Alma in ''Film/PhantomThread'' realises she enjoys Reynold's (her lover) company when he is befelled with illness. During his sickness, he is softer, kinder and less irritated by Alma. When healthy, he is short-tempered and annoyed by disturbances. With her knowledge of edible and non-edible mushrooms, she begins feeding him poisonous fungi. Though the mushrooms are not poisonous enough to kill him, they are enough to keep him bed-ridden. In his sickness, their relationship strengthens. By the end of the film, he willingly takes part in it, despite the macabre nature of their enduring love.
--> ''Alma:'' I want you flat on your back. Helpless, tender, open with only me to help. And then I want you strong again. You're not going to die. You might wish you're going to die, but you're not going to. You need to settle down a little.

* Inverted in ''Literature/TheSecretGarden'', in which Colin's father is so set upon ''avoiding'' attention that he has his servants and hired doctor to convince Colin he's too frail and crippled to walk or leave the house, the better to keep father and son isolated from outsiders and each other. Thus, Colin had never learned to walk because he was prevented from ''trying'' to.

[[folder:Live Action TV]]
* ''Series/TheBlacklist'' has the team tracking someone abducting mothers. They're pulled into it when Red's ally, Senator Panabaker's daughter-in-law, Sheila is found malnourished. The team track to a building of several mothers in the same state, all with sick children and wonder what psycho is doing this. However, they soon realize all these mothers were targeted because they were ''making'' their kids sick. The kidnapper, Ava, lost her sister when their mother poisoned her and is now out to punish women who do the same. Panabaker doesn't want to believe it until the tests prove the only thing wrong with her granddaughter is the drugs she's being fed. Ava is stopped (even as the team admits they sympathize with her) and all the mothers, including Sheila, are arrested. The team reflects on how Ava's actions were extreme but still ended up saving kids from their horrible mothers.

* ''Series/TheXFiles'': Episode "Calusari" followed Mulder and Scully investigating a child whose Romanian immigrant grandmother's behavior toward said child led them to suspect she was engaging in this. This being ''The X-Files'', however, they wound up ''wishing'' it was actually something as mundane as this. [[spoiler:Turns out the kid was possessed by the ghost of his stillborn brother, and granny was trying to exorcise him. Whoops.]]

* BandageBabe Mikan Tsumiki, the [[TheAce Ultimate]] [[HospitalHottie Nurse]] in ''VisualNovel/Danganronpa2GoodbyeDespair'' showed an inclination towards this, with it partially being PlayedForLaughs. A weepy ShrinkingViolet and ExtremeDoormat with no self-confidence of her own, she became a nurse to have power over sick people, and in the "Dangan Island" mode she openly contemplates [[{{Yandere}} crippling Hajime to keep him dependent on her]]. Occasionally her Free Time events end with her chasing him with a comically large syringe.