I really have a problem with child abuse. I do not understand it. The child abuse, not my problem with it. I understand that completely. I'm not alone, of course, I'm sure you are equally appalled by it.
Why do I bring this up? Because of an article in the Boston Globe online that I recently read. And because of something called Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy (MSbP).
These two things are related, one might say "entwined." The "proxy" is controversial, I am told, though the Munchausen Syndrome is not. For those not familiar with it, it is a condition wherein the person may feign injury or illness, or seek injury or illness, in order to garner attention and sympathy. The sufferer of MSbP, however, transfers that injury or illness onto another in order to gain sympathy and attention to herself (in most cases, it is a female, mother or caregiver).
It seems to me that the Boston Globe story was clearly one of MSbP. Yet, there was nothing in that article that spoke of that link. The woman will go to prison and she will be punished. Which is what we, as a society, have decided is the proper thing to do.
But children were harmed, and not just the young victim who died, and it could have been prevented had anyone recognized the the mental instability of this woman. They knew she was a "bad mother", one daughter (now 17 years old) had been removed from her home as a toddler. Two other children, the victim's siblings, are now in foster care and will eventually be adopted (one hopes). One wonders if those two children have also been physically (and/or emotionally) harmed while in their mother's care.
Buried in the story is another one about how children can be diagnosed with mental illness based primarily upon the mother's description of symptoms. And yet another one about laxity in dosage instructions of powerful medications and poor monitoring of a child patient.
A tragedy all around.
A Night Unremembered
13 years ago
5 comments:
I was appalled by the sentencing of the woman in Texas that drowned all her children. To start with, her husband and mother in law knew she was not stable. Her doctor knew also but they still left these children in her care. She was schizophrenic and voices told her to kill her children. I worked in the mental health field. Those voices were real to that woman but the sad part is, her family knew she was that sick and still left her to care for those little children. Shame on them.
Charlotte, I wasn't appalled so much as I was disturbed. She was clearly insane but, at some level, aren't all murderers? Yet, there is something more deeply disturbing about a mother who kills her children. The problem in the Texas Mom case (and, I suspect, the Boston one) was she was aware that she was doing something illegal even though the voices compelled her to do it and we run into that legal definition of insanity, which makes less sense than the clinical one.
Horrible story about Andrea Yates (drowned all her kids). I was disturbed, to put it mildly, about that one, and nearly as disturbed about the Munchausen case you reeference. It's sadder than sad, but primarily just sick, sick, sick.
I have been dealing with a woman who may or may not have this. She happens to be my kids mother. The reasons I am ify is because sahe has faked being ill for a very long time and is now seeking disability for things she doesn't have or greatly exaggerates. So do people with this syndrome aLSO DO THIS?
Charlotte, I wasn't appalled so much as I was disturbed. She was clearly insane but, at some level, aren't all murderers? Yet, there is something more deeply disturbing about a mother who kills her children. The problem in the Texas Mom case (and, I suspect, the Boston one) was she was aware that she was doing something illegal even though the voices compelled her to do it and we run into that legal definition of insanity, which makes less sense than the clinical one.
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