You may have heard of the psychological condition known as Munchausen Syndrome. It is a condition where an individual feigns sickness of mental or physical varieties in order to get the attention and sympathy of others.
Munchausen by Proxy is a condition where an individual, usually a caregiver makes up a story that the person being cared for has a psychological or physical health condition in order to get attention and/or sympathy from others.
The person usually being "cared" for is a child, an elder or an individual with a disability. The commonalities among: children, elders and individuals with disabilities is that they are often not believed, due to "valued position by society" and/or don't they don't have the language to express the truth of a situation.
Also, Munchausen by Proxy is not a "common go to" explanation or answer regarding what is occurring, as this explanation has to bypass the first observable layer of what is being presented. One must peel away the layer of fog to see the true clarity. Some aren't even aware that the fog is fog.
Munchausen by Co-parent Proxy (Munchausen by Co-proxy) is the Narcissistic Gaslighting of one parent's story of the other parent to a child.
OF THE HEALTH VARIETY
"Your mommy is very very sick. I'm so sorry. Your daddy is very very sick."
"Your mommy is crazy. Your daddy has mental health issues"
OR OF THE RELIGIOUS VARIETY
"Your mommy lives in sin." "Your daddy is not going to heaven. He's cursed."A child is very imprintable and impressionable and his/her views and ideas of the world and people in it are greatly influenced by parental talk, opinions and behaviors.
Munchousin co-proxy has a big influential power on a child's perception of victimized parent because in many ways the narcissist parent shuts the child's truth down. The "narcissist co proxy parent"will reference the other parent in negative ways both subtly and overtly. He will make parallel associations such that the child's perspective over the course of years is influenced. For example,
Mother asks: "What color shirts are the good football players wearing?"
Son responds: "Black."
Mother asks: "What color shirts is the bad football team wearing?"
Son responds: "White."
Mother asks: "What color shirt is daddy wearing?"
Son responds: Silence.
On some level, the child is aware of the negative association inference, but with many of these types of suggestions adding up over the course of years, it affects the child. It may affect the child's view of the parent and in the long run perhaps the view of the other parent.
Undoubtedly, there is a pressure from the narcissist parent for the child to agree with her and/or make fun of the other parent, not respect him, speak to him in the same way that the mother references him:
"moron." This reference may come out overtly or covertly. "Dad you can't every do anything right can you?"
There is not much literature on the effects of vicarious gaslighting on children, pathologized co-parent and/or the relational dynamic.
When families stay united, the results aren't usually as devastating on a child, parent or relationship between the two as in comparison to when there is a split family. This variance is due to the amount of time a narcissist parent has in isolation with the child in order to adversely influence and shape the child's opinion of other parent.
When this type of scenario enters a court setting, a parent who is the victim of narcissistic gaslighting with Munchausen by-Proxy is often seen as sick because the court rooms don't know how to see through the fog. The co-parent enters a similar muted role as the child, an elder or a mentally disabled in terms of his voice being heard.
Once the narcissist parent has ejected co-parent out of driver's seat and/or car, her control in the driver's seat is even more influential and powerful. It is very hard for the ejected parent to re-enter the picture as the picture is quite different from the one that has been painted. Not only does the victimized parent have to not draw false defense lines within the Munchousen co-proxy story, he has to remain in his own story of truth. He has to metaphorically get into the driver seat of another car.
As split families are more common now than ever before, this concept of Munchousin co-proxy is important to keep in mind as it absolutely does not have the child's best interest or co-parent's best interest at heart.
Some people take the view that a narcissist acts out of malicious intent.
Perhaps there is an explanation of intent due to oblivion resulting from a genetic variable located on Chromosome 3 p 25 resulting in low oxytocin and one's ability to "see and understand life through eyes of other" empathy which is different from mirrored reflect.
**There are no pictures complex enough to be associated with this concept at this point in time.**
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