We received this e-mail some weeks ago:

“First, I would like to thank you. About a year ago, my friend's mother was scheduled to have her legs amputated in three weeks because of diabetes and other disorders. After taking the Vitalzym and other supplements you suggested the doctor's found that she was doing much better and canceled her amputation. She got up and walked for the first time in years. Her feet no longer hurt. She was starting on a road to recovery. Unfortunately, it didn't fit in well with her victim routine which she used to run her children ragged so she decided she was not happy swallowing all those pills. She went back to bed and that's where she's been ever since. I think she had to have her legs amputated after all”...

K.S.

Known as the “Baron of Lies”, Karl Friedrich Hieronymus von Munchausen (Baron Munchausen), has given his not so good name to a syndrome of constant feigned or self induced illness - Munchausens’ Syndrome. Munchausens’ is listed as a psychological disorder where the faker demands the time, caring and attention of those around them by constantly being sick. It is a form of high level control and manipulation used by those so self- centered that the disruption of the lives of their “loved ones” means nothing to them. Their spouse and family merely exist to flesh out the cast in their soap opera like stories of suffering, pain and betrayal. That their children, grandchildren and spouses have no real life and no rest from their antics is none of their concern. Attention is what they want, what they crave more than anything else. They will manipulate by being the overly sweet victim you feel so sorry for or, playing the raving lunatic bitch whose demands cannot be overlooked. Matter of fact the angrier their family and doctors get at being used and manipulated the better and stronger the energy the “loved ones and servants” throw off. The manipulators like this energy and feed off of it. It’s more like a soap opera that way. And most importantly, it gives them attention and energy.

Let’s explain the energy aspect. To fully understand this side of the disorder we must take a page or two from Chinese and East Indian medicine and philosophy. As Harold Saxon Burr MD, late professor of anatomy and medicine at Yale explained, while alive we are all possessed of “Life Force”, what the Chinese call Chi and the Hindus call Prana. Some of us have abundant life force. Children running around playing nonstop, athletes and driven professionals are demonstrating high levels of life force. But some folks for whatever reason don’t have a lot of this life force. People who like sitting around watching others in shopping malls, folks who only feel good in large gatherings, folks who constantly harp about their perceived ills all demonstrate low life force. They do what they feel brings them into contact with more life force and like the preverbal vampire they take it!

How often have you ever been in the presence of someone or even on the phone with someone and after the meeting you felt #1 so tired and washed out you could go to sleep and or #2 like you needed a shower because you were not clean? That is what the primary victimization by energy vampires feels like. Now imagine being exposed to that 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and not having an escape or an outlet because of your feelings of “family “, “guilt” or “responsibility”?

To quote from Dick Sutphen’s 1982 book Unseen Influences:

“Usually the energy vampire will derive most of their needed vitality from someone close to him- an individual with whom he has an established psychic rapport. This morbid attachment between two people can be found in any combination of individuals, but is most often seen in marriages and mother / daughter situations. Sometimes it is witnessed in two female friends and on occasion between mother and son. The individual who outwardly appears to be the stronger of the two is usually the taker, drawing support from the other. The giver is usually of sensitive temperament and often appears pallid and weak."

“Cases in which the two have been separated to purposely break the rapport, the supposedly stronger individual usually shows signs of disturbance and outward weakness. The energy victim, on the other hand, usually begins to regain strength quickly if his or her health and mental health has not deteriorated beyond the point of return. You’ve probably observed such situations in marital separations or divorces. The stronger partner flounders, while the weaker quickly rallies”.

The term “strength” Mr. Sutphen uses here does not imply physical strength, those pretending to be sick or making themselves so don’t want to be seen as strong. But it is the strength and force of their personalities and constant wanting, nagging, interfering and badgering that is strong. Many times the victims are themselves physically strong but as was pointed out they are emotionally sensitive individuals. Their caring and love of family is being exploited by the uncaring and loveless manipulator, to the point that the wear and tiredness shows in how the victim carries themselves, shoulders slumped, feet dragging, eyes tired and no life in their step.

OK, we’ve outlined the problem. What’s to be done about it? While Munchausens’ is a mental disease as we’ve now understood it’s much more than that. Treatment on the psychiatrist’s couch will lead to no where as the problem of seeking life force to steal cannot be resolved by analysis or appealing to reason. The victim will still be a victim, only now the vampire will be angry and even more vicious because you’ve dared to question the validity of their illness and their motives! This is the recipe for more bad emotion and discord through which the victim will only give out more energy in attempting to explain the scope of the takers mental malady and how it is expressing in physical form. It will only weaken the victim and further strengthen the manipulator.

Is the solution to provide a constant flow of health care providers, live-in nurses and the like for the vampire to leach from? If the victim is rich enough and the relationship important enough to maintain, maybe . I know of one gal who burnt up 5 home nurses in the space of 6 months! They all left sick and exhausted.

Munchausen is truly a case where tough love is needed. The manipulator / vampire must be separated permanently from the ones he or she is draining of their energy. In some cases simply having the victim break ties and move away settles the problem. In others, family members have had to send the vampire away to a different state, a retirement village, or if the diseases they have taken on are serious enough to warrant, then the Munchausens patient must be institutionalized (i.e. a nursing home). The misery of such a place is a fitting end for someone who made them selves sick to gain attention!

Many times the ire of other family members must be dealt with. “You can’t put mom into a place like that”! Is often heard by a victim. The words are usually said by a relative living far off and not involved with being a victim themselves. Instead of feeling guilty, the victims response should be: “Well if you feel that way , they you can take her”! To which the far off relative often recoils in horror creating a laundry list of excuses why they can’t: “I can’t do that, I have 9 kids to raise, a husband who hates mother, and I’m climbing the business ladder to be CEO of my firm”. A thousand excuses are given by those who don’t want to be a victim to those who are the victims on why they should continue to be victims!

I put it to you that if your “loved one” has been masterfully manipulating you for years they may need you (in a bad sense) but they don’t really love you! They never have. They may have married you, or given birth to you and/or raised you but they did not nurture you or see you as an independent person. They were marrying or raising a servant, someone to care for them and feed them life force. How many times have Munchausen victims heard the guilt trip lines “I gave you the best years of my life...” or ”I gave you life...” or “How I suffered giving you life and raising you...”. A truly loving family member want’s independence, good things and happiness for their family, not slavery and servitude! They saw you not as their husband / wife / son / daughter or someone to be loved and cherished but as a slave they made or raised for the express purpose of feeding them what they lacked and stepping and fetching for their whims and desires. Mental diseases can’t be reasoned with. Energy vampires can’t be changed by transfusions of sunshine. They are best gotten rid of, put behind you and seldom or never spoken to or interacted with again.

You will feel or be made to feel guilty for freeing yourself from slavery. Don’t accept the guilt as being yours when you try to tag yourself with it or when others try to paint you with it! And when you eventually begin hearing the “forgive and forget” song from family and friends read my article on Forgiving at www.drwong.us in the spiritual articles section. You deserve to have your life force enriched, strengthened and protected. You deserve to be cherished, loved, free to make your own choices and live your own life. Dr. Christiane Northrup is right when she says that often a woman's life does not really start until her mother is dead. You cannot rush a Munchausen patient to death (not without crossing the line into being a criminal), but we should not wait for their death to get as far away as we can and break all contact - physical or verbal. We should not wait until the bulk of our lives is past us to really begin to live it!