[Warning: Potentially disturbing content in the Needull]
Dee Dee Blancharde was a model parent: a tireless single mom taking care of her gravely ill child. But after Dee Dee was killed, it turned out things weren’t as they appeared — and her daughter Gypsy had never been sick at all.
In today’s amazing Needull from Buzzfeed, the basic premise is the murder of a mother, a horrific true story from 2015 straight out of Agatha Christie’s novels. But during the course, we get introduced to one of psychology’s most controversial conditions: MSBP, an extremely divisive “syndrome” that many consider to be one of the most dangerous forms of child / elder abuse.
Munchausen syndrome by proxy (MSBP) is a mental health problem in which a caregiver makes up or causes an illness or injury in a person under his or her care, such as a child, an elderly adult, or a person who has a disability. But within this curtain of ‘mental illness’, it is a clear sign of sociopathic egoism and avariciousness.
So, what do you see? A caring mother taking care of her sick kid. Or a mental patient abusing a child.
Needull in a haystack 