I've explained how Munchausen Syndrome, and Munchausen by proxy, are nothing more than offshoots of sociopathy. Munchausen's requires someone who is utterly dishonest, utterly without scruples, and utterly shameless. In other words, a sociopath.
I've also written about one aspect of virtue signaling which doesn't get a lot of publicity: wearing a prominently displayed cross.
Dee Dee Blanchard claimed that her daughter suffered from leukemia, asthma, muscular dystrophy, among other things. She also said that her daughter was retarded due to her premature birth, and she kept her daughter Erin a wheelchair, even though she didn't need one.
Here's Dee Dee. (She's on the right; her daughter, Gypsy Rose, is on the left):
Gypsy Rose, along with a boyfriend she met online, murdered Dee Dee in 2015.
Kathy Bush is another well known case. By the age of 9, her daughter Jennifer had been hospitalized over 200 times and had had 40 operations. Hospital workers said that Jennifer's condition would inevitably worsen whenever her mother visited. A nurse said that she had seen Kathy fiddling with Jennifer's feeding tubes and IV lines, which would subsequently malfunction. Jennifer was also found to have been given drugs that hadn't been prescribed. As soon as Jennifer was placed in foster care, her condition miraculously improved. (Jennifer now insists she was never abused.) Kathy was sentenced to five years in prison, to be followed by five years of probation.
Here's Kathy:
Her cross is a little more discreet, but still plainly visible.
In each case, the woman seems to be making a statement with her cross: "Look at what a god-fearing, pious, good person I am."
As always, the more virtue signaling, the less virtue.
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9 comments:
Wow-that type of virtue signaling should have been obvious to me having been brought up Catholic but somehow it never even occurred to me. Great article John! Brian
Thank you Brian. I'm sure there are plenty of decent people who wear crucifixes, both inside and outside (mostly inside) their clothing. But as a connoisseur of sociopaths, it's hard to miss the correlation between a prominently displayed crucifix and someone trying to advertise their "goodness."
Neither woman is wearing a crucifix. They are wearing crosses. Only Roman Catholics and Orthodox believers wear crucifixes, Protestants consider them borderline idolatrous.
LBD --
Nice to hear from you. Thank you, I'll make that change. (Just looked it up, had been unaware of the different in definition.)
Needlessly keeping someone in a wheelchair can physically harm them by causing contractures, which take a lot of physiotherapy to reverse.
Also, what's with the name Gypsy Rose? Giving a child a name like that will leave them vulnerable to playground bullying. It could also harm their chances later in life - can you imagine a top judge or surgeon called Gypsy Rose? It reminds me of a case in Wales where a mother (with drug problems) tried to name her baby twins Cyanide and Preacher. The authorities took her to court and the judge issued an injunction to prevent her naming the kids, on the grounds that those "names" could harm them. She subsequently lost custody of her kids. I'll never have children but, if I did, I'd give them the most traditional names possible to give them the best chances in life. Poor choices in names signify either a low IQ or a parent who just doesn't care.
- Gethin
Gethin --
DeeDee Blanchard certainly didn't care about Gypsy Rose, and merely used her as a way to get attention for herself -- the definition of Munchausen's by proxy. And there's not a lot of intelligence written in either of their faces.
Agree about names and IQ.
Gypsy Rose is the name of a famous stripper with a terrible relationship with her borderline abusive mother, who marketed both her daughters like meat.
Sweet Afton --
Just read the Wiki entry on Gypsy Rose Lee. You're right, her mother was the ultimate stage mother, exploiting both her daughters for money. Hadn't realized Gypsy Rose was an author and playwright as well as stripper. Also hadn't realized that June Havoc was her sister.
GT --
Thank you for the link, just read the article. I agree, Gypsy Rose was a victim of her mother. But at the same time, as the unloved daughter (basically, prop) of a sociopath, she was more than likely going to be a sociopath herself. And that bit about her talking her then boyfriend into murdering her mother is awfully telling. It takes an extraordinarily high degree of manipulativeness to be able to get someone else to do something so self-destructive (as well as destructive). Gypsy Rose has to be a sociopath.
Be happy you don't have the "strength" to be able to talk someone into something like that. (And it's not "strength" in any good sense of the term, it's simply manipulativeness.
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