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Article by: Doan Ngoc Linh Giang
Gypsy Rose Blanchard, a young feeble girl, now grown, caught the attention of the media 10 years ago. Gypsy pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 10 years in prison for the case of her mother, Clauddine ‘Dee Dee’ Blanchard, who died on the 9th of June 2015 by the knife of her daughter’s boyfriend.
Now, you might be wondering why Gypsy would execute such a heinous act.
The year was 1991, when Gypsy was born, her mother began asserting that her daughter had a myriad of health issues - from leukemia, asthma, muscular dystrophy, vision, hearing impairments, and seizures, to other chronic conditions - even though, Gypsy was perfectly healthy. She tricked doctors, persuaded those around her and Gypsy that her daughter had critical chronic illnesses and she manipulated her own daughter into believing that she was sick and to undergo unnecessary medical procedures such as the removal of the salivary glands behind her neck and undergoing chemotherapy for her ‘cancer’.
To perpetuate her lies, Dee Dee fabricated Gypsy’s birth certificate so she would be seen as younger and went to at least 150 doctors over the years, according to ABC News. Additionally, Dee Dee would cut off Gypsy’s contact with her biological father, Rod Blanchard. “My mother had created that distance there, and she would say so many bad things about him behind his back,” Gypsy Rose Blanchard recalled.
According to Buzzfeed News, back when Rod was still married to Dee Dee, Dee Dee had persuaded Rod that their 3-month-old had sleep apnea and would start taking her daughter to see all sorts of doctors. When the doctors told her that wasn’t the case, she was convinced that Gypsy had a chromosomal defect. In an interview with American TV personality, Dr. Phil, Rod Blanchard spoke up about his thoughts on the murder of his late ex-wife saying, “It’s hard to judge” his daughter for what she did.
Why would Dee Dee Blanchard do that to her daughter?
Experts believed that Dee Dee suffers from a mental disorder called Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy. This mental illness made her fabricate her daughter’s ill health in order to receive special attention and sympathy for taking care of a sick child. Whether the false medical claims are about someone else or yourself, this condition can be dangerous. It can lead to unnecessary medical tests and even procedures while the healthcare team tries to figure out what’s wrong with the patient, instigating a problem that wasn’t there in the first place. When a child is involved, this illness is considered a form of child abuse by the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children.
Dee Dee, who has some nurse training, was able to accurately describe non-existent symptoms of Gypsy to her doctors and sometimes would intentionally make Gypsy sick by giving her medication to mimic the wanted symptoms.
What causes Munchausen by Proxy?
The exact cause isn’t known, but researchers believe both biological and psychological factors play a role in the development of this disorder. Some theories suggest that a history of abuse or neglect as a child or the early loss of a parent might be factors in its development. Some evidence suggests that major stress, such as marital problems, can trigger an episode.
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