Jordan Hope
Appearances
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
The caregiver is often or the abuser is often reluctant to provide medical records or to provide information to people that might better explain what is going on with the victim. They might say like, oh, well, I've talked to this and this specialist and all these things. And then you read through the records and that never happened.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
We see so, so, so often with our child cases, it's like dad is accused of sexual abuse. Dad is accused of domestic violence. Dad is put in jail or put somewhere typically charges at some point end up getting dropped. But not always. There'll be blackmailing. There will be all these different things that happen to isolate children.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
the victim with the perpetrator so that it is just those two because then the abuse can keep happening. Then that victim doesn't know, doesn't think that there's anybody else, thinks that it's just me and mom against the world. It's just me and this person and we're fighting this together and all these things and is forced to rely on this person.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
So it's harder to kind of come to the conclusion that there's danger. And another red flag that we've started to see, especially as The internet has become bigger is use of social media. That is actually very huge in these cases. I think Dr. Feldman helped with this term, but calling it munchausen by internet. And so in these cases, sometimes...
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
You'll see a lot of really disturbing posts or photos or things like that that are being posted on Facebook or on other online platforms that sometimes the abuser will act like they are the victim. And kind of speak from that lens of being the victim.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
Or there will be a lot of sometimes pictures, really gruesome, like the pictures of the person in the hospital bed with all the tubes or all these different things. And doing these things to really elicit that sympathy and attention. And so the internet has really made things a lot easier.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
more challenging in a lot of ways because obviously people can hop online and say anything they want and it can be really hard to know what to trust or to believe. It's also kind of helped sometimes in these cases being able to look at people's social media to be able to see all of the different things that are being posted.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
Usually at some point, either the child miraculously heals or the child dies. And those are oftentimes the two places where a person can get pushed to when they feel like they don't know what to do. If a child gets better, it might be that there's another child that now becomes sick.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
Or sometimes all of a sudden an animal becomes sick or maybe people were starting to notice that something was going on with one child. And so now it's like, OK, I have to take a second. This child's going to get better. And then it shifts to another child or just another being.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
Sometimes you can see like these things appear and disappear and kind of go back and forth and might suddenly start to appear in another person. So another victim.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
I think that there's still a lot of research that needs to be done on this, but I think that typically what is seen is these perpetrators tend to have cluster B personality disorders underlying, so there might be... narcissism or borderline personality disorder or antisocial personality disorder.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
I always give a disclaimer that cluster B personality disorders do not mean that a person is dangerous or bad or is more likely to abuse people or anything like that. I think that there's other things that have to be going on, other characteristics, other traits and things.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
A lot of times we see some of this stuff start playing out and you kind of hear about maybe this person in their teens was lying and started to lie about different things or got caught in a bunch of different lies or always had these big stories or was dramatic or manipulative eventually. They have a child or maybe they have a lot of miscarriages first or they have trouble with birth.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
A lot of these cases, the child is born premature, which we don't know but suspect that there might be things that are happening to kind of induce earlier pregnancy. It's really important that we kind of like recognize that, again, like we don't always know the underlying like why someone is doing this.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
Sometimes it might be that a person is wanting to cause harm, isn't feeling empathy, doesn't feel scared or sad that their child is sick or hurting and might be getting something like pleasure or that sympathy and all that attention. And that's just like all they're focused on.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
But sometimes a person has found that they have to over exaggerate in order to actually be taken seriously or things like that. And maybe it's gone too many steps too far.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
Or sometimes maybe a person is overly anxious and has some sort of illness, anxiety, or OCD, and they're still abusing their child, but they might need different types of support than somebody who is purposefully causing harm for the
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
And like having that knowing deception, it's really important to recognize when a caretaker, when there's knowing deception, they know what they're doing and are aware that they're abusing their child versus when there isn't that knowing deception. If they don't know that they're being deceptive, then it's not going to be munchausen by proxy abuse.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
But oftentimes nobody's going to tell you, yes, I know I'm doing this thing. So most of that does make it difficult.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
There's currently no laws really that criminalize this type of abuse. I know Detective Weber is really trying in Texas to get a law passed currently. I think there's a bill kind of moving through at the moment. They've tried a few times before. So still trying to do that. But oftentimes that is the hardest piece. And there can be, you know, you can have video surveillance.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
of somebody doing this abuse of someone literally smothering their child or putting feces in their trach or things like that and that sometimes will help in these cases but sometimes that's even still not enough or the child gets taken out for a short time and then gets put back because people don't understand this type of abuse or the severity of it.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
In my own story, my mom always had something going on. She, at 17, told her parents that if they didn't sign the papers for her to get married, that she was going to move out of state with this guy and they would never see her again. She dropped out of high school and told them that. And, you know, they did sign it. She had a lot of this, like, manipulation and things like that.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
A lot of these different red flags that we see. And around that time, got in a really severe car accident where I believe the driver died. I want to believe that that's kind of where this behavior started. After that, she was always sick. She always had something wrong. She started suing places. She would get injured at work, wherever she worked. Then she
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
She had me and suddenly I was always sick and had all of these things and I left the house and then she was still sick all the time. You know, I do think that at times there is kind of this thing that can happen that can trigger this like, wow, this is a way for me to get attention and care and get all of these unmet needs met. And we've seen cases, too, though, where there isn't.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
There isn't some trigger or something that causes it or an event that happens. The child grew up in a healthy home, had healthy attachments, had all of these different supports and care and all this stuff, and then still does commit this type of abuse.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
A lot of times in these cases, people think that either the victim is actually sick or they're fully healthy. People really, really struggle to understand that oftentimes in these cases, a victim does have a real illness, something that is actually happening. And that doesn't take away from the abuse. Like in my case, I recently learned that I'm autistic.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
And if I like look back at my childhood, I can see so many ways that my mom used different, very like clear autistic traits to try to say that I had medical stuff going on or try to like use it as reasons that I was actually really sick and needed medication or needed to be hospitalized or needed all these different things. It's like interesting, right?
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
Because it's like, oh, well, if you would have just said like, I think my child is autistic, like that would have gotten you attention and sympathy and like all these different things. But that wouldn't have been in her control. She didn't have control over my autistic behaviors, over like headbanging or like things like that. That wasn't in her control.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
So she neglected those things because that wouldn't fit with her narrative. She didn't have control over that. She had control over giving me pain meds or overdosing me on medication or convincing me I couldn't walk because then I was sick when she needed me to be sick. I was sick when we would go to the doctor.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
I would be sick when we would be out and about, but then I wouldn't be sick when she didn't have time to care for me or when she wanted to be drinking or doing other things. So we see that a lot where a child will have an actual illness that's being neglected, but then these other symptoms or these other things are being induced or fabricated or exaggerated for the attention piece.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
survivors also want to believe like, okay, well, I must be fully healthy then. If I'm not sick, if these things weren't real, then recovery, healing must equal being fully healthy. And I think there's also a pressure from society that that is what healing is, that that is what recovery is.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
And there's this whole big grief that a lot of people have to go through of, oh, well, maybe I actually now have chronic illnesses. because of the abuse that I endured or I have chronic illnesses that were missed.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
But some of those things, right, like having to look in the mirror every day and see I have these scars on my body that were when my mom abused me and having to take medicine or having to do different things daily to care I do have these things now. I'm still...
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
healthier than I thought I was I still can heal in many ways and obviously healing is more than physical but you still have to work through all of these different things and recognize like okay so now I have to somehow navigate on my own what was real what was fabricated what is actually happening in my body is this dizziness that I feel physical does it mean that I need medication or to go to a doctor or
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
need to drink more water? Or does this dizziness, is it fully psychosomatic? And my mom just told me that I had this disorder and there's nobody to help with that. There's no doctors really at this point that you can be like, hey, can you like look through my 20,000 pages of records that like make no sense and help me navigate what's real and what's not? So then survivors are just
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
kind of forced on their own to try to navigate all of these different pieces while grieving and trying to come to terms with what's real. After living in a whole world of being told all of these lies that you took in and that you thought were reality, and now you're having to question everything and try to find what's actually real. It's so interesting to try to come to terms with all of it.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
And I think I'm grateful for what we have created and are still creating at Munchausen Support to be able to help survivors on this journey. And I really hope that as we continue to do this work, that there can be earlier support so people don't have to go decades without any help. But it is...
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
Currently, Munchausen Support is the only organization in the world that exists for anything related to this type of abuse or trauma.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
If you believe that you are possibly a victim or survivor of Munchausen by proxy abuse... or if you believe someone that you know is a victim or survivor of Munchausen by proxy abuse, reaching out to the website, so www.munchausensupport.com, and filling out the contact form, I get all of those emails. I will respond from there with resources.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
We have support groups, like I said, for many different types of people, groups of people, and resources. If there isn't a group that's already going on for whatever it is that you're going through related to Munchausen Hypoxia Abuse, we'll probably create another group. So there's always groups happening which are a free peer-led support option.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
We do consults, one-on-one supports like coaching support. and just access to other resources, trainings, things like that. We're starting to have some legal sort of resources and support as well. Really anything that you need, I can hopefully help you try to start to find a way to get there.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
We also have a survivor fund for survivors that the only thing that's keeping them with their perpetrator is a financial reason. So donations can really help so we can actually build the survivor fund to help more people that reach out.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
As well as we have a legal fund to try to help dads that are in this situation that, again, the only things that they need that financial support to be able to pay lawyers or to be able to get the record review done or things like that.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
Most adult survivors that reach out for support also want to help, want to do something, want to give back in some way, want to have their story heard, want to be seen and validated and give back. I think giving back is such a big thing that we see. And I think so much of that is because... There's been such a harmful narrative that's been put out there.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
And there's still so little information, especially for adult survivors. If you try to type, what do I do as an adult survivor? Like not much pops up. There's not like research on adult survivors. There's just not a lot of resources in general. I am grateful for like the opportunities and the ways I get to give back and help aid in research and do these different things.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
My name is Jordan Hope. I also go by Jo. I use they, them pronouns. And I got into the field working with Munchausen by proxy abuse because I actually survived this abuse. I did not know about it until I was 22 years old. I grew up thinking that I had Munchausen asthma, a rare blood disease, a severe back disorder, many other ailments, broken bones, all these things.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
I grew up thinking that I was sick and that I was dying. And I had a spinal fusion of my L5-S1 in my back when I was 16 years old because I thought I couldn't walk. I thought I had all these back issues. And it wasn't until 2018 when I was 22 and I was in an abnormal psychology
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
class and we were just talking about Munchausen's and Munchausen by proxy and suddenly I was just flooded with memory after memory of what had happened to me. I emailed my therapy team and from there I reached out to Dr. Mark Feldman and I was like, wow, I'm just really passionate about this. I want to do something in this field.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
I also do record review. So I read through records and help with putting all of the information together to be able to give to either other experts to write an affidavit or do expert testimony or witnessing and stuff like that, or just to help kind of have everything in one place to be able to give to CPS or law enforcement or other people that might be involved with these cases.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
Yes, it is very heavy. Yeah. So there's many terms that you've probably heard. There's munchausen by proxy, there's factitious disorder imposed on another, and medical child abuse. There's honestly like 10 other ones, but those are the three main terms that are used still. So some people will just say MBP. I oftentimes say MBPA as the acronym to really emphasize MBPA.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
The A being the abuse, someone shows my proxy abuse, and just really emphasizing that this is a type of abuse. This isn't just some mental health disorder that someone is suffering with. This is abuse that somebody is committing.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
Munchausen by proxy abuse is when a caretaker, typically a mother, induces, fabricates, or exaggerates illness for the purpose of gaining sympathy or attention from others. This is not something that someone is just suffering from. This is a choice that somebody is making. At some point when somebody commits this type of abuse, they are aware. There can be times where a person becomes unaware.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
have delusions or start to kind of believe the story that they've created but at some point within this type of abuse there is awareness there's other things that can be happening we see a lot of times there can be malingering so there can be trying to get other types of gains so this might be withholding someone's social security money or things like that or collecting that money for themselves
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
Starting GoFundMe is doing all these different things to try to get money and doing that sort of stuff. But the whole thing underneath Munchausen by proxy abuse is that looking for attention or sympathy.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
So there was guidelines created in 2017 by members of the MBP committee that created this. Now it's seen as kind of the gold standard of how to look at this abuse and what this abuse is, how to treat all of these different things. But in there, they have a lot of the red flags. And one of the biggest red flags is, of course, that the reported symptoms.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
So mom, and I always, I keep saying mom because research shows that it's 96% of the time it is mom that commits this abuse. But we have seen many cases where that is, where it's not mom. We've seen it be dad. We've seen it be other caretakers, loved ones. We've seen it with nurses. We see this abuse happen to... Vulnerable adults, that could be elderly or otherwise. Animals are another big piece.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
Or sometimes it'll shift to being on self. So suddenly the person might start making themselves sick or suddenly have cancer or all of these different things going on. I keep saying moms, but it can be anybody. Oftentimes, especially when it's cases with children, it's just typically more opportunity that's going to come from mom.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
Oftentimes media doesn't consult experts in the field or people that have worked with this type of abuse or have a full understanding. And I think that that is obviously quite problematic. And there's also a lot of media that just really focuses on like the horror. And, you know, you think of like The Sixth Sense or Sharp Objects or the movie It.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
It really takes away from like how real it is, how not real. Rare it is, but this type of abuse, the relevance is supposedly like 1%. However, we really think that that number is probably higher. It's so underreported. The cases are really hard to prove. There aren't many laws that make this abuse illegal. And so it's hard to prosecute and things like that.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
And so we do believe that the number is probably higher than that.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
Six to nine percent of victims die because of this abuse. And that's just what's reported, right? That is just like the research that has been able to be done shows that six to nine percent of victims die, which makes it, we believe, the most lethal form of abuse, of child abuse that exists. And yet it's still the most misunderstood and pushed against type of trauma.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
I think a lot of times when people think of munchausen by proxy, people think of medical. But there's also like psychological and educational. So with educational, we see a lot of moms saying that child needs an IEP, child is autistic, child has ADHD. Teachers and everyone else in child's life do not see any of these things that are being claimed.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
With psychological, it's a lot of child has these different mental health disorders, child is acting out in these ways, child needs to go to the psych ward, be on all these medications, things like that. Once again, nobody else is really seeing these different things differently. All of this can be induced, fabricated, or exaggerated.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
So in our more severe cases, that's typically where we start to see like the induction. And typically that's going to be more in the medical cases. The abuser might be saying like, well, the person has a
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
fever of 107 and then you take the temperature and it's like 98 or 99 or something like that just a lot of that sort of stuff of those incongruencies there's oftentimes a worsening of symptoms when the abuser is with the victim that tend to go away magically when the abuser is no longer around you You might see animals that are suddenly sick or have unexplained or unusual illnesses or conditions.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
That's a pretty big one. You might see putting feces and urine into a feeding tube or trach or into different things to cause sepsis. You might see suffocating to make heart monitors go off.
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
giving lethal amounts of medication to induce different symptoms and those are typically more of I think where some of that lethality oftentimes is more likely because you don't know how one extra med will that be what causes death and sometimes oftentimes I would say that that's not
Blink | Jake Haendel's Story
13. The Proxy Trap
Jordan mentioned that the real number of cases is likely much higher than what's officially reported or documented. But it left me with one pressing question.