Cosmopolitan ^ DECEMBER 2016 ^151
Anna tried to stop
herself from posting by
creating a password to block
internet access on her phone.
Obviously, that wouldn’t do
much–she’d made up the
password, after all–but it did
place an extra step between
Anna and her obsession.
Still, she always returned. “I
felt I was missing something,”
she says, adding, “I felt
remorse about what
I was doing.”
According to Dr.
Feldman, people who exhibit
signs of Munchausen by
Internet rarely come forward.
“They’re too ashamed,” he
says, “and too attached to the
behaviour.” But Anna knew
she had a problem. “It’s
interfering with my everyday
relationships and with my
ability to parent,” she wrote
in an email to Dr. Feldman.
He referred Anna to a
Boston-area therapist and
added that if his
recommendation didn’t work
out, perhaps she should
consult with her current
therapist, whom she has seen
for depression and anxiety. At
one point, she wrote an
online mea culpa, admitting
she was faking her identity
and her crises.
Amanda Carmody,
31, who moderated the
miscarriage, stillbirth and
infant-loss group to whichAnna posted at BabyCenter,
says she has suffered 16
losses. She met Anna online
soon after her son was
born nearly three months
prematurely, then died eight
days later. “I figured that if I
could help someone else heal,
maybe I could help myself
heal too,” Carmody says. The
two became close online,
but after a while, Carmody
says, she needed some
distance. “When you read
people’s stories over and over,
sometimes you need a break.”
When she returned to
the message boards, Anna
was nowhere to be found. “I
miss and love you, Anna!”
she shouted out when shecouldn’t reach her through
the boards or private e-mail.
“I hope you and Jon are
okay!”
“I have been thinking of
her too,” another woman
wrote. “She is so sweet and
was so helpful to me when I
needed it most.”
Soon, one of the group’s
moderators told the group
about Anna’s confession.
“It ripped my heart out,”
Carmody says. “I wish my 16
losses were a lie.”
Only a few months after
repenting, Anna reappeared
online as another pregnant
woman. It’s not like she was
faking a fatal disease, she
rationalizes: “A lot of people
who do this pretend to have
cancer.”
More than two years
after Dr. Feldman gave her
a referral to a psychiatrist,
Anna still hasn’t seen one.
She says that the doctor
didn’t take her insurance and
she couldn’t justify the fees.
Nor has she told her own
therapist. “I’m embarrassed.
And I’m scared they’d admit
me to a psych hospital,” she
says.
Anna has lost track of how
many suffering mothers-
to-be she has portrayed or
how many imaginary babies
have been miscarried, born
dead, or ended up in the
NICU. She describes herself
as an empty person, trying
to fill herself up. “I became
obsessed with being someone
I wasn’t, and I felt like I was
trying to have something I
never had but really wanted.
I don’t want money. I don’t
want someone else’s child. I’m
not going to go into a hospital
and steal a child,” she says.
“All I want is for someone
to care about me.”“PART OF ME FEELS LIKE
IT’S SO WRONG,” SAYS ANNA.
“I’M A LIAR.”