Season Six Of Nobody Should Believe Me Launched: Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy

No one is sure what causes Munchausen syndrome by proxy. Sometimes, the person was abused as a child or has Munchausen syndrome (fake illness for themselves). Munchausen syndrome by proxy is a mental illness and a form of child abuse. The caretaker of a child, most often a mother, either makes up fake symptoms or causes real symptoms to make it look like the child is sick.

The caretaker can do extreme things to fake symptoms of illness in the child. For example, the caretaker may add blood to the child's urine or stool, withhold food so the child looks like they can't gain weight, heat up thermometers so it looks like the child has a fever, make up lab results, give the child drugs to make the child throw up or have diarrhea, or even infect an intravenous (IV) line to make the child sick.
Munchausen syndrome by proxy is widely considered underreported because it's often hard to recognize and diagnose. Perpetrators are often skilled at deceiving medical professionals, making it difficult to identify the condition.

One study found an incidence of 0.5 to 2.0 cases in every 100,000 children under the age of 16. Another study suggests that the annual incidence in the United States for children under 18 years of age is 0.36 per 100,000.

Season Six of the podcast Nobody Should Believe Me, hosted by Andrea Dunlop, was released on June 19. The series covers the extraordinary and tragic saga of the McDaniel family, a ‘real-life Southern Gothic’ tale of Munchausen by Proxy that spans decades and has left untold damage in its wake. 

For the past twelve years, Lisa McDaniel worked as the director of patient advocacy for The Guthy Jackson Foundation, a high-profile non-profit founded by Bill Guthy and Victoria Jackson, dedicated to a rare disease called NMO (Neuromyelitis Optica), from which Lisa claims her son suffered. 

But while Lisa appears to be a sweet Southern mom whose personal tragedy led to her heroic work for others, this image hides her dark history of abuse. When her adult daughter Mishelle bravely decides to break the silence, everything comes crashing down. 

How was Lisa able to keep her felony conviction for poisoning and suffocating her infant daughter hidden for years? How did her children slip through the cracks of the healthcare and legal systems again and again? What really happened to her son Collin? 

On Season 6, Nobody Should Believe Me enters new territory by breaking a story that is years in the making and made possible through the astounding courage of Mishelle Roberts. Season 6 ties together many elements introduced in previous seasons: ways that systems fail vulnerable victims, the culture of silence and inaction within hospitals that enables abuse, and the damage done to rare disease advocacy and victims’ groups, which can devastate families and echo through generations. 

Dunlop hopes listeners will gain an understanding of what this abuse looks like and recognize the real threat that it poses to vulnerable children, families, and communities. She aims to sound the alarm about perpetrators infiltrating rare disease groups, a shockingly widespread danger. She knows listeners will be moved, as she has been, by the bravery of the family members who have come forward. 

The host, Andrea Dunlop, is an author and podcaster based out of Seattle, WA. She is the author of five novels including Losing the Light (February 2016; Atria), She Regrets Nothing (February 2018; Atria), We Came Here to Forget (July 2019; Atria), Women Are the Fiercest Creatures (March 2023; Zibby Books), The Mother Next Door: Medicine, Deception, and Munchausen by Proxy (February 2025, St. Martin’s). Her books have been featured in Town & Country, Bustle, InStyle, US Weekly, Vanity Fair, People, ABC Live and elsewhere.

She is a member of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children’s Munchausen by Proxy Committee. She presented at the March 2023 and July 2024 APSAC Colloquiums, the October 2024 American Academy of Psychiatry and Law Annual Meeting, and was a keynote speaker at the November 2024 Stanford Child Abuse Conference. Andrea is the founder of Munchausen Support, which is dedicated to providing resources for frontline professionals, families, and survivors dealing with MBP.
She lives in Seattle, WA, with her husband and two children.Check out Season Six of Nobody Should Believe Me.