What do you think of this website?Nancy Bratt.Scam/con artist?Or Munchausen's?

Question

I stumbled on these websites about a woman named Nancy (Nanny) Bratt somewhere in the back woods of the USA.

http://www.xanga.com/Nancybratt

http://www.myspace.com/nancybratt

http://kellycountry2002.homestead.com/

You don't have to read evey link as they are all just about the same.

This is the YouTube site I first found out about Nancy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAY-VzRfnso

Nancy was Anorexic/Bulimic for many years but recovered.

In 2006 she was diagnosed as 'terminal'. Given only 3-6 months left to live.

2.5 years later Nancy is still alive and looking pretty good for someone, who in each post is an inch away from death.

This family live on Medicaide? (State Insurance) and DONATIONS galore.

They no longer come out and ASK for money,but drop hints all through the posts about "Nancy needing a new mattress.Where will we find the money for it?I guess we will just go without again."

Cont:::::::

Answer 1

 She is real, in that she has anorexia and bulemia and obviously suffers from the consequences.  She probably has exaggerated her demise, in that she could live for many years with these conditions.  She is open with showing all of the complications she has suffered, and seems to really want to help others with the same problems.  Be kind to her and she appears to not have a great quality of life.

Answer 2

we are now in 2017 and she's still around..Not so sick after all.

Answer 3

I doubt that this person is "dying" any faster than the rest of us. To me, she looks like a crank addict, sorry to say. And if you have seen photos of anorexics who are near death's door, they are emaciated- she isn't. She may have something else wrong with her (may be psychiatric, from all the histrionic displays and photos), but I doubt it is anorexia. I think it is a scam perpetuated by both her and her family.

Answer 4

 Regarding this last post, I was the author, not someone named Dean Lindo. I think that he or she\but somehow has been cut and pasted from something written in one of the sites questioning information about Nancy and her family and that is how I found out about the suspected plagiarism.

Anyway, it doesn't  upset me that much, even though the commenter has likely caused some visitors to challenge the fact that the Kelly family are true scammers.

Answer 5

 It is interesting that she googles herself and somehow makes treats to people who question her behavior in her blog. I don´t think I would have time to google myself if I were so ill and dealing with infections.

Answer 6

I don't know much about ED - just what I've read. But why does she wear sleeveless shirts/shorts? I thought people with ED were always cold and also wanted to wear lots of clothes to disguise how thing they are? She seems proud of ED relapses, of going to the hospital for rehydrating - is that typical for ED?

I don't see any paypal button on xanga - am I missing it? This seems weird, but then, don't many people with ED come from somewhat dysfunctional families? Maybe not this "off", though...sorry if I sound naive - I don't mean to offend any of you.

Answer 7

It is hard to say because in some of her pictures, the ones taken in 2005, she appears to have the right type of line attached to her face and one picture in particular, it looks like her was very thin. However, a few things about that line don't make sense. I don't see anything in any of the pictures that suggests she was hospitalized with the feeding tube and it doesn't make sense that her feeding tube is held in place by tape in all of the pictures. She explains that she was worried about swallowing it and later mentions she wished a doctor or nurse would have told her it is impossible to swallow one. When I was fighting with anorexia, a feeding tube wasn't used until I got to the point where I had to be hospitalized for it. I literally looked like a skeleton with skin stretched over it and was too weak to stand up. Tape was not used to hold the line in place nor did it feel like I was in any danger of swallowing it. I also find it strange that she would want to tape the line to her face when every anorexic I was in the hospital with wanted to pull the line out...not keep it in. The recent pictures of her clearly show an oxygen line on her face...not a feeding line.

Another thing that is odd about her anorexia is she claims she was put in hospice and is expected to have her organs shut down, yet she is still at home, concious, able to have clear thoughts, can stand and walk on her own power. Hospice is used for people who are dying and have no chance at all for survival. 

Answer 8

One of the biggest tip-offs for me about this family is the way they seem to almost glorify eating-disorder related deaths...they'll talk about all the damage that eating disorders do, but, at the same time, they seem almost obsessed with it.  The moment when I knew for SURE that something had to be up with them was one day when they mentioned her current height and weight on her Xanga page...numero uno: if you have taken up the cause to help people overcome eating disorders, you don't post triggering information that isn't necessary.  And numero dos:  There is no way the stats that they posted were accurate.  Nanny is tiny, certainly, but she does NOT have a BMI of 15.4.  That is the moment when they whole thing became completely uncredible to me, without a doubt.

Answer 9

I have only recently been questioning both "Nanny" and her family, when it was pointed out that this woman has been "terminally ill" for over four years now. Several months ago she was given no more than 4 to 6 months to live and that her family would be closing their Xanga site to make her death private. Well, if they wanted privacy, then why on earth have they been in our face with every minute detail of Nanny's impending flight to heaven.

It angers me that the Internet has become a haven for illnesses, real or imagined. I strongly believe her mother, "Mama K" is a big part of the problem. Look up the disorder known as "Munchausen by proxy." It 's when some mothers exaggerate their child's condition for attention and pity. They continually ask for money to send Nanny to see the ocean one more time "before she dies." How can a person be dying for four years?? And why do people keep sending money, stay up half the night to talk to her and give her all this sympathy? I haven't given anything to this flim flamming family, but dozens and dozens have been taken to the cleaners. Nobody in that family works, which explains the PayPal button on all of her sites. Unfortunately, not much can be done about this scamming, because the law hasn't yet  caught up with the technology. I would warn anyone being duped by a woman who looks healthier than I am and most likely is. Sure, Nanny is sick, but not terminally. She's been in and out of hospice three times. Obviously, the nurses and doctors there don't feel she is sick enough to warrant being there. Those places are for people who really are dying, not some attention-seeking woman and her enabling family. They are costing taxpayers in the state of Washington a lot of money because of scams like this. Just be careful.