Hypocondriac ?? ( very long )

[Kaz33]

My Sister in Law has always been hard to fathom, she has been married to my brother for nearly ten years. She has had for most of the marriage had health problems which have never been diagonised mostly centered around pains in her stomach and gyno issues. She is an only child, attention seeking, difficult to understand and extremely manipulative. She once told my mum that I had told her that I had taken drugs, an aside comment that I had made to her. At the time she certainly did not know my mother well enough to know that this would not be an issue to her. Nasty thing to do and since then and other things mean I do not like or trust her.

She had an op a few years ago to deal with this undisclosed issue. They now have a baby after an extremely difficult pregnancy. Her latest was yet another op to deal with the return of the stomach pains and blood discharge in her vagina. She had a D&C and biospys were taken ( though specialist does not believe she has cancer). She now appears to be to ill to look after baby, having had her mum, my mum and now my brother looking after baby while she recovers. Apparently there are dizzy spells and she is in too much pain to care for baby.

I don't trust her an iota and don't think that there is anything wrong with her. That seems a very harsh analysis and I would certainly give her all my support if there was. But my question is to what extent would someone invent an illness to get attention ? Shall I rephrase that, I am sure that she believes that she is ill but to what extent can someone con themselves ?

[Pinotmum]

I obviously don't know your sil but is she depressed. My mil suffers from everything under the sun and it's really depression manifesting itself in all sorts of aches and pains because she craves attention. If my mil would admit to depression and get this treated she would be fine but instead she takes to her bed for coughs and colds and stomach pains etc.

[Kaz33]

Yes probably. Mostly I think she has to much time on her hands - she hasn't really held down a job since she met my brother, having to give them up because of health issues. Now she has a toddler and I don't think she is emotionally ready for the selflessness that this requires, used to being the baby herself.