HowdidImanagetohavetwoaccountaandthenloseboth ·
28/06/2023 12:04
I suppose I am cross with myself why I let this get to me. A close relative of mine has feigned illnesses for so many years. I am not sure if it’s her MH that makes her like this or it’s just attention seeking or that it just makes her feel a bit special.
And the conditions vary often , and abruptly finish when essentially called out on them often by me , mostly inadvertently!
For example many food “intolerances” , plus diabetes, coeliac. She often doesn’t realise what foods contain what so for example insists that normal pasta was fine when she insisted she had a gluten intolerance and settles her stomach. Posh custard which contains sugar , great for her no sugar diet and again settles her stomach. Allergy to prawns , when I knew she had happily and hungrily eaten them only a few months before , when we bought a ready meal containing them not realising this was a new “allergy” .
Some copying too when I received an epi pen for a genuine allergy she obviously wanted one too so got one for bee stings. Despite having numerous stings before that.
A mole meant she had skin cancer and despite numerous visits and appointments at the hospital due to her insistence that all newly appearing bumps , were skin cancer, all were benign. Don’t get me wrong, I know that these things sometimes need checked out but the number of times ( about a dozen) seemed ridiculous and all were benign anyway. I suppose that annoys me because it’s wasting an appointment someone with a genuine need could have . Still refers to her skin cancer.
Having decided that she is no longer gluten free ( due to being called out by me on the pasta ) and eating as much white bread that she can , we have had a bit of a respite from her
The latest is long covid . She got wind of this when her friend took her to one of her mole appointments. The friend was recovering from covid so dozed in the car in the hospital car park. Soon after , relative started suffering from long covid too , despite there being quite break of several weeks after her having had covid. But can still water the garden every day throughly morning and evening mostly with a watering can and tend to hundreds of plants , spending hours in the garden!
Why does this annoy and get to me so much. I do try to grey rock the “illnesses”, try to change the subject or be none committal but that just seems to make her worse and more persistent. She is not going to change , so how do I keep myself sane and stop it getting to me?