Very bizarre afternoon and feel out of sorts

Two things - FND is not fake or ‘put on’, it’s very real. It’s just not yet understood, rather like CFS/ME was in its infancy. Very real, just not quite classified and understood properly. This man did not have FND as he was very clearly faking it from how it all transpired.

the other thing is that you are bound to feel the way you do because, despite the outcome, you all experienced - for over 45 minutes - an intense medical emergency. With hindsight you didn’t, but at the time, your brain and body experienced this. So allow yourself to feel all the many feelings you will feel as a result of attending intensively to this man, and of course the bizarre outcome and the way that will make you feel too.

Well done as a family for looking after a fellow citizen so well. I know it went a bit strange but you weren’t to know it would pan out that way.

There’ll come a day when he actually needs medical attention and no one will believe him. It’s a classic case of the boy who cried Wolf.
One thing I Will say is, if he’s throwing himself on floor pretending to have an epileptic seizure he clearly is mentally ill.

I didn’t see the story you mention so don’t know the context but some nosebleeds can be life threatening and terrifying for people as they result in profound blood loss

How horrible for you and your family. Not surprised you are feeling weird. You did the right thing and put yourself out to help someone who appeared to be in need, but that person then abused your good faith and help. It is made even worse because your DD was dragged into it. You've had a brush with someone who is either mentally unwell or gets off on this behaviour. All of the above is unsettling, even chilling. Remember that you did the right thing and you are all safe. x

He sounds deranged with some serious MH issues, it's also compulsive behaviour and he seems unable to stop doing it. He needs psych care.

The man is obviously mentally sick. Nobody would do that time and time again to get attention unless they really did attention.

However you did everything right, were not to know his back story.

I can understand the whole thing was very upsetting for you all but it will pass.

Don't let it spoil your weekend, look after yourselves, you're good people.

This is unfortunately part of the reality of working in frontline NHS. Time wasters. You did the right thing though so don't be upset.

What needs?! Being a dick head and wasting people’s time? He needs to be wary of boy who cried wolf

Im not great with malingerers, especially the way the NHS is so stretched

Sorry it was unsettling for you. I have seen a fair amount of people like him so lm
like 🙄

If it’s any comfort, it’s pretty common (although not to the scale that he has been taking it to). My partner is a paramedic and they are often called to ‘seizure’ jobs that turn out to be cons. Lots of people fake them and often regularly. I don’t know why - I assume munchausens or similar. They have to treat them as though they are genuinely having a seizure even though they can tell when it is fake, unless there is something in place to counter this like there was with the man you encountered today. These people regularly fool members of the public because they’re extremely convincing.

Why does it have to be a mental illness and not just done out of nastiness and being malicious?

Sounds like he gets a kick out of wasting their time!

How awful. You did the right thing though OP- for all you knew he was genuinely ill and needed emergency attention. I can understand you all feeling shaken and used- and to think that the ambulance was diverted away from someone in need is awful.

How terrible for you and your family to experience something like that. Taking advantage of good people. Terrible man.
But don’t let it get to you. Don’t think about it. I know, easier said than done. But he’s already wasted your time and energy, don’t allow him to continue to waste more for absolutely nothing.

Maybe he wanted some intra-venous diazepam for his pretend seizures or a spell in a nice warm hospital being cared for

Maybe he doesn't have mental health issues and is just a complete arse wipe.

Not a popular or palatable comment for me to make, I know, but this is disgusting behaviour on so many levels and 'mental health' is used far too frequently as some sort of catch all every time someone behaves in an unacceptable way.

Not all disgusting behaviour can be chalked up to 'mental health'. Maybe he gets a kick out of inconveniencing others, and thinking about others suffering due to his selfish behaviour. Maybe it's a fetish.

Maybe he's simply bored.

Sorry you had to deal with this OP.

What a horrible experience. It's little wonder you're feeling traumatised 😔 Wish I had some helpful advice to offer, can only say sorry this happened to you.

Exactly the 2 guys i've been involved with professionally were most likely involved in drug-seeking behaviour - one would regularly present with renal colic requiring iv pethidine and the other with abdominal pain/vomiting blood needing opiates which turned out to be pigs blood from a jug in his locker

You did a kind thing OP and it's hard when that is thrown back in your face.
I recently went to the aid of a young lady who was lying on the floor of our town centre. I did her basic obs (fine) and waited with her until the paramedic bike arrived.
I handed over to the paramedics about her condition at which point young lady sat up and started yelling at the paramedics that she was a boy and I was deliberately misgendering them.

The only other time I've helped in a similar situation was when a friend and I were driving home late at night (circa 1995) and say a young man lying in the main road, we stopped the car, went to help him, at which point he grabbed my friend and demanded our car keys. Luckily another car stopped and he ran off.

I will think twice re helping again.

Faking illness is hard to treat because it’s a conscious choice.

This guy is having his needs met, sadly and cruelly for the rest of us.

Think of the needs of the person who didn’t get that ambulance.

There's no way after fitting for 45 minutes he'd be with it enough to get up and start being abusive to paramedics.

I can have a 30 second seizure and be dopey as hell for a good half-hour, if I have a couple in quick succession I'm done for a long while.

He sounds like an arsehole. Sorry you experienced this OP

You did the right thing, unfortunately when you do the right thing you sometimes get taken advantage of. Be proud of yourself for being the person who stopped, even though this person didn’t deserve it.

So sorry you all experienced this. Think of the positives:

• Your kids had 'dry run' practical experience of what to do in an emergency like this. They were even able to watch a medical professional demonstrate the correct procedures.

• Your kids can also appreciate the reality of mental health and how it can manifest.

• You can be reassured that you and your family are good, kind, compassionate people who will help others in need.

Talk it through with your children, make sure they understand and have an outlet for their emotions. I can imagine anyone would feel very conflicted and confused, as you are. Totally understandable.

Make sure you're okay and that you give yourself time to process this. Your husband too.

Well done. You did the right thing.

Just hopping on to say FND is not a purely psychological illness, in fact researchers aren't even sure now that it's always linked to trauma - it can be in some cases but definitely not all. It's at the intersection of neuro and psych partly because it doesn't show up on scans (except fMRIs, a new type of imaging) so neuros decided it's psychological. Correlation also does not equal causation, and there may be very complicated factors around comorbidities which go some way to explaining why FND patients have a slightly higher prevalence of previous experience of mental illness. https://fndhope.org/fnd-guide/
Also (and I don't think this is what PPs meant, but I can definitely see it being read that way), the seizure part of FND, also known as functional/ dissociative/ non-epileptic seizures, are still "real" seizures, they're just not epileptic. And they can be very dangerous, in some cases the brain forgets to breathe and people end up in hospital for a long time because the seizures are so severe and frequent requiring oxygen that they're not safe without medical care on hand. And sometimes they're minor and not dangerous. But lots of people with FND have horror stories of doctors and nurses disbelieving them or treating them as fakers while they are in fact very ill and not in control, because it's not epilepsy.

We don't know what was going on with this man, and it sounds very stressful OP, I hope you can take some time to process it and that posting about it helped. Maybe he has functional seizures, but it's unlikely given the abuse of staff etc, plus if he's been in a lot they'll have assessed that. Plus with FND unless you have the sats dropping/ not breathing issues with seizures, most of us avoid A&E if at all possible because there's usually nothing they can do.
But conflating FND with fakers is dangerous and unfair.

Maybe it’s a sexual fetish?

He clearly has mental health issues and should be locked up for his own safety.

Sadly we don’t do that anymore, we just pay him to stay at home, probably pay all of his bills and housing costs too, and let him go out and prey on nice people.

I don’t think we should have to accept it, or chalk it up to a bizarre day, he is a public nuisance and should be locked up

You have shown kindness to someone who is really not well, just in a different way to the one you thought. Try not to dwell on it, you absolutely did a good thing, the universe has chalked it up.