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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think this person is faking illness

117 replies

BlancheDubious · 02/12/2013 14:49

I'm acquainted with someone who constantly has drama in their life, usually centred around their own health. This has been going on since she was about 14 and she's now in her 20s.

As a teenager she had 'seizures' which were investigated to the Nth degree and no cause was found. Her teachers and some immediate and extended family believe they were faked for attention.

Now she is claiming to have 'allergic reactions' which cause her to collapse. It is all on Facebook to make sure everyone knows. She manages to fly around the world on holiday but always seems to have to visit the local hospital wherever she is travelling as she has collapsed.

Her latest 'allergic collapse' apparently necessitated CPR, heart massage, defibrillator etc. but she was home posting about it on Facebook the next day. AIBU to think that you'd be kept in longer for such a huge event and therefore it can't be true?

OP posts:
MrsCakesPremonition · 03/12/2013 10:29

This thread seems to be very attention-seeking and overly dramatic (deactivate FB because of 1 annoying friend? Why not just block the individual instead of making grand sweeping gestures?).

Some people fake, most people don't.

lougle · 03/12/2013 10:37

Maybe, Grennie, which is why we have to be so very careful to use the word 'fake' because catatonia is a real condition, and we shouldn't have less regard for people because their illnesses are psychiatric rather than physical in origin.

I personally think the bottom line is that people don't like it when other people are regularly ill because it is an inconvenience. Which is sad.

I've been 'ill' with migraines for a few years now. I have had Chronic Fatigue twice, which has basically knocked the stuffing out of me and means that I get most bugs going around. I have to accept that it's just life. Doesn't mean it's easy for my DH though.

Grennie · 03/12/2013 10:38

Ffs, not once has anyone said that most people fake.

LowLevelWhinging · 03/12/2013 10:53

so, to summarise:

  1. she has an as yet, undiagnosed physical illness

or

  1. she has an as yet, undiagnosed mental illness

or

  1. she has neither of the above and is cynically manipulating people around her for her own social (attention, people worrying about her, offers of help) or financial gains.
deepfriedsage · 03/12/2013 10:56

3 could be classed as antisocial pd, which comes under mh.

LowLevelWhinging · 03/12/2013 11:07

so, all in all this woman is not well by any take on it?

BeyondTheLimitsOfAcceptability · 03/12/2013 11:37

Just a thought, if she were genuinely "making it up" and nothing was (physically) wrong, do you not think she would lie about the cause too, rather than say "I've been very very ill, but no cause has been found". Trust me, its much easier to gain sympathy when people have an actual thing to be sympathetic of, 'cause while no cause is found, people will be thinking she is making it up. ("Well, if the doctors cant find anything, there must be nothing to find")

As for my 15years of undiagnosed fainting, I think I have solved it, and will hopefully have an experts opinion on friday :) (POTS, if you were wondering)

LessMissAbs · 03/12/2013 11:42

Its the combination of undiagnosed symptoms, attention seeking and unverifiable places it happens that would lead me to suspect she is not all she seems.

Even if she does have Munchausens Sydrome (and its a lot more complex than posting on FB), there is no prescribed way that other people should react. There is a range of human responses to such symptoms, and the OP is neither right nor wrong in failing to treat the subject as a victim or as being ill.

Original poster
BlancheDubious · 03/12/2013 11:59

So cynical manipulation is an illness? Genuine question.

Aren't we all unwell to some degree then? I've probably manipulated for personal gain in my time! Never faked fits though.

Some stories on this thread are incredible - faking a coma? I have heard it all now. Yet I am unsurprised what some people are capable of.

OP posts:
Grennie · 03/12/2013 12:16

No making it up is not automatically a mental illness. People do this for many reasons, including to defraud others out of money.

Original poster
BlancheDubious · 03/12/2013 12:21

Sorry I was referring to number 3 in low levels post being classed as a mh illness...

OP posts:
LessMissAbs · 03/12/2013 12:22

No making it up is not automatically a mental illness. People do this for many reasons, including to defraud others out of money

Of course they do. And of course the authorities (ie doctors, benefits assessment panels, police, etc) are a lot stricter than people on an internet site, who equate describing an illness with actually having that illness.

For example, to claim disability discrimination, there needs to be some level of long term or permanence involved. And diagnosis under DSM IV or its successor is generally required.

LowLevelWhinging · 03/12/2013 12:28

ooh, now that's a philosophical debate to be had!

"mad or bad?" as the old cliche goes.

(And I don't know the answer either)

FWIW, I think that attention seeking is a symptom of deep, deep insecurity, anxiety and multiple complex ishoos. I can feel empathy for that. Ripping people off, however, knowing it is wrong, is a moral choice that people make and YANBU for being angry about that.

Oblomov · 03/12/2013 12:30

Bloody hell.
I have been in a coma. Twice. Diabetic coma. Once as a child. For many weeks. I only know because my mum told me.
And as a 20 year old, in Moscow, on my year abroad.

I had no idea you could fake it!!

Grennie · 03/12/2013 12:37

Where I live, there was a case of a woman faking cancer to defraud others out of large sums of money to help with her "treatment" abroad. She was sent to prison. It wasn't until she was taken to court that many victims found out for the first time, that she had a history of defrauding money in different ways.

AchyFox · 03/12/2013 12:44

real people like those on this thread have real, terrible illnesses deserving of sympathy but don't get it because people like me have become so bloody cynical thanks to drama llamas like her!

Am I reading this correctly ?

Are you saying you work in a medical role and that on occasion you withhold or reduce the treatment given dependent on your estimation of whether the patient is faking it ? ShockShock

I'm finding it hard to read that sentence in any other way, particularly the people like me phrase.

OhYouMerryLittleKitten · 03/12/2013 12:49

Beyond - PoTS is what caused me to near faint/collapse. Before the diagnosis I ended up being prescribed medication which made it much worse. Was treated terribly by some of my colleagues and it was really upsetting. The medication I was given to treat it when I had the diagnosis transformed my life.

Marylou2 · 03/12/2013 12:58

Un-friend her today! I worked with someone for 6 months about 15 years ago and she is just the same. I haven't plucked up the courage to cut ties completely although I have distanced myself. Don't make my mistake.

OLittleTownOfBarflehem · 03/12/2013 12:59

Glad I'm not the only one who had a paranoid moment!

You can keep going through migraines, though. Seriously. I don't do it by choice, I do it because I have to. I have 3 small children and if I go to bed, they are in danger. So I keep going. I have posted on MN that I have a migraine. I did. It doesn't mean it was less severe than another migraine when I've had the good fortune to be able to go to bed.

Same here! My migraines were caused by the medication I took for my other skeletal and muscular conditions. I have been diagnosed by professionals, but because I have the odd good day, people who don't understand how these things work or are just dicks have accused me of making it up/being a drama llama.

It's shit.

I know that there are people who make these things up, etc, but we also live in a daily mail fueled world, where anyone who isn't missing a limb or in a coma is viewed suspiciously as a lead-swinger.

LessMissAbs · 03/12/2013 12:59

But anyway OP, I would ask her what insurance company she uses for travel insurance. Most insurers would be asking prohibitively astronomical premiums after her needing such expensive treatment on holiday several times. It sounds like a few posters on here would benefit from knowing which insurers this is, as they seem to be unusually lenient in insuring her again and again.

pictish · 03/12/2013 13:01

There ARE people out there that use ill health as a means to manipulatively get attention.
We have all known a 'health bore' - that person who goes on and on and on about this, that or the other being wrong with them all the time. You can't say "I'm not interested actually, stop moaning" because that is considered a total faux pas in polite society. These people are well aware of that, so they pretty much force you to pay them attention and listen to their shit, knowing full well you can only respond by politely indulging them and making sympathetic noises.
No one wants to be the one to rudely rebuff their self indulgent attention seeking, lest they get hailed a callous bastard.

Health bores have us all by the short and curlies and that's just the way they like it.

heartisaspade · 03/12/2013 13:32

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Original poster
BlancheDubious · 03/12/2013 13:51

Achyfox I'm not sure how you read that as me being a medical professional... I'm not! I meant people like me as in cynical people, I am very suspicious now because I seem to know so many attention whores and fakers. My sympathy wells are massively diluted.

OP posts:
CrapBag · 03/12/2013 14:05

YANBU to question it.

I know someone who seems to have endless illnesses and has no issue in talking about them and admitting some attention seeking things. She doesn't want to work and as each illness gets better, another one starts so she hasn't had to work in years. She now doesn't do much for her children either as she is 'too ill' but capable when she wants to do something.

The last straw for me was when she questioned me on my illness and what benefits I get etc. Lo and behold, she has been diagnosed with it (no tests for it but diagnosed through elimination and if you read up enough on the symptoms you could probably fake it, plus I have been told that she is the type of person who will go on the net and read up on things in great detail). This has pissed me off immensely so I have distanced myself from her.

BeyondTheLimitsOfAcceptability · 03/12/2013 14:35

I know people do fake things, but this thread is making me so paranoid that this is how the world sees me. General people around me do not have the pleasure of reading my medical records, and I would guess that those posting "oh yes, I know someone like this" haven't read theirs either.

It is bad enough not being able to do things for your children, it is bad enough that your partner has to look after you, and that is before you add constant pain and worry about your health.

And don't say "but I'm not talking about you, you are genuinely ill, these people make it harder for you" because unless you are fucking psychic, or can somehow get inside their body, you have no idea what they are dealing with.

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