To suspect my colleague is lying about cancer

[Houseofmirth66]

My colleague, who is lovely in most respects, has a history of fibbing. She does it a lot and as we've worked together for a number of years I've noted many occasions when a story she tells about her family, a relationship or a holiday clearly turns out to be untrue. I really don't want to think she'd make up something like this but the contradictions in what she says with regard to her treatment and its side effects are becoming increasingly extreme - bordering on outlandish - and I'm wondering if it is a lie that's become so difficult to pull back from that she actually wants to be caught out. Not sure whether I'm being unreasonable in thinking that she could be lying. Or what, if anything, I would do if she were.

Would Munchausen's without the proxy possibly be extreme hypochondria?

It's a real thing, Mmmm. Kind of like extreme hypochondria, but much harsher & deeper. www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Munchausens-syndrome/Pages/Introduction.aspx

MUnchausen's syndrome without proxy is Munchausen's syndrome. Where people make up complicated illnesses. But afaik it involves them going to hospitals/drs and getting often serious treatment for faked illnesses. They like m3fical.settings.

Disclaimer: i base this on tv drama so its probably bollocks.

Why don't you just say "trying for a bsby, i must have misunderstood I thought you said you were infertile due to the treatment. Has there been good news?"

Although it may be that she is trying now as future treatment eill make her infertile so they are harvesting eggs now. Or else she is trying with previously harvested eggs.

I worked in a psychiatric hospital for years and met many people with Munchausen's Syndrome. It is fascinating. It seems like the main motivation is the garnering of sympathy and attention. They are aware that they are lying, but have some profound psychological defenses in place which seem to allow them to justify it. They tend to present as one of two types; either pompous and pedantic about their illness, or kind of wimpy/whiny/pathetic.

Hypochondriacs, on the other hand, truly believe that they are ill, but would love nothing more than to believe that they are not. They often interpret normal body sensations as signs of a terrible underlying illness, and are often genuinely frightened. Usually they have no underlying agenda or hidden motivation.

There is another category: "malingering", in which a person fakes illness for financial or some other concrete goal.

Hypochondriacs

Regardless it can be very painful and confusing for everyone involved. I once saw a case in which a young woman actually convinced doctors to give her chemotherapy for a non-existent cancer.

Mmmm, my friend was quite the opposite to that, though.

It was nothing to do with a reluctance to discuss it. She was more than happy to talk about it, and was the one who kept bringing it up, and going into great detail.

The problem is, the details don't gel. At all.

In her case, she told me about severe scarring on an area of her body, from surgeries. She later stripped off to swimwear in front of me, and there wasn't a scar in sight.

That's just one example. Truly, none of it added up.

It's difficult to explain, but it's very different to someone who is just reticent about their illness.

I know someone who faked a pregnancy rather than an illness. It was awful and she just had no idea of the legalities surrounding still birth at the stage she said she was at (30+ weeks).

The truth will indeed will out.

Our good friend suffered with a serious cancer & went through some pretty hellish treatment.

It left her infertile

They now have a gorgeous 2 year old son - because her eggs were frozen & could be used later.

Having kids was something they talked about a lot around the time of her treatment too, because they were going through the process of freezing eggs etc, so it was at the forefront of her mind, much more so than it had been before

I've no idea if your friend is lying or not, but this bit could be true

My friend's DMum did this. It was really awful. Friend suspected her DMum was lying and asked the names of specific names of hospital/Dr/surgeons where she was being treated, then looked them up, and half didn't exist, and the other Dr's worked in completely unrelated fields (her mum had just looked and told her random names taken from the hospital website).
Maybe try asking specific questions like that she has to give definite answers for?

PitilessYank how did she manage to get Chemo for a cancer that didn't exist!? Was she forging paperwork or something? Bonkers!

Alohamora

So what happened? She claimed to have had a stillbirth at home or something? Did she end up being prosecuted?

Munchausen's syndrome without the proxy is called Munchausen's syndrome. The syndrome was described originally re. people who always think themselves ill - the "by proxy" is for people who go to extremes of treatment for other people.

OP - it's a tricky one. DH had a colleague, who then became a subordinate when DH got a promotion, who apparently had cancer. He had lots of time off, his work was shocking (but had been before diagnosis as well) and was never able to tell anyone what type of cancer he actually had (they hadn't worked it out, apparently) or when the treatment would end, or how likely he was to survive, or in fact anything concrete. DH was at a loss - especially as his next level up manager had just died of liver cancer - so talked to the head of HR and they decided to go the route of insisting on doctor's letters/notes when he had his next time off sick. They never saw a single one, and he left shortly afterwards, after receiving a verbal warning over very poor performance; last thing DH heard he'd got himself a new job, so it seems the cancer story was almost certainly untrue, as if he genuinely was that ill, then employers would be unlikely to touch him with a 10' bargepole.

OH bugger, I missed the second page and therefore SmallLegs' post. Sorry.

BlueSmarties-yes, this was before widespread use of electronic medical records. She was quite intelligent, and had forged extensive and convincing medical records! In addition to the chemotherapy, she took advantage of benign but rare EKG findings to have a cardiac pacemaker-defibrillator placed, all by the age of 25.

I also cared for a woman who had been secretly ingesting rat poison. When we discovered that and talked to her about it she left the hospital abruptly.

Another woman had been injecting herself with her own feces. I always thought that it was a myth that folks would use that particular technique until I met her. She became very sick and nearly died. That is one of the frightening things about Munchausen's-sometimes people miscalculate and actually end up killing themselves by mistake.

DP (now ex) ex did this, had found a lump and saying doctors were 'waiting' to do anything more being Christmas it meant she would have to wait 8 weeks for treatment. Would he 'get rid of me' so he could look after her rather than the man she had left him for and still lived with 4 years later. EXdp was understandably worried and happy to support however was needed. Except my mum did have breast cancer st this time and was taken in for treatment over Christmas so he started to question this. She changed her story so many times. She left him but when we got together 4 years after their split she then wanted him back and this was one of her 'attempts'. I remember the youngest dc telling me that they had gone out to dinner to celebrate that their mum 'didn't have cancer and wasn't going to die'

some people lie and make up illnesses totally

Other people lie about details.

For example, when I have been scared of test results, and also not wanting people to ask about test results before I've had time to take them in myself, I've lied about the date and type of operation I was having.

I don't see anything wrong with this. My friends knew I wasn't well, and were sympathetic and supportive, which I needed, but didn't know details I wasn't ready to divulge.

I've also known friends lie to me when I have asked questions they didn't actually want to answer. I didn't have a problem with that either.

Op can you tell is another inconsistency? As ohers have said the infertility one could be true.

A relative of mine was dating a d-list celebrity who was a total attention whore and made up a series of scenarios which were so outlandish I watched with my jaw on the floor at them being suckered.
It involved
A rich family abroad (creating the reason why he went awol every now and again)
huge personal wealth sadly tied up for legal reasons (the reason he couldn't pay for anything and needed her to settle everything)
Whirlwind romance (determined to get married witching literally weeks)
uncontrollable diabetes which forever him to collapse for hours on end (or 'napping' as I call it)
An unfortunate ability to be robbed and/or screwed over by everyone he ever worked with (apparently - not him being a lying chancer, oh no)
Finally cancer which forced him to stop seeing her and disappear (without ever paying her anything back) because he loved her too much to put her through it (or finding and moving in with a new girlfriend)

He was so full of shit and her credulity was staggering. She ever shouted at me once that he was 6ft 4 as he claimed, as he stood next to, and shorter than, my 6ft 2 son.

It's so difficult because being private about ones health is fundamental to many yet if anyone 'claims' cancer it's untouchable for obvious reasons.

Op I personally wouldn't try to ask questions designed to catch her out. She could report you for bullying.

If I wanted to give her a way out, I would tell her that she's had such a hard time that she must be just sick of cancer, and that you want her to have somewhere to feel normal again, so how about work becomes a cancer free zone, with no mention of it at all.
That leaves you free to encourage her to talk about her LIFE, in all its normality.

Amazing how often people seem to do this. I had an acquaintance who said she had AIDS - this was years ago when not many women had it (in this country at least). She had a book contract to write about it, and the truth came out when they asked for medical records for some reason.

Though it occurs to me now that the book contract part could easily have been made up too.

Very weird.

I have worked with 2 people who did this.

One was by proxy though. She started work at my office and her mum died within days, then her partner got ill, then he had heart attack, then he had cancer, then he had a massive heart attack, then her dad died, then her partner had another massive heart attack and then he was so ill the packed her off from hospital with a their own personal defibrillator and it was her job to bring him back to life. The. Her mum does again. All in 8 months.

She was actually an alcoholic. These lies were to justify time off so she could sit at home getting pissed.

The other was purely about getting paid time off. She had a baby and returned from maternity leave a few days before I was going on mat leave. She told me that I should take 6 months may leave (full pay) come back for a couple a weeks then go on sick and get another 6 months off as our company gave 6 months sick pay.

I laughed and said I had saved for Mat leave and I was fine. Sure enough it's what she did. She would return to work for a few months then go on sick again.

The illnesses she had just got worse and worse until it was cancer. She had a stomach operation of some sort and the stitches got infected and she nearly died. then she turned up at work the next day in skin tight jeans to get something out of her locker. Tight across the stomach where the infected incision was. They had only revived her the day before.

It became more and more obvious she was lying then someone heard she had set up her own beauty/massage business, someone saw on FB that she was advertising treatments on FB. Someone took a screen shot and sent it to management. She was fired. The union even struggled to help her out and they wee usually excellent.

I kept out of it. Completely. I knew it would come to a head. It made my life harder, as I was a senior member as we couldn't replace her permanently so everyone else was having to cover her work or I would borrow someone from another team. But they weren't fully trained. Her sickness was looked after by my managers so I left them to it.

If she is lying OP, I would stay out of it. It's likely that it will increase and probably happen again.

If she isn't, things will settle down.

Unfortunately some people do lie and there are a range of reasons.

Could she be, as others have suggested, exaggerating a real condition? Maybe one that she is embarrassed about?
I've known two people who did this - one preferred to tell everyone that he had cancer rather than aids as he was embarrassed. It was a very sad situation.
The other was a friend of mine who lied a few months ago. She had some gynae problems but was embarrassed and so told me that she had cervical cancer. At the time she told me I happened to be working closely with someone who has battled cervical cancer. She was able to point out the inconsistencies and outright lies that I was too upset to see at the time (we were very close). Sure enough, the next time I saw her with another friend, she told friend a completely different story in front of me. She'd also lied to me about having a miscarriage a few months previously but had confessed when I caught her out that time. I didn't bother confronting her this time. It came at a very stressful time for me and was obviously designed to divert my attention from that to her. Our friendship didn't survive.

If you want an interesting story, Google belle Gibson.

Some reasons have been mentioned on this thread but in general why do people do this?