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.

Farter, that's very brave of you to admit to having had Munchausen's by Proxy. The human mind is very complex and imperfect, and sometimes we do odd things to try to meet our emotional needs.

nearlyhadenough is your DH the one who had a scar tattooed and had persuaded his Mum to give up her council house to come and live in a house he had bought for her but there was no such house? (Actually I think that poster had a DP not a DH because the cancer or illness kept stopping them getting married.)

Is the fertility thing the only contradiction?

Could she have meant that she wouldn't be able to conceive naturally and would need IVF/something?

Is she generally on the ball, and able to understand the ramifications of what is said to her?

I've heard some frankly bizarre accounts of medical scenarios that make absolutely no sense logically but they are the person's best recollection + best understanding of what happened to them (I usually give up and get them to get their notes to get what we need - it just gets stressful for everyone otherwise). The women in these situations weren't lying - but by and large they have been traumatised, and heard different explanations from umpteen nurses and doctors, and no longer know which way is up.

Blue - yes I have posted on here regarding DH and his lies. I have confronted him, and he says he has cancer but is unable to prove it. I am not allowed to go to any appointments etc. (all documented on other threads).

Balloon - this is another poster and I would love to be able to contact her or at least read her story (it has been mentioned previously, but I am unable to find it).

A family member of mine catastrophised hpv into cervical cancer. Left her infertile apparently. Wondered why we were massively shocked when she got pregnant a few years later naturally she's had a few conveniently timed cancer scares (by which I mean when she's not centre of attention or when there's been falling out due to her behaviour). Sounds callous when I type it but she's been caught out so many times with these fakes and the massive holes in her stories.

Glad that's not you nearly it was awful.

I will have a look and see if I can link to it and PM you.

I had a friend who told a lot of massive lies all around premature and multiple births rather than cancer - I guess that was her theme (her own and those of family members of hers who live another country). I believe her children had genuinely been born prematurely, but she changed how prematurely on a regular basis (surely not something you forget) eventually claiming her (living, early teen) son had been born at 19 weeks! I remember googling earliest babies to survive after she told me that, as was 99% sure that would have been some kind of medical marvel/ world first etc... She also had large numbers of relatives and old school friends who had had all massive multiple births apparently (quads or sextuplets) some of them more than once, and far fetched stories about their premature births (obviously multiples are generally early, but stories of them crawling around inside incubators but being too tiny to be taken out...) resulting children being shared out among family members, assigned as foetuses to adult siblings of the parents etc.

She didn't lie all the time, it was just this one theme... when I met her her youngest child was a toddler, so it was impossible to know quite where the lies started - I think that she had had premmies and losses, and her son had some SN which could have been the results of prematurity. I liked her otherwise and actually would have been able to ignore the lying. In the end I drifted away from her because she became increasingly unreliable and flaky (making arrangements then not turning up/ not being in, then turning up at totally different times - we lived an hour apart so it was awkward more than once when I had something else planned/ happening when she turned up out of the blue instead of at the time we'd agreed), not because of the lying.

I know a pathological liar, she was exposed as such recently very widely. Really, it's terribly sad. She's ruined her husband's life, and I'm fairly sure has MSBP. One of her dc is often in hospital for odd reasons.

My ExH told his employers that he had a brain tumour and needed lots of time off etc. His work was shoddy and he was often late for work. He was/is a sociopath and would say whatever he thought he could get away with to get what he wanted from people; sympathy, time off, an easy life, attention etc. I found out from his boss when she turned up at my house wanting to see him; he'd forgotten to mention to her we'd separated 6 months earlier and he lived elsewhere!
He attended 3 months of counselling to try and deal with his compulsive lying kindly arranged by his GP and his sister who works for NHS. Only he cancelled the first appt and never actually attended them! Was royally pissed off when I found out a year or so later as we'd been paying £30 a week to a relate counsellor to discuss his progress.
How did I find out? When I took him to court to get a non-molestation order against him for persistent stalking and he countered with demanding access to my medical records to prove my mental health was poor. I agreed to him having my records if I could have his! Made interesting reading...lol. I got my order.

Really surprised at how common this seems to be. She is very smart so I don't think it's a case of misunderstanding something a doctor has told her. She has also told me before that she lost all of her hair three years ago even though we were working together then and she must know I know it's not true.

I once worked with someone who claimed to have a chronic condition but never seemed to have medication with her or be overly concerned. When eventually asked to provide information about it in case she was taken ill at work as it was physical and for risk assessment, she promptly resigned. She used it to excuse lateness, sudden and regular absence for "hospital appointments", casual attitude on days when the manager didn't work etc, I suspect as a front for taking other work.

A woman I used to work closely with was always, (and still is) calling in sick. When she'd return, she would tell all the details to anyone who would listen . I actually googled hypochondria to see if it applied, then Munchhausen Syndrome. I was gobsmacked, when just days after my googling, she approached me and said that she suspected a close of friend of hers had Munchhausen by Proxy. (She meant just regular Munchhausen.)

When I worked for McDonald's the (mostly) teenage girls were a nightmare for malingering (sp?) and faking pregnancies. I once stayed late to cover one girl who said she was miscarrying. She went to the pub. At one stage, we had seven girls claiming pregnancy at the same time. None of them actually ended up having a baby.

I worked with a woman who turned up at a party with a dressing on her arm, I asked if she had given blood and she said "more complicated than that" and then went on to say she had a brain tumour.

She never had any time of work, never lost weight or hair - but did disappear one day and her partner at the time was ringing round all her friends trying to find out where she was. When she returned she said she'd been admitted to hospital as an emergency with secondary tumours in her breasts. Like someone else on this thread, later I regularly did an exercise class with her and never saw any scars. She also said treatment would render her infertile, but she's had children. My other experience of people with cancer is once the secondaries appear it is normally a no-cure situation.

Another mutual friend and I still mull over whether any of it was true but as we're not really friends anymore it has ceased to matter.

For the life of me I can't work out why she would lie - she didn't broadcast it and only told close friends and I wonder whether she got herself caught up in a lie somewhere along the line. Odd.

I just thought of something that happened to me actually. I was told I would be infertile, then I got pregnant in my 30s. I told some friends I was pregnant. One or two didn't believe me. Including my closest friend.

I didn't believe it myself. I wasn't lying, but I WAS lying in that I was repeating something I didn't believe. Does that make sense?

I think you can look and sound like a liar if you are passing on information that you know is true but you can't take in and believe yourself. This might be why sometimes its hard to know if friends are lying or telling the truth.

they believe me now I have teenagers!

Serious question - do any of you who know a woman with repeated 'cancer' happen to live in Leicestershire?

I am having a hard job swallowing some of what my 'friend' says wrt her recurrent stage four/stage 2 cancer of the spine, breast, lymph and cervix. Apparently her lumbar chemo gets cancelled because of tonsillitis but she' ok to go to work

But I haven't had cancer. I know nothing about it. The only other person I know who has had concer got so incandescently angry about the subject when I raised it that I do not dare ask any more questions for feear of starting a civil war.

There's someone I know who is pinging my Munchausens radar. We have a shared interest so are friends on FB.

It's not cancer, but another illness (or group of illnesses) but she seems to have the most extreme form, or the most extreme reactions to common treatments, and the local GP/Hospital has twigged that she's a drug seeker or otherwise not as she claims is "out to get her" so she acquires drugs on the internet; she frequently discusses being "too ill" to do things but in the next breath is organising trips to NY to see doctors (I have a fluctuating, invisible disability so I get that sometimes spoons escape us all at the last minute, but if I was well enough to make a transatlantic flight, I'd be well enough to go to my grandmother's funeral - even if it did mean I was laid up for a week afterwards), or being thanked in posts where she's done several peoples' make-up badly for an event.

She theoretically "runs" a charity (that isn't registered with the Charity Commission) that peddles bad science relating to one of the illnesses that she has (that I have, potentially erroneously, been diagnosed with) and frequently touts her email address for paypal donations to run things.

I've just read the wiki page on Belle Gibson and watched her 60 minutes interview when her lies were exposed. That's a very interesting case. Part of me is angry for her clear lies but actually part of me believes that she believed she was very ill. I don't really know what to think. I do think something is wrong with her though, such a tragic tangle of lies.

TheOnlyColditz:

spine, breast This sounds like primary breast cancer with bone metastases. If so, this is Stage 4 cancer. Stage 4 cancer is not curable. Once cancer cells have migrated to a distant site there will always be cancer cells circulating in either the blood or lymph system.

What is lumbar chemo? If the bone mets are in the lumbar region of the spine, it would normally be treated with radiotherapy.

cervix Could she have been told that the abnormal cervical cells were CIN Stage 2 and not understood that this means the cells are pre-cancerous?

fate I don't think Belle thought she was ill.

Her only diagnosis came from some who came to her house and electro scanned her body. He then gave her what she claimed was oral chemotherapy.

That person doesn't exist not to does any form or portable scanner. I think her story is entirely made up. I also believe her bf and business partner knew as well.

She was given the all clear several after finally undergoing actual medical tests. But failed to admit it or come forward with that detail.

People lie about being sick all the time. And it's for a range of reasons. Attention, gain money (like Belle), time off sick, take advantage of people's kindness, exaggeration, they think they are actually ill etc.

I think it's very common. Tbh I couldn't do it. I would feel like I was wishing bad luck on myself.

My mum, dbro and sil do this it to some degree. Dbro and his wife make it worse. She had a cough for a while. I made her go to the doctors an was sent for a scan. The scan showed a shadow, but they couldn't give a verdict. She was told to come back a week later for another scan. We were all worried. Dbro googled it and told her it was likely cancer. That was it she told her sisters it was cancer. She didn't say it was diagnosed, but that she knew it was and she would die. I know my mum has mental health issues, so does dbro. I was so angry at him doing this. Mum then became obsessed with googling it.

Dad was worried sick, dbro and sil were throwing themselves round about what would happen and how to arrange care for her.

I looked at what she was googling and she was looking up cancer. Not shadows. In the end I googled one thing like 'what does a shadow on a lung mean' in front of everyone and the information that came up was quite reassuring. Lots of people who had shadows that disappeared by their next scan.

Dbro and sil are always at the doctors for themselves or their kids. They averaged more than one appointment per week last year.

I very sternly handed them both their asses. Had a stern word with mum about listening to them and calmed my dad down.

I was so angry with dbro as he knows her mental health history. He didn't help at all. He enjoyed the drama and didn't go to work for a week to support her

The next week the shadow was gone and didn't come back. It was likely phlegm or something similar. 2 years later she is fine.

TheOnlyColditz chemo is often cancelled if the person has an infection, so that's not unusual. And lots of people can work through chemo. I imagine you have other reasons to be suspicious. As you say though, best not to question it directly. If she's lying, she will probably trip herself up eventually.

Zombie sometimes chemotherapy is administered via a lumbar puncture.

"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."

PitilessYank - How might a Munchausen's sufferer react when faced with proof they are lying?

The fertility thing. I was told I couldn't carry children and never would. Not due to cancer and exh told everyone at work and his family. I later went on to have children, the first very much unexpectedly so it is possible.

You might be interested in this Fate: www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Munchausens-syndrome/Pages/Treatment.aspx