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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Does anyone else feel like a fraud when ill?

18 replies

Cariadne · 23/05/2019 16:32

I’m lucky that I don’t get ill very often, but when I do I find it almost impossible to convince myself that I am ill enough to ‘deserve’ time off / rest / being looked after etc.

It’s not just for routine illness either. A couple of years ago I got appendicitis. Completely convinced myself that it was just a terrible stomach ache, even though the pain was excruciating. Was eventually persuaded to go to hospital by my husband, where I was admitted to ER, and had surgery to remove my appendix the next day.

Even though the surgeon who did the op told me the day after it that my appendix had been badly swollen and had been removed just in time, I still felt like I had been making a big fuss over nothing and exaggerating my symptoms for attention. Part of me still feels like I somehow fooled the hospital into performing a needless surgery.

I have similar hang ups about my mental health. I have periodically suffered badly from depression and anxiety - but even when these have me deeply in their grip, I am convinced that I’m not actually depressed and anxious, I’m just looking for an excuse to be lazy and not pull myself together.

Is anyone else like this? I wouldn’t never feel this way about someone else’s illness, so why is it that I always feel like an attention-seeking fraud about my own? Is this just a manifestation of my imposter syndrome? Am I just a massive weirdo...?

OP posts:
YesQueen · 23/05/2019 16:34

Oh yes
When I get ill, I'm really ill. Waiting at OOH with a bad cough and felt a fraud, the doctor came out and asked for a nebuliser and I'm doing that "look round and see who's really ill" thing. Doctor comes over to me and I'm Confused I had pneumonia. I was coughing continuously because I couldn't breathe Blush
Emergency spinal surgery, I drove myself to hospital Blush

Original poster
Cariadne · 23/05/2019 17:29

You have my sympathy, that’s totally how I feel. Like asking someone for help would just be attention-seeking drama. I was sitting professional exams on the day my appendicitis struck and even though I was sweating bullets and had to keep my elbow clamped to my side to try and mitigate the pain, I still told myself it was just nerves and over-caffeination and that I was just looking for an excuse re the exams.

OP posts:
Loopytiles · 23/05/2019 17:30

What were your parents’ attitudes to illness and mental health?

Sugarplumfairy65 · 23/05/2019 17:32

Yes, I have an incurable cancer and a host of autoimmune conditions. People are always telling me how well I look. It always makes me feel like they think I'm taking it.

Original poster
Cariadne · 23/05/2019 17:37

Mental health - attitudes not great. I self-harmed for a while as a teenager and when my mum found out she said it was ‘silly attention seeking’ (which in a way I suppose it was because I wasn’t cutting myself deep enough to cause real danger, just lots of shallow cuts, although obviously I was doing it because I was hurting).

Physical health they were better, I had a hip problem which they tried hard to get to the bottom of with various appointments etc until I eventually grew out of it. My dad is one of those proud ‘never taken a single sick day in my life’ types but he doesn’t necessarily realise that he’s lucky to have the constitution of an ox.

My mum almost never goes to the doctor herself even for things that I really think she should, and she never tells you there is something wrong until after it’s resolved (like she was investigated for breast cancer and told no one until she got the all clear)

OP posts:
Original poster
Cariadne · 23/05/2019 17:38

@Sugarplumfairy65 that’s so shit, I’m sorry Flowers I expect people intend it as a compliment but it totally undermines the reality of how you actually feel!

OP posts:
limitedscreentime · 23/05/2019 17:39

Yes, I always doubt myself. I've phoned 111 about myself twice and been bluelighted in both times.

Slicedpineapple · 23/05/2019 17:43

Yep. I have a chronic condition which I smile through very well, to the point where people will act like I'm faking it if I actually have a day where I say I can't work or have to cancel a social event. Especially when people say 'it will go away soon!'....no it won't. So not only do I get conscious about that, but I have a more 'traditional' illness like cold/flu (which seems to be the only time people acknowledge that you are sick), I feel ridiculous for even mentioning it when I can get through worse things on a daily basis.

HalfBloodPrincess · 23/05/2019 17:46

I’m the same. My mum always says that when I die it will be because I didn’t go to the dr/hospital when I should have. But on the other hand her and DH both know that if I complain of feeing ill they know to take it seriously as I wouldn’t have said anything otherwise.

Original poster
Cariadne · 23/05/2019 17:48

Slicedpineapple that sounds very hard Flowers

OP posts:
Sugarplumfairy65 · 23/05/2019 17:48

Thank you.
I think a lot of people want to ignore the fact that you have an illness because they just don't know what to say.
I understand completely what you said about imposter syndrome....
At lease people have stopped telling me what I should take/eat/rub on/ shove up my worse to cure myself Grin

Original poster
Cariadne · 23/05/2019 17:49

That’s something!

OP posts:
MardAsSnails · 23/05/2019 17:53

Yep.

I had a cough a couple of years ago. Most people in the office had it and had a couple of days off. I powered through. Because it was just a cough. I was hospitalized for 2 weeks with pneumonia.

I had a bit of a tummy upset. Stomach cramps. D&V and general weakness. A week in hospital because of a stomach ulcer.

I actually had a whole day off a few months back with a torn hamstring. My thought was, at home all day there’s nobody to make me a brew and I couldn’t carry one. In the office there’s a tea lady 😂.

DH has learnt that if I even utter the words ‘I might need to go to the doctor tomorrow if I’m no better’ means he should probably drive me to A&E.

ElizaPancakes · 23/05/2019 17:54

No.

BettysLeftTentacle · 23/05/2019 18:02

Yep me. A hangover from emotionally neglectful parents during childhood.

hazell42 · 23/05/2019 18:26

I always feel as if I am on the sidelines watching myself. I had my appendix removed at 16 and to this day I don't know whether I was genuinely in agony, or just milking it.

I like to think that it is because I am a writer, and am looking on it as potential material, or, perhaps, that I am really strong with a ridiculously high pain threshold

Or, maybe, I am just weird.

When I am in pain, i ask myself, does it really hurt that much?

And then I tell myself to cop on and stop being a baby

My dad was the same. Though he did genuinely have a high pain threshold. It was only recently a doctor asked him 'when did you break your back?' Because he couldn't find it in his notes.

For a good reason. My dad broke his back and then 'walked it off!'

FoxFoxSierra · 23/05/2019 18:56

Me too. My parents were a bit shit when we were growing up and never believed us when we were ill so that's probably why

Wetdogloveshubert · 23/05/2019 21:48

My parents are of the 'tough it out' sort, so I haven't taken my own illnesses or injuries seriously in the past. I'm much better at telling others to get looked after, though Hmm

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