Maybe this is a rant - feigned illnesses

[HowdidImanagetohavetwoaccountaandthenloseboth]

I suppose I am cross with myself why I let this get to me. A close relative of mine has feigned illnesses for so many years. I am not sure if it’s her MH that makes her like this or it’s just attention seeking or that it just makes her feel a bit special.

And the conditions vary often , and abruptly finish when essentially called out on them often by me , mostly inadvertently!

For example many food “intolerances” , plus diabetes, coeliac. She often doesn’t realise what foods contain what so for example insists that normal pasta was fine when she insisted she had a gluten intolerance and settles her stomach. Posh custard which contains sugar , great for her no sugar diet and again settles her stomach. Allergy to prawns , when I knew she had happily and hungrily eaten them only a few months before , when we bought a ready meal containing them not realising this was a new “allergy” .

Some copying too when I received an epi pen for a genuine allergy she obviously wanted one too so got one for bee stings. Despite having numerous stings before that.

A mole meant she had skin cancer and despite numerous visits and appointments at the hospital due to her insistence that all newly appearing bumps , were skin cancer, all were benign. Don’t get me wrong, I know that these things sometimes need checked out but the number of times ( about a dozen) seemed ridiculous and all were benign anyway. I suppose that annoys me because it’s wasting an appointment someone with a genuine need could have . Still refers to her skin cancer.

Having decided that she is no longer gluten free ( due to being called out by me on the pasta ) and eating as much white bread that she can , we have had a bit of a respite from her

The latest is long covid . She got wind of this when her friend took her to one of her mole appointments. The friend was recovering from covid so dozed in the car in the hospital car park. Soon after , relative started suffering from long covid too , despite there being quite break of several weeks after her having had covid. But can still water the garden every day throughly morning and evening mostly with a watering can and tend to hundreds of plants , spending hours in the garden!

Why does this annoy and get to me so much. I do try to grey rock the “illnesses”, try to change the subject or be none committal but that just seems to make her worse and more persistent. She is not going to change , so how do I keep myself sane and stop it getting to me?

I do honestly think if you haven’t been around one of these types extensively then you can’t understand how draining it is. You have to go through endless ‘oh poor you’ while wondering if it is real and then sometimes the time you go ‘that’s it it simply CAN’T all be real’ then something actually does happen! But worse, far worse than it would be if it happened to you of course.

The person in my life really does have issues with family members having medical issues and I have huge respect for them dealing with that but it seems to have spiralled into wild health anxiety, catastrophising, minimising others’ issues (because it’s always far far worse for them of course) EVEN WHEN there are really obvious markers, like not at all being on any clinically vulnerable lists, or called in for routine checkups of various illnesses they claim to have that have been going on (then resenting you - yes, resenting! - for being on several of these lists because you dare to really have an unwanted clinical diagnosis for something), yet hoovering up gp’s appts, insisting on referrals, talking about ‘my cancer thing’ YOU DIDNT HAVE CANCER YOU HAD A HEALTH SCARE YOU CREATED YOURSELF THAT THEY WERE DELIGHTED TO TELL YOU WAS NOTHING AT ALL.

It is frustrating because we love them, as people we’re programmed to believe people we love and support them in illness and so it’s discombobulating to find yourself wondering ‘is this really real’ plus frustrating when they treat the beleaguered NHS like a personal on-call medical service. Except never for anti-anxiety meds.

Its like an unanswerable cry for help.

The World Health Organization defines long Covid as symptoms that start (usually) within three months of having Covid

This is my old rant which I am sure @begonebegone will empathise with ! So many similarities there .

Coupled with the feigned illnesses ( “long covid” cleared up now after stacking a ton of logs and going for long walks etc - funny that! )

She also has strange allergies which surface when convenient . Eg She was apparently coeliac until I pointed out the pasta she loved contains gluten ! Diabetic until she realised the real custard she wolfed down had loads of sugar in .

Now I don’t try to catch her out it’s honestly just tricky trying to keep up with it all . The latest is a garlic allergy which apparently her and BIL now have Last weekend we went away. To save time the first evening, I made a meal to take with us . Having avoided putting garlic in the meat I then spread the bought potato thing all over the top to make a shepherd pie thing. It suspiciously smelt of garlic . I checked the packet . Oh shit! potatoes in a creamy garlic sauce and I had dumped it on the whole meal ! What to do ?
In a flash, I decided to do …..nothing ! If they decided they couldn’t eat it I would go out and find them a ready meal that night .

That evening they both had seconds and said it was delicious ! I never let on , it was easier that way .

Wouldn’t like to be her, she sounds incredibly anxious.

It’s anxiety and attention seeking to be fair .