I'm ill too

[frillyflower]

My sister is a very difficult woman and a raging hypochondriac. One annoying thing is that whatever illness or accident anyone else has she has the same.
My husband just had a bad accident at work and damaged his leg. He is laid up at home unable to walk. It's all pretty bad. She has never phoned to see how he is and when I phoned her today she just said "oh I've been in a terrible state. I bashed my toes on the table and they were hanging off. I can't walk"
What is this?

It's insecurity and competitiveness with a side-order of selfish narcissism. :) A sort of psychological 'one-upmanship'.

I have a cousin who we call 'Billy Liar' (behind his back) and if you've bought a car, he used to have one the same but 'got rid of it because it was rubbish'. If you've been somewhere on holiday, he went there years ago 'before it got touristy'. He's a walking inadequacy.

Do you laugh at her?

Competitive illness syndrome.

I used to call a friend, "two shit" because if you'd done one, he'd done two.

You could just call her on it.

Or say "I'm sorry to hear that," and change the subject.

I wouldn't bother calling her anymore. Her toes were hanging off??? She sounds bonkers. You've enough to do caring for DH.

Ha! 'I see your disenfranchised cuticles aaaaand raise you....mild halitosis and split ends!'

I work with a nutter like this. If it doesn't have a name it should have!

If I look shite cos I've had a bad night, something of hers will have gorn black and dropped off and her 'specialist' would have expressed amazement that she can still walk/breathe/smile! Barking mad might be one appropriate term?

We try to find it amusing but in truth we find it very annoying - well I do, DH just finds her depressing and boring.

Our brother (hers and mine) is very ill at the moment. She won't contact him or his family she just asks me how he is in a perfunctory way like she's quite peed off he's more poorly than her.

Competitive illness syndrome.
Maybe it's common.

my parents (mum) tried to score points for having the worst cancer and chemo! They both have rare advanced ones and both had harsh platinum based chemo and are incurable and both lost their hair at the same time.But no Mums was far worse .

Competitive illness syndrome - I finally know what's wrong with my mum!

Oh no What'sfortea! I hate this. I find it bewildering why people would act like this. My DH has a crushed leg. Can't walk. In pain. Can't work and he's self employed so it's a disaster.

My sister's response "my toes were hanging off. I managed to strap them up and get to the clinic. The doctor said the strapping I did was amazing. He couldn't have done better himself"

Yes I'd agree. Competitive Illness Syndrome is a pita.People who genuinely are really ill tend to play it down in RL. I've actually said to 2 people, "This isn't a competition!" No doubt they think that I was being @rsey, but I think that that mind set is unhealthy!

My SIL is the same, one day we were in her sisters house, she has a goldfish which was swimming upside down, my OH says "that's a swim bladder problem" SIL says "oh I forgot to tell you all I have a problem with my bladder"

We all just burst out laughing, she even competes with the bloody goldfish!!

Ha ha yougo that is hilarious :) Frillyflower my heart goes out to you and hope you can concentrate on getting your husband comfortable and pain free.I cant imagine what a crushed leg feels like.My Mum was a real trooper when she was diagnosed and to be fair it was first thought Dad had a slow growing cancer she was more ill" having had major surgery but she seemed resentful when we phoned about him Dads has spread too now.My feeling is they will both pas away within months of each other.Life is not a competion though

Sorry to hear about your parents' illness What'sfortea. That's awful.

My sister is a very difficult person. She lives abroad, in a very beautiful holiday place and if any of us go to that country and don't visit her straight away there's all hell to pay. It doesn't matter if you are on business or at a conference or just holidaying with a bunch of friends (like my teenage son) or even not particularly near her house, if you don't visit her she has a massive tantrum, slags you off to everyone she can think of and even -occasionally- threatens suicide.

Because none of the rest of her family can bear the confrontation and drama and screaming, we never 'call her out' on anything. I keep contact to a minimum but somehow I can't cut her off completely. I just wish I had a better way of dealing with the grandiose boasting, the competitive illness thing and the over-dramatic reactions to everything.

DD1 is the same. If we have something, she has to have it, but worse. She was highly disappointed when some treatment cleared up a gland problem, as she was anticipating surgery. She is now hacked that DD2 has to have surgery on her hip. if we have something wrong, she has it worse. Really aggravating. Sometimes we make things up when she phones just to see how long it takes her to develop it.

You think they would know that other people know what they are doing wouldn't you? And perhaps laughing at them.

My sister also thinks that all men are in love with her (she's 68). She is constantly having to stop seeing psychiatrists, doctors, therapists, neighbours, friends' husbands, the baker because they have declared their love for her.

Your sister is the classic attention seeker. I said earlier that it often comes from insecurity. They are constantly testing others, wanting affection and have learned somewhere along the way that the best way to get attention is to be different. So they might live somewhere unusual, have an alternative lifestyle, weird eating habits, unusual (worse) diseases, bizarre dress - sense. ... anything that makes them stand out and appear more interesting. They're often irrationally jealous of others and very defensive when challenged.

The two must go hand in hand frilly my SIL also thinks every man is after her.....

Yes she's very jealous of all the other women in the family - particularly me and her daughter. And she goes into meltdown Cogito if she's challenged about anything.

She has just un friended me and my son on facebook because he didn't go and visit her on his lads holiday to Europe for 3 days. She doesn't just require a quick hello auntie visit either - she wants a long dinner party hosted by her for DS and all his friends.

Oddly enough teenage boys don't usually want to sit at table for 5 hours with an elderly woman going on about her illnesses and disputes with neighbours.

She now won't mention DS as he has joined the long list of people she's shunning. "Are you upset" I asked him. "No, just a bit bemused" he answered.