Friend is "sick" all the time and asking for help

[Saddaughter999]

Hello everyone, looking for advice - my friend has some ongoing issues with her husband and their marriage and I strongly believe she pretends to have some "mysterious" illnesses to keep him.
Everything started a yer ago when she told me about their marriage issues- husband had problems with alcohol, both slept in separate rooms, no intimacy, etc. I didn't know all the details but my husband told me some gossips because he works with her husband. Turned out he tried to offer divorce but she refused (she didn't tell me about it).
Since then - she had probably more than 20 GP visits, around 10 visits to A&E with every single body part in pain. She had MRI, multiple scans, bloods, etc - she is perfectly fine. For the last couple of months she started to ask my help to go to A&E as she feels "so bad", that she can't be on her own. We bumped to the same staff members at A&E and even they asked me questions about her mental health as they recognised her coming every few days.
However, she seems to be absolutely fine when she wants, she recently had a holidays with other friends and spent a week at 40+ degrees with zero issues. As soon as she landed to uk- she's sick again- stomach, ears, back, brain fog, blurred vision- possibly every single illness. Yesterday she had a party with our friends and today she's calling me again, to help with A&E.
She is alone in UK, we both arrived here from the same country. However, I feel that I'm just wasting my time (as usually we spent around 12hrs at A&E). As someone who had depression by myself, I strongly believe it's not her issue....
Any thoughts? Thank you

Also, we are not very close, our husbands work together so we know each other, used to go for soft plays with kids,etc. I believe she is asking my help because she excepts my husband to tell everything for her husband. They have very big house with shed as an apartment, so he sleeps there,I think they don't even meet most of the time.

She may have one of those autoimmune conditions that take forever to be diagnosed and have periods where the person is better and periods when they are worse.

If you don't like her much or have "compassion fatigue", it is ok to take a step back and spend less time with her.

Agree, it is okay to step back and say sorry but you are unable to help this time.

Either she is genuinely ill, either physically or to do with her mental health, or this is some sort of manipulative attention-seeking behaviour.

I would understand if she would have the same symptoms, I have autoimmune disease too. But her symptoms are hard to relate to any disease or illness:
One week she complaining about earache and loss of hearing. After few days - blood pressure, then stomach cramps and nausea, then itchy legs, then headaches.

Don’t get sucked in to being her taxi/dogsbody. There was a thread recently whereby someone got multiple messages a day but couldn’t let go. If you gaven’t got time to stay at an and e for 12 hours, then drop and run. You’re not obliged to stay.

Has she got Munchasens (it’s not called that nowadays but forgot its name)?

It could be that the stress of her marital condition might be making her feel ill. But I agree with pp, you can take her to A&E, but there's nothing to say you have to stay with her. Presumably her husband can pick her up or she can get a taxi, and she might be using the opportunity to have someone 'care' about her. If you withdraw that then she might stop going so often.

The last two times I refused, I told her she can call me from A&E .And she did, 8 times and probably 50 messages. A&E is far away, I'm not driving, I simply can't spend £35 for taxi every week or waist all day for journey with multiple busses.

Her husband won't help her, he said he had enough of her.

If you don't believe her, you can step away.

But it could well be real. One of my friends has had a whole load of different symptoms and issues, and it took years to get a diagnosis.

Then she has to choose whether it's worth her time and money getting herself to the A&E and getting a taxi, or whether she'd be better of just waiting and seeing her GP. Does she have health anxiety and truly believe that she is really ill or does she just want people to be attending to her?

I once had a friend exactly like this and I had to take a step back from her eventually.

What ususally happens is that they find someone else to latch on to, and so on and so on. But as long as it's not you it's ok.

it's ok not to take someone to A and E if you don't want to. If it's life threatening she can call an ambulance.

She was always very cautious about her health (never had serious issues, apart from low vit.D). Used to do private blood tests, scans.But everything changed with her marriage issues.

I feel the same, I have busy period in my life, lots of admin to do and seeing her messages 50 times a day is just annoying 😑

Then I think it's likely that all her symptoms are due to stress and she'd be better off seeing a therapist or having counselling than all these A&E visits. Can you suggest it to her? Give her some numbers? Although that's really only adding to your workload again, isn't it, but then if you won't just cut her adrift, what else can you do?

Sounds like she has facetious disorder. Step away from her. Don't answer her calls.

I would absolutely not entertain this. She sounds exhausting. I'm sorry if she really is ill, but if you're not even close friends, I don't see why you have to do more than a good listener, within reason, when you bump into her. don't get involved.

It’s probably stress related. I have a lot of problems with my health linked to my mental health and being in a terrible relationship years ago.

Could her husband be abusing her?

She will probably feel a lot better once her Marriage is over.

I want to comment this as someone who has been through something that could look like what your friend is.

it started with a simple case of gastritis, I had a blood test which showed something was high. Of course I googled when I got my results and up came cancer as a list of possibilities. I’d been through quite a lot of trauma and grief in the 5 years prior to this and this was the last straw that tipped my mental health over the edge.

I was convinced and I mean CONVINCED I had cancer. I thought the doctors weren’t listening, I spent all my savings on various private scans, I spend days and nights in a&e to the point I got to know staff. I attempted suicide as I thought I had cancer and I was going to die anyway, and that everyone was better without me anyway. A very long story short I ended up sectioned, and once I eventually got on the right medication I gradually made a full recovery. I was poorly, but it wasn’t physical. It wasn’t for attention, I was very unwell.

I lost friends during that time, some who I’d been friends with for 15+ years. One friend stuck by me and she went to a&e with me a few nights.

I would just say you don’t want to lose her as a friend (if this is the case) but you don’t have the capacity or time to spend all the time with her in a&e. Maybe even offer to go to the GP with her so you can hear what they have to say.

as others have said she may also have other conditions like fibromyalgia or FND, none of which show on scans or blood tests and have other comorbitities and can take years to be diagnosed.

Also as others have said, stress can cause very real physical symptoms that of course don’t have a physical cause. From headaches to non epileptic seizures in some cases.

Just tell her you can’t take her anymore. I also would stop replying to her messagez, take 2-3 days to reply.

A few thoughts on no particular order…
-has someone explicitly asked about domestic violence?
-if she separates from her husband would she still be able to stay in this country/work?… could that be the stressor rather than the actual relationship?
-there are usually better services for this sort of problem once physical illnesses have been explored - MH support/counselling/women’s aid type charities if homelessness is a worry… might be worth having a think about what’s about locally and signposting/perhaps offering to help get her to a better source of help.

I have a couple of these in my family. The behaviour is crazy. Extricate yourself from it OP!

Factitious

I have facetious disorder 😆