seeing as that it is a disorder, i guess you can. Just go up to the doctor and tell them that you have factitious disorder and then start faking a seizure (not recommended).
It's important to note that this _is_ still a disorder. People often try to claim that unhealthy people, especially people with mental disorders, are "just doing it for attention" in order to invalidate any struggles that the person may be having, but the fact is that those kinds of behaviors are still an indication that the person is not healthy even if they're not happening for the reason that one would normally think of them as happening for. Healthy people don't feel the need to go to such extreme measures just to get some attention.
Maya Jade I’m quite of aware of that and I’ve been diagnosed with mosaic Down syndrome after I was given birth. Depression and stress is common having mosaic Down syndrome.
My mom is definitely one. Hi, I'm a 20yr old autistic guy, diagnosed with anxiety and Schizophrenia due to seeing very vivid images of me killing others around me, and my mom nowadays sees it as attention-seeking, which makes me swallow up my issues and pretend to be normal, despite getting angry at the very voice that eggs me on😐 why am I telling you and others this? Because I hate being accused of lying when someone I call family was in the room when I was diagnosed. So take heed to those with issues, don't let others tell you you're lying, it will hurt, and cause some DEEP hatred.
My mom was accused of having this (Munchausen by proxy). I was extremely small and skinny as a baby so the doctors figured my mom was starving me to get the doctors attention. Turned out I just had dwarfism lol
OMG! I had something similar I have brittle bones and bruise and injure very easily and my parents were under suspicion for physical abuse for a while until my sister was diagnosed too and it was obvious it was genetic! It's funny with hindsight but pretty terrible for the parents really!
0mn1vore hormone therapy only helps those who have a type of dwarfism caused by low HGH levels. For other types, most types, it’s unhelpful and unnecessarily painful (shots for no purpose).
60 Second Success my parents had a rule that if you were too sick to go to school you were too sick to do anything extra curricular as well. Good deterrent for faking sick as a kid haha. Never got to do anything cool if I missed school due to illness
When I was younger, I was obsessed with physical disabilities and illnesses and would wish I had a disease that made it so I couldn't go outside and play with the other kids. That way adults would actually give me attention and I wouldn't have to face my bullies. I got older and my mental illness worsened and I made real friends who could help me cope with said illnesses, and looking back, I realize I was just a troubled, depressed child in distress, looking for tangible reasons to feel as different and attention-seeking as I felt 2020 edit: I've since been diagnosed with autism and for the first time ever, I have answers!
I used to fake a limp because I wanted special treatment and I still find myself doing it without thinking. I guess I just wanted special treatment from everybody or something
i do similar things nowadays... now, i do actually have illnesses/disorders, but the fact is: i have them under total control, yet i let them run rampant just because... i feel sad if i don't, i feel extrem guilt if i do, so i can't find any way around it, and in cases i even end up making myself be pitied by people... but this kinda stuff isn't among the presumed effects of my disorders, so is it character? nah, i don't believe so...
+ML Gesus Christ Dude throughout elementary school, I would complain of my knee hurting, hoping it would get serious enough that I wouldn't be able to walk, and then one time, in fifth grade, I spent an entire day walking on my heels so that the next day, it really hurt to walk but nobody cared because why should they
+iota-09 I think it could be a lack of (or a feeling of a lack of support) from the people you're closest to. A lot of my inward thinking dissipated once I started my relationship with my significant other of 3 years, and while I still will let things happen sometimes, I don't blame myself so much because I know that if I don't let it happen, I won't feel any of it, and I'll just be an emotionless blob, even though feeling it means what feels like faking a lot of the time
i feel like im just an hsp and i over exaggerate everything im shy and afraid of talking to new people or performing in public so i say i have social anxiety. my parents are really overprotective of me and never let me make my own decisions so i say they are narcissistic. i dont know i just over exaggerate and overthink everything...😔
I'd love to see an episode contrasting this with Conversion Disorder and other Somatoform disorders where the person *isn't* faking their symptoms, but those symptoms have a psychological origin, rather than a a physical one. As someone with that type of somatoform disorder, the pain, paralysis, muscle spasms, night sweats, etc. that I go through are very real and definitely debilitating, even though they're the result of repressing my emotions, and not any direct physical cause. It may start in my head, but it certainly isn't fake, and it's not my choice. It would be nice to have some more awareness of this, especially since it's pretty common for people to conflate malingering, Factitious Disorder, and Conversion disorder as all being the same thing.
That would be a great contrast. I think one of the main differences between the two would be that people with conversion disorder experience pain and WANT to get rid of their pain whereas people with factitious disorder neither experience symptoms nor do they want their "illness" to end.
I've also had a somatoform disorder ... I think. The pain was very real and went on for years but multiple specialists and multiple tests came back with nothing. No response to various meds or treatments either. However, i WAS experiencing some rather significant psychiatric problems and some psychometric testing showed that i had high levels of somatisation. But I really was in was all kinds of pain and distress. It was awful. And i desperately wanted answers and help. My weeks were filled to the brim with medical appointments. I now believe that the pain *could* have been neurological but was just as likely, if not more likely to have been a conversion disorder.
I would and still do fake being sick to get LESS attention. Nobody takes "I'm having a bad mental health day" seriously, so I have to improvise. Or worse, when you I feel fine and just want time to myself and people can't take "no" for an answer.
I've had some serious medical issues and I've been trapped in the "sick role" for nearly a year. it's awful. I hate it. I can't stand people fussing over me and pitying me. I hate having to rely on other people to get me food or drive to the doctors or to get up and pee. I have pissed myself waiting for nurses to come help me to the bathroom because my muscles had atrophied and I couldn't get out of bed on my own. it's so infantilizing I can't stand it.
HeyHay i've been sick for nearly two years now and just as incapable as you described. unfortunately 13 doctors have been unable to diagnose me, so much of my family treats me like i'm just making it all up and won't stop pestering me to get a job when i can barely walk across the hoise or lift a fork to feed myself. it's shitty, and i don't understand why anyone would want this sort of attention.
they simply don't know the reality. That there's more to it than just lying in bed and having attention. Just like normal people don't know what disabled people come through and make judgments so those people have no idea what they wish for. That is actually pretty simple. At least from a perspective of an ill person.
@szczurek : it's not as simple, some of them actually become disabled as a result of the (unnecessary) surgeries they had. It's one of the main differences between faking for external gain and faking because of a disorder: the former wants to avoid actually getting hurt while the latter will let major damage done to their bodies. It's a serious disorder, not some hobby people have just because being sick can seem nice from the outside... (well, maybe there are such people too, who knows. The checklist for munchausen is so off because it focuses solely on what the disorder looks like from the outside. So little about the actual emotions and thought patterns that make people act this way.)
My mother had factitious disorder which was complicated by the fact that she had been a medical secretary in a hospital and so had an encyclopedic knowledge of every symptom imaginable. But she also had some serious medical problems, and figuring out which ones were real and which weren't was so difficult it eventually killed her. She repeatedly went to her doctor to complain of terrible abdominal pains and was prescribed aspirin and counselling. By the time they realized that she had stage 4 liver cancer, it had already spread all over her stomach, intestines, and pancreas, and it was too late to do anything about it.
NoJusticeNoPeace I'm sorry for your loss/ the loss it's like "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" They would believe him for so long, like you fool me, shame you You fool me twice shame on me Fool me three times and you're dead Since nothing would believe her, I guess she didn't even know she was in a hole to which she could never escape :(
+Lee Crawford When my mother went into hospice to die, I had a private conversation with the treating physician and asked him what her real condition was, since I couldn't rely on anything she told me, and explained to him the whole situation. What he told me is that in med school doctors are taught the aphorism, "Hypochondriacs have heart attacks too," specifically because of the situation with my mother. Even though she had a long history of factitious complaints, her doctor _should_ have taken her seriously every single time.
1) I’m sorry for your loss 2) I’m sure it must have made her somewhat satisfied when she found out this terrible news. She could maybe finally say “see I told you I was sick” Sorry, i tens to try to deflect sad stuff like this with humor :/
I'm sorry. But you need counseling, too. You're creating guilt for the consequences of your mother's behavior. Your mother's Munchausen killed her. Your mother made bad choices. We can't deprive others of care, and spend billions on testing, every symptom a Munchausen person claims to have.
When I was younger I wanted to have problems, mostly obsessed with braces and glasses, I'd spend time pushing on my teeth and sitting to close to the television. My oldest sister got a lot of attention cause of health problems, so I guess I wanted health problems to get attention. Now I'm the opposite
I think glasses could be genetics, for example if both or one of your parents have glasses or a lot of family members then there kids could need glasses
I was diagnosed with schizophrenia, but sometimes I really feel like I'm deceiving everyone and I don't actually have it.. like I experience the symptoms but like maybe it's just my brain trying to trick me into believing I have it..does that make sense?
I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder and ADHD and I feel the exact same way a lot. Like I'm just making it up for attention even though I know I'm not. I think it just might be a side effect of people not taking mental illness seriously. I'd love to see a video on this if there's a technical definition or research for it.
Vikings488 i have suffered with a mysterious illness for nearly two years now. it is a real illness with real, debilitating physical symptoms, but because 13 doctors were unable to diagnose me, I still wonder sometimes if it's all in my head... so it's not just you. i recommend sharing with a close friend how you feel and reaching out to them when you are starting to doubt so they can bring you back around to reality.
Its the world you guys live in. Go out in nature and wonder. You'll realize things. Don't give in to the world trying to keep you tamed. Don't be bound by your beliefs. I hope you guys can understand this one day
In a hospital I work at a lady kept saying her son was sick and made him have tones of tests and surgeries (like get his appendix removed) because the child's father had left, so she thought if the child was critically ill he'd come back to her
Sadly, there's lots of people with actual illness that are made to feel like they are making things up. And sadly there are loads of people who HAVE to hop from doctor to doctor because of lack of care, insurance issues, etc. I'm glad the script mentions there are plenty of people with symptoms that match that actually ARE sick.
Also it maybe could be likely that they have something else and not the disorder there claiming to have , I was thought to have autism even though I had adhd instead and I knew I wasent autistic but from a reason that at that age I thought made sense
Thank you very much for making this video after I asked you to. In the future it would be good to hear more about Munchausen syndrome by proxy MSBP. No one in my family believes me when I tell them that my mother has it. Maybe because she was so good at hiding it, and they have cognitive dissonance. They are intelligent, but they say they are 100% sure she does not have it. And they were not around her all the time, so that is just being willfully naive because they are too scared to even entertain the possibility that she does have it. Then she makes me into the scapegoat and the family joins in, because that is easier than hard truths. They didn't keep my medical records from 20 years ago when my mother accidentally admitted to my doctor to fabricating my illness and starving me. Now my brother has Stockhlom syndrome and I have agoraphobia and we depend on our mother like little children even though we are adults. I really think more people need to better understand MSBP from the signs to the symptoms and how it's hard to imagine such crazy behavior, but it is still very real! Hopefully in the future we can identify this aberrant behavior in its early stages so we can remove the children from these sick people before it ruins their whole life.
My "best friend" lied about having bone cancer and also said that she had leukemia as a child. Confronted her, because cancer runs in my family and because I was really mad at her for lying about such a serious topic. She ended our friendship and called me names. Couldn't forgive her and I was apparently the only one who knew. She didn't even tell her boyfriend or parents about her fake illness.
I had to deal with someone like this for 6 months. He faked a rare blood disorder and cancer. his research was astonishingly thorough and he was very smart. He could tell me textbook definitions of his illnesses and understood all the interworkings of them. He even knew who the only specialist in the state was that treated his disorder. He shaved his head and his body to simulate chemo symptoms. He made small incisions in his chest and side to simulate biopsy sites. In the end he even drilled a hole in his scalp to simulate a burr-hole to relieve cranial pressure. He didn't want anything material from me, he wasn't getting any benefits from work, and it really seemed like an overall burden to him. I was his support network for 6 months before I could prove he was faking it; but although I think part of him knew it wasn't real, I think that overall he had genuinely deluded himself into thinking he was sick.
Toxic Quartz Yes he did. I ended up taking him to a mental health hospital when I found out the extent of everything he was faking. That was the last I ever heard from him, but his parents contacted me and told me thank you and that he was doing much better and had been abused by a friend's father when he was a child.
I’ve lost the majority of my family to cancer, so when my friend told me he had cancer and it had metastasized to other parts of his body, I immediately panicked and then stepped up to help him. Then I found out from his family he had been lying to me and our mutual friends. He wasn’t after money but thought we would only stay his friends if he was sick. We were all his friends already but this has destroyed that. When I found out he had been lying I was angry but more so concerned bc he must be hurting so much emotionally and/or mentally to make such a lie. I told him I would still be his friend but he would have to tell everyone he told the truth. He did not so I did. This happened just recently and I don’t know where to go from here. He was my best friend; now I’m not sure if we should be friends at all.
I don't get pretending to be sick. I have several issues (PCOS, endometriosis, muscle spasms) and I feel like it doesn't bring me more care and attention, it isolates me. Being in pain and having troubles traveling makes it harder for me to do everyday tasks and I am too tired to go out and make friends. The whole thing is exhausting and lonely. I honestly don't see any benefits.
It's a "grass is greener on the other side" thing. Except the grass really is greener on the other side. And the person on the greener side is delusional
I know. The whole "benefits" thing did my head in. It is horrible and very isolating. I suppose it might be different with an acute illness but with chronic illnesses friends and even close family members seem to disappear from your life. Being chronically ill makes you feel like you don't belong to the world anymore.
Thus the "for no obvious benefit" side of the diagnosis. My understanding is that people with factitious disorder are suffering from other mental troubles (depression, anxiety, etc.) that keep them from going out and seeking attention in a healthy way. Faking a physical illness is a way to get attention they don't know how to get in a healthy way. They, like you, would be better of without being sick, but they have their own obstacles to going out and making friends. It's easier to get attention for a physical illness (provided it's on the pop-culture sympathy radar) than it is for psychological. "I'm undergoing tests, but we think it might be cancer" is going to get you a lot more support and attention than "I'm really depressed and having panic attacks at work."
I feel you :/ And actually often when you are actually seriously ill and, god forbid, from a rare disease (but "unfortunately" young and pretty) doctors then think you're faking..
my grandmother had a family friend that would act this way, she would act really pitiful to get your attention, but once she had your attention, she would act like nothing was wrong within 5 minutes of talking with you. then she would go back to acting pitiful and sickly as you left.
I have a friend with this. She has been through multiple hospitals in multiple states (because they eventually start to deny her treatment) and she so so broke and cannot work. She sustained Injury in her last surgery and now has something real (maybe it made her happy I finally have that?) but it’s so sad and so serious. Her life is destroyed. It’s an awful disorder
One of my Girl Scout leaders when I was younger pretended she had cancer for years, shaved her head and everything. Then one day she just disappeared. As a 10 year old it was freaky to find out later that she was faking
Several years ago, I saw a documentary on cable TV about Munchausen by Proxy. It was particularly disturbing. The documentary discussed a mother who broke her daughter's legs, so that she could be seen as a caring parent by doctors. Also, there was a mother who was constantly beating her child to get her injured, again, to appear to be a caring parent.
Im almost 99% sure that i have this disorder but i never actuall tell people that im 'Ill' i just kinda keep it to myself and think out situations of me telling my friends and them pitying me. i feel awful just because its just for sympathy/ attention
Mathew McGregor I actually avoid going to the doctor. Just yesterday I apparently bled from my face for no reason while I was at work. No one seemed to notice and the spot was very small, but to me it was obvious when I looked in the mirror after getting home. It's the first time I have bled spontaneously through my skin while in public that I know of. Yet this has been happening so much it isn't a scary thing. I often withhold information from doctors feeling that if I go into too much detail they will dismiss me which has happened before. Making matters worse I didn't have insurance before my current job so I was always bouncing from doctor to doctor to try and find out what is wrong. Now that I have a doctor and medical coverage I still hardly go. Every test done has been a waste so far. All my bloodwork, scans and examinations have come up empty (mostly). They can't prove anything's wrong. Even when something's wrong the answers I get feel incomplete. Not long ago I went in because my mouth started bleeding badly. A sore developed in my cheek and the doctor basically said these things are rare I don't see them often and we have no idea what causes it. So I learned that people can just have bloody, painful sores develop in their mouth for absolutely no reason at all and was prescribed some meds to reduce the swelling. Another $85 down the drain (most of it was for the meds).
I have Gaser Syndrome. Which is a less severe Factitious Disorder and I always fake symptoms of Bipolar Disorder or Schizophrenia and other Disorders for no reason and I don't know why I do it.
I used to fake being sick as a teenager to have time to finish reading a really good book. I was and still am a reading addict. I acknowledge that I need help.
This whole video made me go oof When I’m sick people leave me alone more often. Even with my mental illnesses I feel like no one cares and thinks I’m faking it. The only one who takes my mental health seriously is my therapist and sister. I can’t believe people who fake illness for attention because it takes away from the people who really have them. Which is why when I say I have a mental illness people brush it off and think I don’t. It’s horrible..
Would this include people who fake fainting only in crowds?? My sister is always faking an illness but when we were teens and went to pool parties with loads of people, there she'd choose her "pass out" place 🤦🤦. My mom always ran her to emergency but they never found anything wrong with her
people with chronic and rare diseases often get pegged as someone who is faking by many doctors. Its truly horrible to be told that when you are suffering! I have HAD TO hop from doctor to doctor because some dont believe me, and others dont know how to help. I have been willing to undergo scary procedures because I have tried so many other things, and am willing to try ANYTHING to feel even slightly better. And I tend to be calm talking about this stuff, because I have already been through so much, and getting worked up about things makes me feel worse.
Me too orlendatube. That descriptions raised my hackles. People don't seem to like the idea that doctors don't know everything, least of all doctors themselves!
I had a friend who clearly had this ... he mysteriously developed a "pain disorder," but it would only flare up if he were confronted or asked to do chores or something. He refused to work and his parents took care of him. He went to countless doctors and was offended that they didn't find anything. He would showcase all of his medical records and lab results in binders and show them off to people and talk for hours about his terrible pain. He once even said his pain was worse than a woman in labor. Interestingly, he was never in so much pain that he couldn't go shopping for designer clothes with his parents' money whenever he felt like it.
One time when I was sick. I watched both seasons of bravest warriors. Now when I get sick I get a bit of nostalgia of the time I discovered an awesome series
someone I know displays symptoms just like these... she's told me literally 5 separate times she has cancer, just to relish in the attention, then nonchalantly never bring it up again and actually told me that I was lying to them, about them when I finally called her on it... She once again claims to have cancer, as well as a large number of other disorders, (even D.I.D split personality). She refused to allow me to attend, or even drive to her last Dr appointment.
This one new girl came in to one of our robotics meetings, and she said super loud,” hi, sorry I have social anxiety!” And I’m like, sure, cause that’s why you’re saying it out loud to a room full of people
My mom was a nurse in the 80s, and she told me about a patient she had with factitious disorder who had been injecting feces into herself to cause infection. I think she ended up losing a leg or something.... serious business
My friend says he’s “depressed” and everyone believes him. He thinks his life is the worst out of everyone in the world when he acctualy does feel sad. He doesn’t care about anyone and fakes being depressed for attention. I also hate that ppl give him that attention.
I have pretty much the opposite of this, my psychological distress becomes real symptoms. It's called Somatoform Disorder, it's a type of Conversion Disorder that created psychosomatic symptoms and really the only way to treat it I've found is stress management and therapy. It's one of those times where "it's all in your head" is actually true, but knowing it just makes it worse because having that knowledge doesn't make my legs work any better or the pain any easier to deal with. Brains are weird yo lol
Although I can intellectually understand why someone might want the attention they get from the sick role, I really hate feeling sick and would much rather get attention by doing something positive or from achievement. When I'm sick, I don't want anyone near me, and I certainly don't want friends and loved ones to see me at my worst in a hospital or home in bed! I don't like people hovering over me, either. I can't understand poisoning or injuring myself in order to feel sick and get attention, either. Talk about self-defeating!
When I was little I barely lied about being sick because I knew that I couldn't trick anyone and I was sick a lot anyway. The few times I did fake it was after I got over an illness and just wanted another day at home.
My mother has this , it's impossible to live with and makes me cringe because I can see she is faking it . How are you supposed to deal with this when she is in denial about any of her behaviours .
I’m genuinely chronically ill & I have been since my teens. I’m kinda jealous of people who get a “sick role” that they enjoy without the physical symptoms I suffer. You can’t enjoy the extra attention when all you can think about is how much pain you’re in & people tend to get pretty blasé about your suffering after the 1st couple of years anyway. Plus factitious disorder sufferers can just decide to act like a treatment is working if there’s something physically demanding that they want to do. I doubt it’s a fun disorder to have but it sounds better than actual physical pain & illness... I was accused of “malingering” before my diagnosis
This is my half sister exactly. And what's horrible is the local hospital goes along with her it seems. Like mentioned, the doctors can't tell us what they are doing, but she's on 30 different prescriptions, she has a 5 year old now and that's been a nightmare too and sure enough her kids has a host of conditions as well. My half sister has had over three life threatening no cure diseases that she's basically forgotten about, one of which was MS and she got to the point where her legs were like toothpicks and she had to use a wheelchair. She certainly can start making symptoms to whatever she thinks she has. She's been this way here whole life and the internet's made it worse. She does have brain damage though and that's official, but before the accident she was like this before. Then she was in a literal car accident that injured her brain and she became way way worse. So if you know of a psych who wants to study someone, she won't admit but me and my mom and neighbors can assure that she's this way. Child services seems to never notice, she hides it all best she can when they show. But she'll get seizures but they are always convenient. Never when she's standing or in public. And having a close relationship with drugs myself, I can't imagine the haze that 30 prescriptions must be like either. It's hard having a sister like her, and we are always concerned about her 5 year old daughter. The government's at least half involved and kind of watching over her so she's not completely alone raising her daughter, but her daughter will become more intelligent than her mother in her teens and hopefully the damage my niece isn't too horrible. She's gone through a lot. Her father up getting into meth and thrown in and out of jail as her mom had a restraining order against him then blamed us for her doing that to him and getting back together only to get him thrown back in jail until he's free and in town but she has taught her daughter that her dad's evil and to be scared of him, like he's out there somewhere trying to get her. It's kind of nauseating when I really think about it.. She sometimes thinks her daughter's doing things against her, like elaborate plans that a 5 year old can't do. I could write a novel about her and the things that have happened. I must say, where I can sit around a day away, she can't have a day without some sort of life shattering something happening. So, yeah. Any psychologists here interested in such a person let me know. She needs help, more than she's getting.
And I also say my half sister because she's 45 and when she divorced she changed her last name to the same as mine even though we have different dads. What sucks is it makes her the only person in the area besides myself with my last name too. So I get to hear about her a lot from others in the town.
Lately, have often wondered if am hypochondriac and/or experiencing this factitious disorder. Problem is, when getting to the eldar years, a lot of additional medical problems DO arise, and eventually factitious disorder symptoms become real health disordars. For several years, was told by my GP doctar that blood tests werr showing mild anemia, low Vit D, othar puzzling symtoms of unknown cause. Recently went to endocrinologist who ordared more extensive tests that show hormone levels are way off, and potential celiac disease. Still, suspicious some symptoms are quite possibly psychosomatic.
This is terrible. As someone with a psychiatric condition that makes you feel like a fraud and someone who’s had cancer and fallen off a cliff and been hit by two cars, this video is making me feel worse. I wish I could fake this crap. But it’s all too real.
As a kid I started plugging my nose when I sneezed to get ear infections so I could have that delicious pink syrup medicine. Took me ages to break the habit. Not quite malingering since I actually did get ear infections from it.
ekpennock I had a sign language teacher who got on a student's case for holding in a sneeze like that because of the danger of damaging your eardrums and causing deafness
My 'friend' has facetious (I'm 100% postive) whenever we talk about anxiety (which me and three of my frieds have) or depression (which I have)he startes to get angry and say he has all these random things. He took paracetamol to get rid of a headaxhe and said if he didn't take it he could die (he was serious) he always claims he has 'important medication' in his bag (which he doesn't) and when we were talking about glasses, which most of us who were talking about it had, he claimed he had even though he said he never had them before, and when I asked him what prescription he said the one every one has. And other things that I can't be arsed to mention.
I learned how to throw up on demand. I can't even TELL you how useful that became in elementary and junior high. I can still do it but I haven't missed a day of work for illness in nine years so... Now I have a genetic disorder that makes it difficult to breathe, swallow and speak. It's WEIRD that you wheeze and gasp for air and you just kind of get used to it. Like "This is just my life now."
my father has this disorder , and its very disturbing . He started taking 3 tablespoons of salt everyday saying it helps with his constipation and now he has enlarged heart and other heart problems . He also took medication for parkinson and now he has become a bit crazy ...
I had a friend who would say she had lung cancer, she would go as far to pretend to not be able to breath, miss school to say that she was undergoing chemotherapy, she would even rip hair out her head and put it on the hair brush to scare us when we went to her house, when we found out she was lying she changed schools and literally vanished off our social group, pretty crazy
So who the hell deleted this highly informative and factual video and some of the comments??? I’ll tell you who Pyre Eight on TH-cam! Guess this hit tooooo close to home for them?!
I was accused of this after continuos complaints of chest pains and shortness of breath....for about six years. After extreme humiliation and embarrassment I withdrew to my home almost agoraphobicly and stopped ever seeing doctors for anything to avoid this diagnosis and humiliation. An accident occurred while I was washing dishes when a glass pot shattered leaving shards in my arm. Surgery was necessary to get them out. I had adverse reactions to the drugs and an anesthatist begged me one more time to see a heart doctor. Don't know why..but I did. He was the only doctor with the balls to say..I really don't know...I'm sending you to the MAO hospital in Minnesota . I went. Fourteen hours after getting there I was in a Cath Lab.. when I came out I was told I was in heart failure at three Mets. Normal is ten. Welcome to modern medicine. I'm a retired paramedic and that's what they did to me. I still don't leave my home much and took my own health into my hands. Diet revision, treadmill for cardio, self help mental therapy. Knowing what was wrong with me and that I wasn't crazy went a long way. With the exception of MAO I would rather die in my home than trust a doctor again. In my personal opinion there is a huge problem with doctors just not simply admitting that they don't know what's wrong with us sometimes so they would rather lable us as crazy than shade themselves by saying..." I don't know." It destroyed my life during that time and my marriage. How is that kind of damage done by doctors less bad than what they accused me of....but we're wrong. The answer is it's not... It's worse. I'm okay guys .. much better now taking care of me and I know how. Gonna be okay. If this has happened to you...you can take control of your life..I did. I will always be scarred though mentally. Love to all.
Do the patients even know that they're faking it, or is it just extreme hypochondriasis where they truly believe they're sick but that nobody believes them? I imagine if they feared that they were sick but had no visible symptoms, they might try to prove it in order to get the help they think they need.
My doctor is faffing around with me, and I think he thinks I’m faking when I tell him I don’t feel well. I just want to get the results of whatever is happening and get on with my life. I have a family history of heart disease, cancer and auto-immune disease.
My mom told us for decades she had colon cancer and had feet of colon removed and a big scar on her abdomen was from that as well as a later emergency cesarean. Last year, my sisters and I discovered that was all a lie, except for the c-section, and she in fact had a mental breakdown in that time period. My sisters and I won’t accuse her of anything, she believes her lie, and it won’t change anything. She’s old and sick. Sometimes you don’t report your discoveries because you love the person and you realize the only thing it’ll do is cause an unnecessary uproar with no end purpose except maybe embarrassment. We love her in spite of the many senseless lies we’ve discovered over the years, mostly stupid little things that leave us asking “Why?” I believe she believes her lies. She has a developmental disability as well, so maybe reality is much distorted anyway. No hurt feelings. Just strange water under the bridge.
It's best not to challenge anyone who has a delusion about it. Every therapist would tell you that. They have to come to recognize it as a delusion gradually. In this case, the fakse belief might not impact her in a negative way. In fact, it could be more of a false memory than a delusion. And, though none of us like to think about it, every single one of us will develop false memories. They usually don't involve cancer surgery! But still...
sadly-people with chronic illness (esp rare, severe, or difficult to reat disorders) are often eventually abandoned by friends and family for a whole host of reasons (not that any of them are acceptable)-its a very common topic in support groups for various illnesses...and so very sad. Sometimes it gets so bad that the sufferer is mentally abused by those who supposedly "love" them, often being accused of being malingerers and the like, Those supposed indicators that you mention, all apply to many chronic and rare conditions, because finding treatment is so difficult. "dr shopping" as that one is called-is a necessity when your current dr has eitehr a) no clue whats wrong with you, or b) hor to treat it (or both). Drs are so busy now that 9 times out pho 10, they wont help you find an appropriate specialist. so you have to just keep trying, sometimes picking at random. I just friggin hate the "attitude" of teh patient issue too. If i am in chronic pain and i act like its no big deal-then i may not be believed to be in pain at all. If i cry and scream and beg for pain pills-then i am seen as making it up as well....you cant win. This can happen with nay symptom or condition of course, but since you cnat do much to prove pain, its one that is particularly common (that and teh DEA and their dumbass regulations...) Lastly-yeah if i am suffering horribly, i am prtty likly to be willing to undergo a whole host of tests and proceeedures...people typical wants answers, and preferably sol.untions as well. and medicine is VERY far from perfect in reating the myriad of things that can go wrong in the body.
When I was in high school I couldn't quit vomiting and doctors kept thinking I was making myself vomit, which I wasn't. I ended up having severe stomach pain as well and I finally saw a doctor that was able to help me and advised me to sleep at an elevated level to my stomach acid wouldn't keep on seeping up into my esophagus and between that and some pills they gave me my body was able to heal itself in time and everything was fine.
I have chronic pain (fibromyalgia). Im not faking it. Once I started taking turmeric my inflammation that was showing up on my blood work went into remission. But the pain didn't go away, it just made it manageable. Without the turmeric my eyes and body hurt so bad I couldn't even have lights or sound in the room. Not faking it. My fibromyalgia started after I had gotten deathly sick when I was a teenager, it caused chronic severe neck pain that I experienced when I had the fever but it never went away fully, like the nerves got damaged. Also my short term memory was effected. Not faking it. Not lying. That's why I got un disability because I couldn't handle the level of pain I had while working full time, my body needed more recovery time otherwise my pain got too high and it became unbearable. Did NOT fake anything. If I could be cured I would take it in a heart beat. I would much rather have independence than dependence. And it never gained me any sympathy from my family. My mom used it to tell others when they asked why I didn't do anything or leave the house (because I was depressed and anxious on top of that socially) to clear her name, but behind closed doors she could careless. She, being a Narcissist, despised me for it. I have been asking my doctor over and over to get me better pain management and he wont cuz I guess he thinks im faking it since my childhood injuries and scars dont count as possible causes and my illness that was 106 tempter my parents didn't care to take me to the doctor over despite my siblings pleading. But yeah everyone who doesn't have a physically obvious pain source is faking their muscular pain. New science did a study showing that people who had fibromyalgia actually had far more nerve endings than most, perhaps as result of an illness as most do develop chronic pain after having been through either something traumatic (causing them to chronically tense up which I do have which is why I take muscle relaxers) or were physically ill and never recovered fully. Also something I went through. Denying my problem is denying my right to be treated effectively for my pain so that I CAN get to a better state of living. Saying im a liar and faking it isn't solving the pain that I do feel. My muscles btw in my neck are hard as rocks my chiropractor said. Maybe that can be some evidence that stressing my muscles 24/7 is real and is painful and exhausting and not a choice. Its an inability to relax no matter how hard I try which is why I got on pills.
I think my father have this Factitious disorder, he use to create sympathy on him self by saying i going to die in 2 years, but he is healthy and happy. Day by day it become too worse , to create sympathy he started to say my wife and son are very bad, keeping his face so sad, he always want to be in center of attraction. His syndrome causing me so many troubles, i don't know what to do. If any one know how to tackle him pls tell me.
I saw something about this in the Sixth Sense and was curious as to the details behind it, since things in movies usually aren't presented with perfect accuracy. What does it mean to say that the motivation behind faking an illness is unconscious? Does that mean that they do not realize that they want sympathy and attention?
Kinda makes sense if you look up "conversion disorder", people hear "oh gluten is soooo bad for you, GLUTEN FREE YEAH!!!!" and then subconsciously develop very real mental (but non-physical) symptoms to gluten and get sick, throw up etc. when they eat it just due to the whole gluten free fad propaganda and marketing. Literally getting sick of ads lol.
Maybe so But a lot of people might be blaming other minor digestive ailments ok "gluten" because they just want an easy answer and solution. That might not be very intelligent, but it's certainly very human. Factitious disorder is also very human but it's much more severe than that
Theirs people that have genuine health conditions that arent believed and dont get the help and support they need. However its really manipulative and cruel despite the mental illness if people lie about being ill, or threaten to kill themselves and end it all or say they've overdosed or drank alot and then pretend they didnt say or do that and carry on as normal. That is emotional abuse and emotional blackmail and in that regards you got to think of your own health and wellbeing and hope those hypocrondriacs receive the right kind of support they need. Boundaries are necessary as you can't deal with someone like that all the time on top of your own other worries and concerns to life issues.
I know there isn't any faking of illness for me, it's just the moods and the anger. But everything is tied into the social life, and while there is a present symptom going on, it's highly mental. And that's what I'm working on fixing. But here is a full breakdown of everything that remains: Lack of social life, irritability at times (especially due to hormones), emotional trouble with criticism. The rest, just all of the physical problems. I wish we could talk to each other and get to know everything that goes on. But as we know it's not very simple, the mental illness. Or rather the mental side. And it seems very true, that you can bring yourself out of your emotional problems, maybe to a certain capacity, I don't know. But one thing I know is that I'm making it, and especially when I understand things or get support, I get better.
First of all, what I'm going to write now is not directly about this video, but more generally about the way factitious is usually presented. I've always taken issue with the fact that factitious is only described from an external point of view (sort of like: "how to spot someone with factitious disorder), instead of explained from the Inside, i.e. the emotions and thought patterns, the feelings, that may lead someone to act that way (emotions, thought patterns, feelings, what any mental illness is about, roughly.) I do understand there is an apparent lack of studies on the subject. I just think the whole category ("factitious disorders") is poorly conceptualised. Also, the "lack of control" aspect is never stressed, leading people to think factitious is just some hobby anyone could decide to engage in. If that is acceptable to the medical community, that something classified as a mental illness should be some sort of activity a person has full control over, DECIDES to bring upon themselves, what does it say about the way mental illnesses are viewed in general? (yes, it just adds to the whole "get yourself together" "you're lazy" "you're not willing enough" bullsh** Gee, an illness is an illness and when we actually discover more and more about the brain we might find the barriere between "physical illness" and "mental illness" to be much thinner than what was innitially believed...And what makes an illness, whichever it is, is precisely that it is something beyound one's control) Now I DO believe that factitious is a real disorder and not some bizare, selfish hobby, and I do believe there is a "lack of control" aspect, some sort of emotional and/or cognitive struggle that leads to such a behaviour. That's what should be stressed as the symptomes, because those would be actual sympotmes, not just external signs. That's what makes an actual disorder. Sure, "underlying psychological issues" are often mentioned, all right, but it remains very vague. There might be more specific emotions/thought patterns (specific to the condition), and just like in any other disorder (or most of them), there might be "steps", "stages". It might take a whole lot of internal struggle and developpment before you actually end up in a hospital room having had an organ removed. Yeah, just my two cents..
Finally found what I have, I just want to come clean with it to everyone. If anyone says this is fake then faking having this would make me have this disorder am I right?
It would be worse if, they had chronic illness, and that they would fake being in the best of health. Would refuse to be seen by a Doctor or any health provider. Sometimes people do that because of the cost of medical care and the burden of not being able to work.
This isn't widely discussed so I'm glad I found a video on this. I had a friend with depression, I didn't know what it was, I researched what it was and I ended copying these symptoms, I ended up feeling depressed, same withing with bipolar, I'm not sure if I have them now or if I just copied them and I'm telling myself I have them, I don't post about it on social media and only 1 person knows about this, so It's not for sympathy. Is it factitious disorder?
There's a lady that I know who seems to have this as she even has a fake service dog too....its really sad but what's creepy is she gives off a really bad vibe and she manipulates people to feel bad for her but also to the point she puts people in a position of "a rock in a hard place" it's such mind games...sad really
How is this different (if it is different) from Illness Anxiety Disorder (AKA formerly "Hypochondriac Disorder")? I know that IAD patients genuinely believe they're sick and nobody can convince them, is there any form of deliberateness in Factitious Disorder?
So basically attention seeking and quite honestly especially strange behaviors of people that i have seen over the years seem to come from that: Like the girl that ate (foam) mattresses or the guy that ate bricks.
What does it mean if a person doesn't fake to be sick but likes when they are sick? They don't do anything deliberately to be sick but wishes something happened to them. They try to put themselves in situations that might harm them. Try their best to become sick/wounded
Is there a name for when someone has live long history of acute and chronic illnesses but a lot of people didn't acknowledge or thinking they are faking it?
I think for most of my teenage life I had Factitious disorder because I would lie a LOT. I believe the reason I lied a lot was because of my undiagnosed ADHD. ADHD for me I would always want attention! I loved attention!! But I also struggled with what kind of attention I wanted.. I didn’t know what I wanted but I loved the attention because it gave me dopamine! A quick fix! But I never thought about the consequences and I never quite prepared for the after math of a lie.. my brain never quite got out of the “fantasy thinking” and I still struggle today with trying to think realistically. But when I did think logically and realistically my autistic side of my brain took over and I would definitely be overthinking things and never really stopped overthinking about that certain subject. But my ADHD would make me feel umm depressed? I’m not sure if that’s the right word.. but my ADHD didn’t like me overthinking and staying on the same subject it wanted me to be spontaneous and have fun! So I ended up having a problem with wanting sameness and wanting a quick fix and fun!
that might explain why I tried to go to school while having a fever. Let's just say that I got negative attention instead of positive. That kinda broke my body, as I usually don't notice that I have a fever till I get to 38.5 °C - 39 °C and then collapse :s
I saw a news article about a woman who forced her daughter to act mentally disabled for her whole life (daughter was in her 20s) until her daughter killed her
Its the opposite in my country. People, specially women, gets sick, but lie...because it annoys other people and causes family members to abandon them. Its called--assholism.
sooo... can you fake having factitious disorder?
_meta_
Kaze Emanuar
you go to the doctor and say you feel fine?
Hypochondria is a real disease!!!
seeing as that it is a disorder, i guess you can. Just go up to the doctor and tell them that you have factitious disorder and then start faking a seizure (not recommended).
but someone with factitious disorder wouldn't just go up to a doctor and tell them. this is tricky I'm going to sleep
It's important to note that this _is_ still a disorder. People often try to claim that unhealthy people, especially people with mental disorders, are "just doing it for attention" in order to invalidate any struggles that the person may be having, but the fact is that those kinds of behaviors are still an indication that the person is not healthy even if they're not happening for the reason that one would normally think of them as happening for. Healthy people don't feel the need to go to such extreme measures just to get some attention.
Yes yes YES ♡♡♡
Nah we just hate lazy people
Maya Jade I’m quite of aware of that and I’ve been diagnosed with mosaic Down syndrome after I was given birth. Depression and stress is common having mosaic Down syndrome.
My mom is definitely one. Hi, I'm a 20yr old autistic guy, diagnosed with anxiety and Schizophrenia due to seeing very vivid images of me killing others around me, and my mom nowadays sees it as attention-seeking, which makes me swallow up my issues and pretend to be normal, despite getting angry at the very voice that eggs me on😐 why am I telling you and others this? Because I hate being accused of lying when someone I call family was in the room when I was diagnosed. So take heed to those with issues, don't let others tell you you're lying, it will hurt, and cause some DEEP hatred.
@@gaunterodimmmastermirrors72 I believe you people don't believe me then I say I have PTSD and also depression
My mom was accused of having this (Munchausen by proxy). I was extremely small and skinny as a baby so the doctors figured my mom was starving me to get the doctors attention. Turned out I just had dwarfism lol
This the funniest thing I've read all day
what an ordeal for your mom. i hope she can look back on it and laugh now... cause the whole internet is going to be laughing with or without her. :)
Sorry to hear that. Hope you got some hormone therapy soon enough.
OMG! I had something similar I have brittle bones and bruise and injure very easily and my parents were under suspicion for physical abuse for a while until my sister was diagnosed too and it was obvious it was genetic! It's funny with hindsight but pretty terrible for the parents really!
0mn1vore hormone therapy only helps those who have a type of dwarfism caused by low HGH levels. For other types, most types, it’s unhelpful and unnecessarily painful (shots for no purpose).
The best part about faking sick as a kid, was that you would always miraculously be cured by noon.
60 Second Success I have so many memories like this. Cool channel by the way. I like what you are doing :)
60 Second Success my parents had a rule that if you were too sick to go to school you were too sick to do anything extra curricular as well. Good deterrent for faking sick as a kid haha. Never got to do anything cool if I missed school due to illness
You had reasonable parents.
My brother used to get sick and get better by noon. . . We just called them mystery illnesses...
The worst thing is you are actually sick the next day but no believes you, so you go to school sick.
When I was younger, I was obsessed with physical disabilities and illnesses and would wish I had a disease that made it so I couldn't go outside and play with the other kids. That way adults would actually give me attention and I wouldn't have to face my bullies. I got older and my mental illness worsened and I made real friends who could help me cope with said illnesses, and looking back, I realize I was just a troubled, depressed child in distress, looking for tangible reasons to feel as different and attention-seeking as I felt
2020 edit: I've since been diagnosed with autism and for the first time ever, I have answers!
I used to fake a limp because I wanted special treatment and I still find myself doing it without thinking. I guess I just wanted special treatment from everybody or something
i do similar things nowadays... now, i do actually have illnesses/disorders, but the fact is: i have them under total control, yet i let them run rampant just because... i feel sad if i don't, i feel extrem guilt if i do, so i can't find any way around it, and in cases i even end up making myself be pitied by people... but this kinda stuff isn't among the presumed effects of my disorders, so is it character? nah, i don't believe so...
+ML Gesus Christ Dude throughout elementary school, I would complain of my knee hurting, hoping it would get serious enough that I wouldn't be able to walk, and then one time, in fifth grade, I spent an entire day walking on my heels so that the next day, it really hurt to walk but nobody cared because why should they
+iota-09 I think it could be a lack of (or a feeling of a lack of support) from the people you're closest to. A lot of my inward thinking dissipated once I started my relationship with my significant other of 3 years, and while I still will let things happen sometimes, I don't blame myself so much because I know that if I don't let it happen, I won't feel any of it, and I'll just be an emotionless blob, even though feeling it means what feels like faking a lot of the time
i feel like im just an hsp and i over exaggerate everything
im shy and afraid of talking to new people or performing in public so i say i have social anxiety.
my parents are really overprotective of me and never let me make my own decisions so i say they are narcissistic.
i dont know i just over exaggerate and overthink everything...😔
I'd love to see an episode contrasting this with Conversion Disorder and other Somatoform disorders where the person *isn't* faking their symptoms, but those symptoms have a psychological origin, rather than a a physical one. As someone with that type of somatoform disorder, the pain, paralysis, muscle spasms, night sweats, etc. that I go through are very real and definitely debilitating, even though they're the result of repressing my emotions, and not any direct physical cause. It may start in my head, but it certainly isn't fake, and it's not my choice. It would be nice to have some more awareness of this, especially since it's pretty common for people to conflate malingering, Factitious Disorder, and Conversion disorder as all being the same thing.
That would be a great contrast. I think one of the main differences between the two would be that people with conversion disorder experience pain and WANT to get rid of their pain whereas people with factitious disorder neither experience symptoms nor do they want their "illness" to end.
I've also had a somatoform disorder ... I think. The pain was very real and went on for years but multiple specialists and multiple tests came back with nothing. No response to various meds or treatments either. However, i WAS experiencing some rather significant psychiatric problems and some psychometric testing showed that i had high levels of somatisation.
But I really was in was all kinds of pain and distress. It was awful. And i desperately wanted answers and help. My weeks were filled to the brim with medical appointments.
I now believe that the pain *could* have been neurological but was just as likely, if not more likely to have been a conversion disorder.
I would and still do fake being sick to get LESS attention. Nobody takes "I'm having a bad mental health day" seriously, so I have to improvise. Or worse, when you I feel fine and just want time to myself and people can't take "no" for an answer.
So true!
I've had some serious medical issues and I've been trapped in the "sick role" for nearly a year. it's awful. I hate it. I can't stand people fussing over me and pitying me. I hate having to rely on other people to get me food or drive to the doctors or to get up and pee. I have pissed myself waiting for nurses to come help me to the bathroom because my muscles had atrophied and I couldn't get out of bed on my own. it's so infantilizing I can't stand it.
HeyHay i've been sick for nearly two years now and just as incapable as you described. unfortunately 13 doctors have been unable to diagnose me, so much of my family treats me like i'm just making it all up and won't stop pestering me to get a job when i can barely walk across the hoise or lift a fork to feed myself. it's shitty, and i don't understand why anyone would want this sort of attention.
they simply don't know the reality. That there's more to it than just lying in bed and having attention. Just like normal people don't know what disabled people come through and make judgments so those people have no idea what they wish for. That is actually pretty simple. At least from a perspective of an ill person.
@szczurek : it's not as simple, some of them actually become disabled as a result of the (unnecessary) surgeries they had. It's one of the main differences between faking for external gain and faking because of a disorder: the former wants to avoid actually getting hurt while the latter will let major damage done to their bodies. It's a serious disorder, not some hobby people have just because being sick can seem nice from the outside... (well, maybe there are such people too, who knows. The checklist for munchausen is so off because it focuses solely on what the disorder looks like from the outside. So little about the actual emotions and thought patterns that make people act this way.)
HeyHay Something tells me not everyone wants to be saved or helped at all times even though they cannot help themselves.
My mother had factitious disorder which was complicated by the fact that she had been a medical secretary in a hospital and so had an encyclopedic knowledge of every symptom imaginable. But she also had some serious medical problems, and figuring out which ones were real and which weren't was so difficult it eventually killed her. She repeatedly went to her doctor to complain of terrible abdominal pains and was prescribed aspirin and counselling. By the time they realized that she had stage 4 liver cancer, it had already spread all over her stomach, intestines, and pancreas, and it was too late to do anything about it.
NoJusticeNoPeace
I'm sorry for your loss/ the loss
it's like "The Boy Who Cried Wolf"
They would believe him for so long, like you fool me, shame you
You fool me twice shame on me
Fool me three times and you're dead
Since nothing would believe her, I guess she didn't even know she was in a hole to which she could never escape :(
+Lee Crawford When my mother went into hospice to die, I had a private conversation with the treating physician and asked him what her real condition was, since I couldn't rely on anything she told me, and explained to him the whole situation. What he told me is that in med school doctors are taught the aphorism, "Hypochondriacs have heart attacks too," specifically because of the situation with my mother. Even though she had a long history of factitious complaints, her doctor _should_ have taken her seriously every single time.
Maybe she shouldn't been so stupid. Natural selection in action.
1) I’m sorry for your loss
2) I’m sure it must have made her somewhat satisfied when she found out this terrible news. She could maybe finally say “see I told you I was sick”
Sorry, i tens to try to deflect sad stuff like this with humor :/
I'm sorry. But you need counseling, too. You're creating guilt for the consequences of your mother's behavior.
Your mother's Munchausen killed her. Your mother made bad choices.
We can't deprive others of care, and spend billions on testing, every symptom a Munchausen person claims to have.
When I was younger I wanted to have problems, mostly obsessed with braces and glasses, I'd spend time pushing on my teeth and sitting to close to the television. My oldest sister got a lot of attention cause of health problems, so I guess I wanted health problems to get attention. Now I'm the opposite
I think glasses could be genetics, for example if both or one of your parents have glasses or a lot of family members then there kids could need glasses
I was diagnosed with schizophrenia, but sometimes I really feel like I'm deceiving everyone and I don't actually have it.. like I experience the symptoms but like maybe it's just my brain trying to trick me into believing I have it..does that make sense?
I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder and ADHD and I feel the exact same way a lot. Like I'm just making it up for attention even though I know I'm not. I think it just might be a side effect of people not taking mental illness seriously.
I'd love to see a video on this if there's a technical definition or research for it.
Vikings488 i have suffered with a mysterious illness for nearly two years now. it is a real illness with real, debilitating physical symptoms, but because 13 doctors were unable to diagnose me, I still wonder sometimes if it's all in my head... so it's not just you. i recommend sharing with a close friend how you feel and reaching out to them when you are starting to doubt so they can bring you back around to reality.
Same. I think it's something with being more aware of how others may perceive you.
i got diagnosed with depression and anxiety and nothing sums up my feelings about it like that message.
Its the world you guys live in. Go out in nature and wonder. You'll realize things. Don't give in to the world trying to keep you tamed. Don't be bound by your beliefs. I hope you guys can understand this one day
In a hospital I work at a lady kept saying her son was sick and made him have tones of tests and surgeries (like get his appendix removed) because the child's father had left, so she thought if the child was critically ill he'd come back to her
Esmerelda Gonzales Yeah I think ppl always have reasons to do smthg, it is only the way we think
That makes me both sad and furious.
Munchhausen by proxy.
So we are to believe a surgeon performed an unnecessary appendectomy and other surgeries?
it's actually a type of malingering. It was done in hopes of an external reward.
Sadly, there's lots of people with actual illness that are made to feel like they are making things up. And sadly there are loads of people who HAVE to hop from doctor to doctor because of lack of care, insurance issues, etc. I'm glad the script mentions there are plenty of people with symptoms that match that actually ARE sick.
exactly yes!
Also it maybe could be likely that they have something else and not the disorder there claiming to have , I was thought to have autism even though I had adhd instead and I knew I wasent autistic but from a reason that at that age I thought made sense
thank you for making a video about this often misunderstood topic
Thank you very much for making this video after I asked you to. In the future it would be good to hear more about Munchausen syndrome by proxy MSBP. No one in my family believes me when I tell them that my mother has it. Maybe because she was so good at hiding it, and they have cognitive dissonance. They are intelligent, but they say they are 100% sure she does not have it. And they were not around her all the time, so that is just being willfully naive because they are too scared to even entertain the possibility that she does have it. Then she makes me into the scapegoat and the family joins in, because that is easier than hard truths. They didn't keep my medical records from 20 years ago when my mother accidentally admitted to my doctor to fabricating my illness and starving me. Now my brother has Stockhlom syndrome and I have agoraphobia and we depend on our mother like little children even though we are adults. I really think more people need to better understand MSBP from the signs to the symptoms and how it's hard to imagine such crazy behavior, but it is still very real! Hopefully in the future we can identify this aberrant behavior in its early stages so we can remove the children from these sick people before it ruins their whole life.
My "best friend" lied about having bone cancer and also said that she had leukemia as a child. Confronted her, because cancer runs in my family and because I was really mad at her for lying about such a serious topic. She ended our friendship and called me names. Couldn't forgive her and I was apparently the only one who knew. She didn't even tell her boyfriend or parents about her fake illness.
I'd love to hear about habitual / compulsive liars as a follow up
That's not a recognized disorder. It can be a behavior that shows up in various unrelated psychological disorders.
I had to deal with someone like this for 6 months. He faked a rare blood disorder and cancer. his research was astonishingly thorough and he was very smart. He could tell me textbook definitions of his illnesses and understood all the interworkings of them. He even knew who the only specialist in the state was that treated his disorder. He shaved his head and his body to simulate chemo symptoms. He made small incisions in his chest and side to simulate biopsy sites. In the end he even drilled a hole in his scalp to simulate a burr-hole to relieve cranial pressure. He didn't want anything material from me, he wasn't getting any benefits from work, and it really seemed like an overall burden to him. I was his support network for 6 months before I could prove he was faking it; but although I think part of him knew it wasn't real, I think that overall he had genuinely deluded himself into thinking he was sick.
Caleb Stroup
I'm pretty sure that person needs help if they go that far for something
Toxic Quartz
Yes he did. I ended up taking him to a mental health hospital when I found out the extent of everything he was faking. That was the last I ever heard from him, but his parents contacted me and told me thank you and that he was doing much better and had been abused by a friend's father when he was a child.
Caleb Stroup
I'm glad you did. and sorry for everything that happened. it must have been difficult
That is so super spooky! 😰
I’ve lost the majority of my family to cancer, so when my friend told me he had cancer and it had metastasized to other parts of his body, I immediately panicked and then stepped up to help him. Then I found out from his family he had been lying to me and our mutual friends. He wasn’t after money but thought we would only stay his friends if he was sick. We were all his friends already but this has destroyed that. When I found out he had been lying I was angry but more so concerned bc he must be hurting so much emotionally and/or mentally to make such a lie. I told him I would still be his friend but he would have to tell everyone he told the truth. He did not so I did. This happened just recently and I don’t know where to go from here. He was my best friend; now I’m not sure if we should be friends at all.
Please don't abandon him as a person suffering from this illness being abandoned was why he started faking his illness yeah? So please don't
I don't get pretending to be sick. I have several issues (PCOS, endometriosis, muscle spasms) and I feel like it doesn't bring me more care and attention, it isolates me. Being in pain and having troubles traveling makes it harder for me to do everyday tasks and I am too tired to go out and make friends. The whole thing is exhausting and lonely. I honestly don't see any benefits.
Agreed.
It's a "grass is greener on the other side" thing. Except the grass really is greener on the other side. And the person on the greener side is delusional
I know. The whole "benefits" thing did my head in. It is horrible and very isolating. I suppose it might be different with an acute illness but with chronic illnesses friends and even close family members seem to disappear from your life. Being chronically ill makes you feel like you don't belong to the world anymore.
Thus the "for no obvious benefit" side of the diagnosis. My understanding is that people with factitious disorder are suffering from other mental troubles (depression, anxiety, etc.) that keep them from going out and seeking attention in a healthy way. Faking a physical illness is a way to get attention they don't know how to get in a healthy way. They, like you, would be better of without being sick, but they have their own obstacles to going out and making friends. It's easier to get attention for a physical illness (provided it's on the pop-culture sympathy radar) than it is for psychological. "I'm undergoing tests, but we think it might be cancer" is going to get you a lot more support and attention than "I'm really depressed and having panic attacks at work."
I feel you :/
And actually often when you are actually seriously ill and, god forbid, from a rare disease (but "unfortunately" young and pretty) doctors then think you're faking..
i love this new channel.. thanks for great content scishow
"then they'll stop needing to fake it" because they finally became sick for real!
mission accomplished
my grandmother had a family friend that would act this way, she would act really pitiful to get your attention, but once she had your attention, she would act like nothing was wrong within 5 minutes of talking with you. then she would go back to acting pitiful and sickly as you left.
and she had a whole table full of perscriptions that she would show off to you every time you came to visit.
I have a friend with this. She has been through multiple hospitals in multiple states (because they eventually start to deny her treatment) and she so so broke and cannot work. She sustained Injury in her last surgery and now has something real (maybe it made her happy I finally have that?) but it’s so sad and so serious. Her life is destroyed. It’s an awful disorder
One of my Girl Scout leaders when I was younger pretended she had cancer for years, shaved her head and everything. Then one day she just disappeared. As a 10 year old it was freaky to find out later that she was faking
I believe it is related to egocentrism, malignant narcissism.
I believe those are Munchausen traits.
Grandiose pathological lying is the most obvious symptom.
Only narcissists and megalomaniacs will do this.
Several years ago, I saw a documentary on cable TV about Munchausen by Proxy. It was particularly disturbing. The documentary discussed a mother who broke her daughter's legs, so that she could be seen as a caring parent by doctors. Also, there was a mother who was constantly beating her child to get her injured, again, to appear to be a caring parent.
Im almost 99% sure that i have this disorder but i never actuall tell people that im 'Ill' i just kinda keep it to myself and think out situations of me telling my friends and them pitying me. i feel awful just because its just for sympathy/ attention
Mathew McGregor
I actually avoid going to the doctor. Just yesterday I apparently bled from my face for no reason while I was at work. No one seemed to notice and the spot was very small, but to me it was obvious when I looked in the mirror after getting home.
It's the first time I have bled spontaneously through my skin while in public that I know of.
Yet this has been happening so much it isn't a scary thing. I often withhold information from doctors feeling that if I go into too much detail they will dismiss me which has happened before.
Making matters worse I didn't have insurance before my current job so I was always bouncing from doctor to doctor to try and find out what is wrong.
Now that I have a doctor and medical coverage I still hardly go. Every test done has been a waste so far. All my bloodwork, scans and examinations have come up empty (mostly).
They can't prove anything's wrong. Even when something's wrong the answers I get feel incomplete.
Not long ago I went in because my mouth started bleeding badly. A sore developed in my cheek and the doctor basically said these things are rare I don't see them often and we have no idea what causes it. So I learned that people can just have bloody, painful sores develop in their mouth for absolutely no reason at all and was prescribed some meds to reduce the swelling.
Another $85 down the drain (most of it was for the meds).
hm im glad im not the only one
I have Gaser Syndrome. Which is a less severe Factitious Disorder and I always fake symptoms of Bipolar Disorder or Schizophrenia and other Disorders for no reason and I don't know why I do it.
I've lied too because the condition i was actually suffering from depression and no one understands how hard it is sometimes
Gaser syndrome?? do you mean Ganser?
I used to fake being sick as a teenager to have time to finish reading a really good book. I was and still am a reading addict. I acknowledge that I need help.
This whole video made me go oof
When I’m sick people leave me alone more often. Even with my mental illnesses I feel like no one cares and thinks I’m faking it. The only one who takes my mental health seriously is my therapist and sister. I can’t believe people who fake illness for attention because it takes away from the people who really have them. Which is why when I say I have a mental illness people brush it off and think I don’t. It’s horrible..
Would this include people who fake fainting only in crowds?? My sister is always faking an illness but when we were teens and went to pool parties with loads of people, there she'd choose her "pass out" place 🤦🤦. My mom always ran her to emergency but they never found anything wrong with her
people with chronic and rare diseases often get pegged as someone who is faking by many doctors. Its truly horrible to be told that when you are suffering! I have HAD TO hop from doctor to doctor because some dont believe me, and others dont know how to help. I have been willing to undergo scary procedures because I have tried so many other things, and am willing to try ANYTHING to feel even slightly better. And I tend to be calm talking about this stuff, because I have already been through so much, and getting worked up about things makes me feel worse.
Me too orlendatube. That descriptions raised my hackles. People don't seem to like the idea that doctors don't know everything, least of all doctors themselves!
Instagram influencers: **is mildly sad**
Also them: "I have crippling depression."
I had a friend who clearly had this ... he mysteriously developed a "pain disorder," but it would only flare up if he were confronted or asked to do chores or something. He refused to work and his parents took care of him. He went to countless doctors and was offended that they didn't find anything. He would showcase all of his medical records and lab results in binders and show them off to people and talk for hours about his terrible pain. He once even said his pain was worse than a woman in labor. Interestingly, he was never in so much pain that he couldn't go shopping for designer clothes with his parents' money whenever he felt like it.
One time when I was sick. I watched both seasons of bravest warriors. Now when I get sick I get a bit of nostalgia of the time I discovered an awesome series
someone I know displays symptoms just like these...
she's told me literally 5 separate times she has cancer, just to relish in the attention, then nonchalantly never bring it up again and actually told me that I was lying to them, about them when I finally called her on it...
She once again claims to have cancer, as well as a large number of other disorders, (even D.I.D split personality). She refused to allow me to attend, or even drive to her last Dr appointment.
Does Factitious Disorder cover faking mental illnesses aswell?
Flobbled yes
yes thats what happens with me
Love the HP reference for today!
Yeah man, Hewlett Packard are my favorite!
This one new girl came in to one of our robotics meetings, and she said super loud,” hi, sorry I have social anxiety!” And I’m like, sure, cause that’s why you’re saying it out loud to a room full of people
Ikr this girl in my school says she has depression and anxiety yet she's soooo open about it
You can be open about a real mental health problem you have without it being a plea for attention.
My mom was a nurse in the 80s, and she told me about a patient she had with factitious disorder who had been injecting feces into herself to cause infection. I think she ended up losing a leg or something.... serious business
the last two times I was sick I was reprimanded for not leaving work, but rather just vomiting in the restroom and getting back to work.
My friend says he’s “depressed” and everyone believes him. He thinks his life is the worst out of everyone in the world when he acctualy does feel sad. He doesn’t care about anyone and fakes being depressed for attention. I also hate that ppl give him that attention.
He probably IS depressed. Factitious disorder typically applies to false physical ailments.
@@ems7623 not really. I have FD, i faked both physical and mental illnesses.
Depressed ppl don't have the capacity to care about others or anything for that matter. He might actually be depressed
I have pretty much the opposite of this, my psychological distress becomes real symptoms. It's called Somatoform Disorder, it's a type of Conversion Disorder that created psychosomatic symptoms and really the only way to treat it I've found is stress management and therapy. It's one of those times where "it's all in your head" is actually true, but knowing it just makes it worse because having that knowledge doesn't make my legs work any better or the pain any easier to deal with. Brains are weird yo lol
I never faked, but I have so many actual problems, everyone thought I was faking it.
Have you looked into conversion disorder?
I’ve never even faked being sick to get out of school, so I never understood how people could fake serious things.
Although I can intellectually understand why someone might want the attention they get from the sick role, I really hate feeling sick and would much rather get attention by doing something positive or from achievement. When I'm sick, I don't want anyone near me, and I certainly don't want friends and loved ones to see me at my worst in a hospital or home in bed! I don't like people hovering over me, either. I can't understand poisoning or injuring myself in order to feel sick and get attention, either. Talk about self-defeating!
When I was little I barely lied about being sick because I knew that I couldn't trick anyone and I was sick a lot anyway. The few times I did fake it was after I got over an illness and just wanted another day at home.
My mother has this , it's impossible to live with and makes me cringe because I can see she is faking it . How are you supposed to deal with this when she is in denial about any of her behaviours .
How is she doing now if you don’t mind me asking? It’s a very difficult thing to deal with for sure for everyone involved.
I’m genuinely chronically ill & I have been since my teens. I’m kinda jealous of people who get a “sick role” that they enjoy without the physical symptoms I suffer. You can’t enjoy the extra attention when all you can think about is how much pain you’re in & people tend to get pretty blasé about your suffering after the 1st couple of years anyway. Plus factitious disorder sufferers can just decide to act like a treatment is working if there’s something physically demanding that they want to do. I doubt it’s a fun disorder to have but it sounds better than actual physical pain & illness... I was accused of “malingering” before my diagnosis
This is my half sister exactly. And what's horrible is the local hospital goes along with her it seems. Like mentioned, the doctors can't tell us what they are doing, but she's on 30 different prescriptions, she has a 5 year old now and that's been a nightmare too and sure enough her kids has a host of conditions as well. My half sister has had over three life threatening no cure diseases that she's basically forgotten about, one of which was MS and she got to the point where her legs were like toothpicks and she had to use a wheelchair. She certainly can start making symptoms to whatever she thinks she has. She's been this way here whole life and the internet's made it worse. She does have brain damage though and that's official, but before the accident she was like this before. Then she was in a literal car accident that injured her brain and she became way way worse. So if you know of a psych who wants to study someone, she won't admit but me and my mom and neighbors can assure that she's this way. Child services seems to never notice, she hides it all best she can when they show. But she'll get seizures but they are always convenient. Never when she's standing or in public. And having a close relationship with drugs myself, I can't imagine the haze that 30 prescriptions must be like either. It's hard having a sister like her, and we are always concerned about her 5 year old daughter. The government's at least half involved and kind of watching over her so she's not completely alone raising her daughter, but her daughter will become more intelligent than her mother in her teens and hopefully the damage my niece isn't too horrible. She's gone through a lot. Her father up getting into meth and thrown in and out of jail as her mom had a restraining order against him then blamed us for her doing that to him and getting back together only to get him thrown back in jail until he's free and in town but she has taught her daughter that her dad's evil and to be scared of him, like he's out there somewhere trying to get her. It's kind of nauseating when I really think about it.. She sometimes thinks her daughter's doing things against her, like elaborate plans that a 5 year old can't do. I could write a novel about her and the things that have happened. I must say, where I can sit around a day away, she can't have a day without some sort of life shattering something happening. So, yeah. Any psychologists here interested in such a person let me know. She needs help, more than she's getting.
And I also say my half sister because she's 45 and when she divorced she changed her last name to the same as mine even though we have different dads. What sucks is it makes her the only person in the area besides myself with my last name too. So I get to hear about her a lot from others in the town.
Love the Dr. House mention.
Lately, have often wondered if am hypochondriac and/or experiencing this factitious disorder. Problem is, when getting to the eldar years, a lot of additional medical problems DO arise, and eventually factitious disorder symptoms become real health disordars. For several years, was told by my GP doctar that blood tests werr showing mild anemia, low Vit D, othar puzzling symtoms of unknown cause. Recently went to endocrinologist who ordared more extensive tests that show hormone levels are way off, and potential celiac disease. Still, suspicious some symptoms are quite possibly psychosomatic.
This is terrible. As someone with a psychiatric condition that makes you feel like a fraud and someone who’s had cancer and fallen off a cliff and been hit by two cars, this video is making me feel worse. I wish I could fake this crap. But it’s all too real.
As a kid I started plugging my nose when I sneezed to get ear infections so I could have that delicious pink syrup medicine. Took me ages to break the habit. Not quite malingering since I actually did get ear infections from it.
ekpennock I had a sign language teacher who got on a student's case for holding in a sneeze like that because of the danger of damaging your eardrums and causing deafness
My 'friend' has facetious (I'm 100% postive) whenever we talk about anxiety (which me and three of my frieds have) or depression (which I have)he startes to get angry and say he has all these random things. He took paracetamol to get rid of a headaxhe and said if he didn't take it he could die (he was serious) he always claims he has 'important medication' in his bag (which he doesn't) and when we were talking about glasses, which most of us who were talking about it had, he claimed he had even though he said he never had them before, and when I asked him what prescription he said the one every one has. And other things that I can't be arsed to mention.
I learned how to throw up on demand. I can't even TELL you how useful that became in elementary and junior high. I can still do it but I haven't missed a day of work for illness in nine years so...
Now I have a genetic disorder that makes it difficult to breathe, swallow and speak. It's WEIRD that you wheeze and gasp for air and you just kind of get used to it. Like "This is just my life now."
my father has this disorder , and its very disturbing . He started taking 3 tablespoons of salt everyday saying it helps with his constipation and now he has enlarged heart and other heart problems . He also took medication for parkinson and now he has become a bit crazy ...
I had a friend who would say she had lung cancer, she would go as far to pretend to not be able to breath, miss school to say that she was undergoing chemotherapy, she would even rip hair out her head and put it on the hair brush to scare us when we went to her house, when we found out she was lying she changed schools and literally vanished off our social group, pretty crazy
I fake having leprosy when i have to get through a crowd of people
I try to find sympathy, I keep getting error 404-
So who the hell deleted this highly informative and factual video and some of the comments??? I’ll tell you who Pyre Eight on TH-cam! Guess this hit tooooo close to home for them?!
I was accused of this after continuos complaints of chest pains and shortness of breath....for about six years. After extreme humiliation and embarrassment I withdrew to my home almost agoraphobicly and stopped ever seeing doctors for anything to avoid this diagnosis and humiliation. An accident occurred while I was washing dishes when a glass pot shattered leaving shards in my arm. Surgery was necessary to get them out. I had adverse reactions to the drugs and an anesthatist begged me one more time to see a heart doctor. Don't know why..but I did. He was the only doctor with the balls to say..I really don't know...I'm sending you to the MAO hospital in Minnesota . I went. Fourteen hours after getting there I was in a Cath Lab.. when I came out I was told I was in heart failure at three Mets. Normal is ten. Welcome to modern medicine. I'm a retired paramedic and that's what they did to me. I still don't leave my home much and took my own health into my hands. Diet revision, treadmill for cardio, self help mental therapy. Knowing what was wrong with me and that I wasn't crazy went a long way. With the exception of MAO I would rather die in my home than trust a doctor again. In my personal opinion there is a huge problem with doctors just not simply admitting that they don't know what's wrong with us sometimes so they would rather lable us as crazy than shade themselves by saying..." I don't know." It destroyed my life during that time and my marriage. How is that kind of damage done by doctors less bad than what they accused me of....but we're wrong. The answer is it's not... It's worse. I'm okay guys .. much better now taking care of me and I know how. Gonna be okay. If this has happened to you...you can take control of your life..I did. I will always be scarred though mentally. Love to all.
Do the patients even know that they're faking it, or is it just extreme hypochondriasis where they truly believe they're sick but that nobody believes them? I imagine if they feared that they were sick but had no visible symptoms, they might try to prove it in order to get the help they think they need.
Yes, i know i was faking.
My doctor is faffing around with me, and I think he thinks I’m faking when I tell him I don’t feel well.
I just want to get the results of whatever is happening and get on with my life. I have a family history of heart disease, cancer and auto-immune disease.
My mom told us for decades she had colon cancer and had feet of colon removed and a big scar on her abdomen was from that as well as a later emergency cesarean. Last year, my sisters and I discovered that was all a lie, except for the c-section, and she in fact had a mental breakdown in that time period. My sisters and I won’t accuse her of anything, she believes her lie, and it won’t change anything. She’s old and sick. Sometimes you don’t report your discoveries because you love the person and you realize the only thing it’ll do is cause an unnecessary uproar with no end purpose except maybe embarrassment. We love her in spite of the many senseless lies we’ve discovered over the years, mostly stupid little things that leave us asking “Why?” I believe she believes her lies. She has a developmental disability as well, so maybe reality is much distorted anyway. No hurt feelings. Just strange water under the bridge.
It's best not to challenge anyone who has a delusion about it. Every therapist would tell you that. They have to come to recognize it as a delusion gradually.
In this case, the fakse belief might not impact her in a negative way. In fact, it could be more of a false memory than a delusion. And, though none of us like to think about it, every single one of us will develop false memories. They usually don't involve cancer surgery! But still...
sadly-people with chronic illness (esp rare, severe, or difficult to reat disorders) are often eventually abandoned by friends and family for a whole host of reasons (not that any of them are acceptable)-its a very common topic in support groups for various illnesses...and so very sad. Sometimes it gets so bad that the sufferer is mentally abused by those who supposedly "love" them, often being accused of being malingerers and the like,
Those supposed indicators that you mention, all apply to many chronic and rare conditions, because finding treatment is so difficult. "dr shopping" as that one is called-is a necessity when your current dr has eitehr a) no clue whats wrong with you, or b) hor to treat it (or both). Drs are so busy now that 9 times out pho 10, they wont help you find an appropriate specialist. so you have to just keep trying, sometimes picking at random.
I just friggin hate the "attitude" of teh patient issue too. If i am in chronic pain and i act like its no big deal-then i may not be believed to be in pain at all. If i cry and scream and beg for pain pills-then i am seen as making it up as well....you cant win. This can happen with nay symptom or condition of course, but since you cnat do much to prove pain, its one that is particularly common (that and teh DEA and their dumbass regulations...)
Lastly-yeah if i am suffering horribly, i am prtty likly to be willing to undergo a whole host of tests and proceeedures...people typical wants answers, and preferably sol.untions as well. and medicine is VERY far from perfect in reating the myriad of things that can go wrong in the body.
When I was in high school I couldn't quit vomiting and doctors kept thinking I was making myself vomit, which I wasn't. I ended up having severe stomach pain as well and I finally saw a doctor that was able to help me and advised me to sleep at an elevated level to my stomach acid wouldn't keep on seeping up into my esophagus and between that and some pills they gave me my body was able to heal itself in time and everything was fine.
I have chronic pain (fibromyalgia). Im not faking it. Once I started taking turmeric my inflammation that was showing up on my blood work went into remission. But the pain didn't go away, it just made it manageable. Without the turmeric my eyes and body hurt so bad I couldn't even have lights or sound in the room. Not faking it. My fibromyalgia started after I had gotten deathly sick when I was a teenager, it caused chronic severe neck pain that I experienced when I had the fever but it never went away fully, like the nerves got damaged. Also my short term memory was effected. Not faking it. Not lying. That's why I got un disability because I couldn't handle the level of pain I had while working full time, my body needed more recovery time otherwise my pain got too high and it became unbearable. Did NOT fake anything. If I could be cured I would take it in a heart beat. I would much rather have independence than dependence. And it never gained me any sympathy from my family. My mom used it to tell others when they asked why I didn't do anything or leave the house (because I was depressed and anxious on top of that socially) to clear her name, but behind closed doors she could careless. She, being a Narcissist, despised me for it. I have been asking my doctor over and over to get me better pain management and he wont cuz I guess he thinks im faking it since my childhood injuries and scars dont count as possible causes and my illness that was 106 tempter my parents didn't care to take me to the doctor over despite my siblings pleading. But yeah everyone who doesn't have a physically obvious pain source is faking their muscular pain. New science did a study showing that people who had fibromyalgia actually had far more nerve endings than most, perhaps as result of an illness as most do develop chronic pain after having been through either something traumatic (causing them to chronically tense up which I do have which is why I take muscle relaxers) or were physically ill and never recovered fully. Also something I went through. Denying my problem is denying my right to be treated effectively for my pain so that I CAN get to a better state of living. Saying im a liar and faking it isn't solving the pain that I do feel. My muscles btw in my neck are hard as rocks my chiropractor said. Maybe that can be some evidence that stressing my muscles 24/7 is real and is painful and exhausting and not a choice. Its an inability to relax no matter how hard I try which is why I got on pills.
I think my father have this Factitious disorder, he use to create sympathy on him self by saying i going to die in 2 years, but he is healthy and happy. Day by day it become too worse , to create sympathy he started to say my wife and son are very bad, keeping his face so sad, he always want to be in center of attraction. His syndrome causing me so many troubles, i don't know what to do. If any one know how to tackle him pls tell me.
Thank you for this! It so hard to articulate what's wrong with my Mother. Now how to move forward?
This sounds VERY serious!
I saw something about this in the Sixth Sense and was curious as to the details behind it, since things in movies usually aren't presented with perfect accuracy. What does it mean to say that the motivation behind faking an illness is unconscious? Does that mean that they do not realize that they want sympathy and attention?
A lot of people are faking celiac now-a-days.
Kinda makes sense if you look up "conversion disorder", people hear "oh gluten is soooo bad for you, GLUTEN FREE YEAH!!!!" and then subconsciously develop very real mental (but non-physical) symptoms to gluten and get sick, throw up etc. when they eat it just due to the whole gluten free fad propaganda and marketing. Literally getting sick of ads lol.
Maybe so But a lot of people might be blaming other minor digestive ailments ok "gluten" because they just want an easy answer and solution. That might not be very intelligent, but it's certainly very human.
Factitious disorder is also very human but it's much more severe than that
Theirs people that have genuine health conditions that arent believed and dont get the help and support they need. However its really manipulative and cruel despite the mental illness if people lie about being ill, or threaten to kill themselves and end it all or say they've overdosed or drank alot and then pretend they didnt say or do that and carry on as normal. That is emotional abuse and emotional blackmail and in that regards you got to think of your own health and wellbeing and hope those hypocrondriacs receive the right kind of support they need. Boundaries are necessary as you can't deal with someone like that all the time on top of your own other worries and concerns to life issues.
I know there isn't any faking of illness for me, it's just the moods and the anger. But everything is tied into the social life, and while there is a present symptom going on, it's highly mental. And that's what I'm working on fixing.
But here is a full breakdown of everything that remains: Lack of social life, irritability at times (especially due to hormones), emotional trouble with criticism. The rest, just all of the physical problems. I wish we could talk to each other and get to know everything that goes on. But as we know it's not very simple, the mental illness. Or rather the mental side. And it seems very true, that you can bring yourself out of your emotional problems, maybe to a certain capacity, I don't know. But one thing I know is that I'm making it, and especially when I understand things or get support, I get better.
First of all, what I'm going to write now is not directly about this video, but more generally about the way factitious is usually presented. I've always taken issue with the fact that factitious is only described from an external point of view (sort of like: "how to spot someone with factitious disorder), instead of explained from the Inside, i.e. the emotions and thought patterns, the feelings, that may lead someone to act that way (emotions, thought patterns, feelings, what any mental illness is about, roughly.) I do understand there is an apparent lack of studies on the subject. I just think the whole category ("factitious disorders") is poorly conceptualised. Also, the "lack of control" aspect is never stressed, leading people to think factitious is just some hobby anyone could decide to engage in. If that is acceptable to the medical community, that something classified as a mental illness should be some sort of activity a person has full control over, DECIDES to bring upon themselves, what does it say about the way mental illnesses are viewed in general? (yes, it just adds to the whole "get yourself together" "you're lazy" "you're not willing enough" bullsh** Gee, an illness is an illness and when we actually discover more and more about the brain we might find the barriere between "physical illness" and "mental illness" to be much thinner than what was innitially believed...And what makes an illness, whichever it is, is precisely that it is something beyound one's control) Now I DO believe that factitious is a real disorder and not some bizare, selfish hobby, and I do believe there is a "lack of control" aspect, some sort of emotional and/or cognitive struggle that leads to such a behaviour. That's what should be stressed as the symptomes, because those would be actual sympotmes, not just external signs. That's what makes an actual disorder. Sure, "underlying psychological issues" are often mentioned, all right, but it remains very vague. There might be more specific emotions/thought patterns (specific to the condition), and just like in any other disorder (or most of them), there might be "steps", "stages". It might take a whole lot of internal struggle and developpment before you actually end up in a hospital room having had an organ removed. Yeah, just my two cents..
What does the shirt say? It's making me crazy! >.
Julika7 My guess is ambidextrous. I spent half the video trying to figure that out.
Finally found what I have, I just want to come clean with it to everyone. If anyone says this is fake then faking having this would make me have this disorder am I right?
It would be worse if, they had chronic illness, and that they would fake being in the best of health. Would refuse to be seen by a Doctor or any health provider. Sometimes people do that because of the cost of medical care and the burden of not being able to work.
This isn't widely discussed so I'm glad I found a video on this. I had a friend with depression, I didn't know what it was, I researched what it was and I ended copying these symptoms, I ended up feeling depressed, same withing with bipolar, I'm not sure if I have them now or if I just copied them and I'm telling myself I have them, I don't post about it on social media and only 1 person knows about this, so It's not for sympathy. Is it factitious disorder?
There's a lady that I know who seems to have this as she even has a fake service dog too....its really sad but what's creepy is she gives off a really bad vibe and she manipulates people to feel bad for her but also to the point she puts people in a position of "a rock in a hard place" it's such mind games...sad really
How is this different (if it is different) from Illness Anxiety Disorder (AKA formerly "Hypochondriac Disorder")? I know that IAD patients genuinely believe they're sick and nobody can convince them, is there any form of deliberateness in Factitious Disorder?
So basically attention seeking and quite honestly especially strange behaviors of people that i have seen over the years seem to come from that: Like the girl that ate (foam) mattresses or the guy that ate bricks.
You guys should do a collab with Kati Morton. That would be awesome. :)
What does it mean if a person doesn't fake to be sick but likes when they are sick? They don't do anything deliberately to be sick but wishes something happened to them. They try to put themselves in situations that might harm them. Try their best to become sick/wounded
Is there a name for when someone has live long history of acute and chronic illnesses but a lot of people didn't acknowledge or thinking they are faking it?
no. its just called people being ignorant and neglectful and stigmatizing.
My mom has been working in the medical field for 25+ years. So I could never fake being sick, but it didn't matter. I was always actually sick.
Loved the House reference
great topic! another related suggestion, pseudoseizures!
I think for most of my teenage life I had Factitious disorder because I would lie a LOT. I believe the reason I lied a lot was because of my undiagnosed ADHD. ADHD for me I would always want attention! I loved attention!! But I also struggled with what kind of attention I wanted.. I didn’t know what I wanted but I loved the attention because it gave me dopamine! A quick fix! But I never thought about the consequences and I never quite prepared for the after math of a lie.. my brain never quite got out of the “fantasy thinking” and I still struggle today with trying to think realistically. But when I did think logically and realistically my autistic side of my brain took over and I would definitely be overthinking things and never really stopped overthinking about that certain subject. But my ADHD would make me feel umm depressed? I’m not sure if that’s the right word.. but my ADHD didn’t like me overthinking and staying on the same subject it wanted me to be spontaneous and have fun! So I ended up having a problem with wanting sameness and wanting a quick fix and fun!
that might explain why I tried to go to school while having a fever. Let's just say that I got negative attention instead of positive.
That kinda broke my body, as I usually don't notice that I have a fever till I get to 38.5 °C - 39 °C and then collapse :s
I saw a news article about a woman who forced her daughter to act mentally disabled for her whole life (daughter was in her 20s) until her daughter killed her
what about when people really think they have something that they don't? Like Chuck from Better Call Saul
Do psychosomatic disorders, & hypochondriac fall under this label of factitious?
What about giving them placebo medications instead?
Well, i was glad as child to get sick each time a presentation was infront of me xD
Its the opposite in my country. People, specially women, gets sick, but lie...because it annoys other people and causes family members to abandon them. Its called--assholism.
That jacket is too large for Hank.
What relevance is this inane comment?
When I got sick as a kid, my mom would just rub dirt on it.
Really sucked have a sore throat...
I'm in Year 8 and haven't missed a day of school since Year 5. Not BSing.