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In 2008, a Baltimore woman named Dina Leone shared shocking news with her friends and family: she had been diagnosed with stomach cancer. She wrote blogs and Facebook notes, updating everyone on her treatment and progress. The 37-year-old mother of two received more than an outpouring of support and get-well cards; she also got money to help pay for her treatments and fulfill her dying wishes.
Why People Fake Illness | LiveScience
Seeded on Tue Mar 16, 2010 11:13 PM EDT
Article Source: Live Science- Enjoy this article? Help vote it up the 'Vine.
- Public Discussion (17)
Usually the main motivation for faking an illness is to gain sympathy. People like being the center of attention; they like the constant stream of well-wishes and gifts, concerned calls from old friends and others.
- 3 votes
#1 - Tue Mar 16, 2010 11:14 PM EDTIt's unfortunately far-too-common. People who have worked in the medical field for some time will find themselves running across a surprising number of fakers. The most typical warning sign is some sort of crisis, real or imagined, after which the person becomes "ill" in order to garner sympathy and manipulate those around them.
Now, while the person themselves may not be physically sick, they're mentally ill in my opinion. Anyone that would fake a serious illness to manipulate and deceive others should come down with something about ten times as bad as what they pretended to have.
- 3 votes
Now, while the person themselves may not be physically sick, they're mentally ill in my opinion.
It really is a form of mental illness, known as Munchausen Syndrome:
Munchausen syndrome is a type of factitious disorder, or mental illness, in which a person repeatedly acts as if he or she has a physical or mental disorder when, in truth, they have caused the symptoms. People with factitious disorders act this way because of an inner need to be seen as ill or injured, not to achieve a concrete benefit, such as financial gain. They are even willing to undergo painful or risky tests and operations in order to get the sympathy and special attention given to people who are truly ill. Munchausen syndrome is a mental illness associated with severe emotional difficulties.
Some people lie about illness to get out of doing something and others, to get attention. Manchausen's syndrome is a psychiatric illness where people can even go to get even loved ill in order to get people's attention.... It's a very sad disease.
- 2 votes
#2 - Tue Mar 16, 2010 11:38 PM EDTAh, Hek, we have had patients that actually make them themselves sick on purpose to get admitted and the family isn't always helping. One girl that we have taken care of for years, a frequent flier, is in denial and so is her family in spite of best efforts to help them. It's sad....
I do know so people call in sick to work when they need a day off. I wish I could have one, one being a day off that is...=(
I got more dental surgery this week.....
- 2 votes
Lilth - When I need a "mental" health day off, I say so.....no sense in lying about it....once I was seen shopping, lol - it does help my state of mind:) And face it, we all need a break, a s a rest every now and then helps, in warding off, really getting sick,
On a serious note, yes Lilth....I am all too familiar with the "frequent" flier....they control their families and they are really "all" sick and suffer for it. My mother is a hypochondriac...no one can be sick if she isn't sicker....been like that all my life. For Gods sake, he just got over a bout of pneumonia, was released after only one night of observation and some antibiotics and there goes my mother with her "sinus" infections, how much worse off she is, doctor trips all week and he's trying to get better, at 80 years old. It's no wonder he stays in great health, she gets sick enough for 4 people. When he had his open heart surgery a year ago, a valve transplant - out of the ICU in one day and home 3 days later....she goes on to have heart problems, only to find out after several doctor appointments, time consuming and stressful on my dad, she's is told "stop eating so much @!$%#" basically. Her being overweight keeps compounding her illnesses or rather symptoms of everything.... I can't stand it. I say "Be careful what you pray for" and "Don't paint that devil on the wall". Ya Know, Hek
- 2 votes
As time goes on - and we humans become ever more isolated from one another - the medical experience is one of the last bastions of "compassionate caring" there is for many people. So, as time marches ever on, the hypochondriacs among us divert scare medical resources to themselves not because they really need that kind of help, but because no one has the guts...and I mean the families in some cases...to just say "no" to this class of people.
The kind of "care" I think that is more needed by the average hypochondriac I've known is basic human attention, human touch, some compassion. The correct medical resources for this are the social workers and psychiatric services...which unfortunately are maligned by the generally public and are so stigmatized that people like the hypochondriacs aren't interesting in going there, because that isn't the kind of attention they, or anyone else, wants.
And, in part because of the hypochondriacs - who are more and more empowered by the internet - the rest of the population that has a hard-to-diagnose medical condition have a hard time getting diagnosed because the physicians/caretakers have already been abused by the hypochondriacs.
I don't think we really have it down on how to deal with the hypochondriacs, and that's the way they like it, because they can just go right on doing what they do, while we all wring our hands and wonder when, and if, it will ever stop.....
- 2 votes
US - your absolutely right...but when a person recognizes it...then they, the abused one of they hypochondriacs has to say "no". I did. I was tired of hearing the crap, tired of being made to feel guilty and sick of seeing the selfish strain it puts on my father and his money, for her future, (which he freely spends to care for her). If she doesn't get the attention at the Dr.''s office, then it's with other patients, in the cafeteria, friends, lunch....I hate what it does to everyone around them. I left and won't go back. I said it lovingly, and firmly. My dad understand this, and he just does his own thing...and allows it to be a form of "social" life for her....oh well. He golfs, she eats....too each their own...I go my way too. Hek Good to see you:)
- 3 votes
I totally agree, Hek, that mental health day off does wonders! =)
As for the frequent fleirs, it wears on staff and family or the family might be part of the problem. tjis one girl ( she's my gae) I knew coming since we were both 25. Now, she does have a physical health problem with her diabetes, but we all know and have cuaght her being deliberately noncompliant and trying to make herself sick so she could stay in the hospital longer! She's overall, a nice girl, but she has just so much else going and the family is no help at all. In fact they enable her by bringing all teh food she shouldn't eat and other things... and that's just one of our frequent fliers...
++sighs+++
And US is right. Hypochondriacs do really want more attention, attention that they feel they are not getting in their lives and then you get the worse case scenario where one woman lies about having cancer and worse.
BTW, the girl I mentioned, when she's not being hyper, is very sweet. She makes the nursing staff poems and draws us pictures and stuff. I still have the picture she drew of me......
- 3 votes
Sorry to be nitpicky here, but I just want to clarify the difference between hypochondriacs and malingerers. Hypochondriacs aren't in it for attention - they really, truly believe that they have a serious illness and are looking to get care for it, whereas a malingerer knows that they're faking their condition in order to get attention/money/whatever.
- 3 votes
My ex-wife has told people for years that she has breast cancer. She didn't, she has Fibrocystic Breast Disease. She did have radical double mastectomies, but no cancer. I was there through it all, had been dating her for about a year before the diagnoses and surgery. We had to wait for the pathology report to be sure but there was no cancer. It was such good news.
We were married less than a year later. It wasn't until we were divorced after 13 years that I found out she had been telling people she had been in chemo and radiation therapy throughout our marriage. She told them that she hadn't told me and the kids because she didn't want to worry us. The ironic part is we were both in the medical field, worked together much of that time and spent only a couple days apart in all that time. There was absolutely no way she was having any type of treatment. She did have more surgeries to remove more cysts from the tissue that they didn't remove but it was all done with a local in the Dr.s office. I was there every time.
I have done a lot of volunteer work for the American Cancer Society and have known many people with cancer. I've seen what chemo and radiation, not to mention the cancer, does to people. I've lost a lot of friends to cancer and it makes me very angry that she and others would lie about something like this. The truth was bad enough.
Sympathy? Insanity? Wrong no matter what the reason.
- 6 votes
#3 - Tue Mar 16, 2010 11:52 PM EDTIt is wrong to use use people no matter how it's done. I have had family die from cancer and it's not pretty but go that far, is to make light of the plight of those with cancer.
I certainly don't want cancer and wouldn't want anyone to have it. It a cruel plague on humankind.
This woman should been spotted and got the mental help before she went that far....
- 2 votes
It's called Factious Illness Disorder. It is a real mental illness. Sad thing is there isn't much treatment for it, and most who have it are in denial, and never seek the treatment, which isn't really very successful anyway. The good news is it does tend to get better in the fourth decade of life with some people.
- 1 vote
#4 - Wed Mar 17, 2010 8:08 AM EDTAs someone with multiple chronic, incurable, and potentially life-limiting conditions, I will never understand why someone would want to live the life of a sick person. There is nothing fun about doctors' appointments and hospitalizations. I'd give anything to never see another doctor or hospital again in my life.
#5 - Wed Mar 17, 2010 4:32 PM EDTI second that, I broke my wrist in '99 and have had 5 surgeries and about 30 nerve blocks. I've had to go into the hospital O.R. or a surgery center for every one of those procedures over the last 10 years, why anyone would want to be in the hospital just for the attention is beyond me. If I never see another hospital I wouldn't mind a bit.go
- 2 votes
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