Factitious Disorder: Why People Fake Serious Illness 

sooo... can you fake having factitious disorder?

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.

The best part about faking sick as a kid, was that you would always miraculously be cured by noon.

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!

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

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'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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

I'd love to hear about habitual / compulsive liars as a follow up

"then they'll stop needing to fake it" because they finally became sick for real! mission accomplished

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?

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

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.

thank you for making a video about this often misunderstood topic

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 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.

Instagram influencers: **is mildly sad** Also them: "I have crippling depression."

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’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 love this new channel.. thanks for great content scishow

Does Factitious Disorder cover faking mental illnesses aswell?

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

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 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

I never faked, but I have so many actual problems, everyone thought I was faking 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.

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.

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

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..

I try to find sympathy, I keep getting error 404-

I believe it is related to egocentrism, malignant narcissism.

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.

Love the HP reference for today!

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

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

I’ve never even faked being sick to get out of school, so I never understood how people could fake serious things.

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 .

Love the Dr. House mention.

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 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.

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.

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.

Thank you for this! It so hard to articulate what's wrong with my Mother. Now how to move forward?

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.

I fake having leprosy when i have to get through a crowd of people

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.

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 ...

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.

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.

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

great topic! another related suggestion, pseudoseizures!

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.

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!

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."

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.

This sounds VERY serious!

Honestly, when I want to fake illness, I usually just raise my body temperature. Never figured out how I do it, I just kinda focus on it, and it happens.

Anyone think of Chuck from Better Call Saul?

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.

funny... faking a physical illness when ironically, that means they actually have a mental illness. Oh the irony XD

I have just been told I have factis disorder and have been faking systoms of disassociate identity disorder. How do I stop.

Is this in the dsm-5? Or is this a take on illness disorder?

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?

What about giving them placebo medications instead?

2:30 no one does that to me when i get sick, so, boi were they wrong

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?

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.

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.

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

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?

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

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.

What's the difference between factious illness disease and hypochondriacs?

What tshirt is he wearing?

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.

you're just describing everyone on the internet

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?

I LOVE THIS

So who the hell deleted this highly informative and factual video and some of the comments??? I’ll tell you who Pyre Eight on RU-vid! Guess this hit tooooo close to home for them?!

Do psychosomatic disorders, & hypochondriac fall under this label of factitious?

I wonder if there is any correlation between factitious disorder and narcissistic personality disorder? In pondering that, I mean that I wonder if those with NPD are more likely to exhibit symptoms of factitous disorder.

When I got sick as a kid, my mom would just rub dirt on it. Really sucked have a sore throat...

Loved the House reference

Did the video misspell 'nausea' at 3:35 or am I spelling it wrong? Or is nausia a different thing?

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?

What does the shirt say? It's making me crazy! >.

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.

A lot of people are faking celiac now-a-days.

what about when people really think they have something that they don't? Like Chuck from Better Call Saul

So how do you differentiate a hypochondriac from someone with factitious disorder...that is if it is diagnosed or suspected?

Is this different than hypochondria? Like, is it a different diagnosis if the person *believes* that they are ill rather than deliberately fakes it?

That jacket is too large for Hank.

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.

So if you really really feel bad even though there's nothing really wrong, are you faking it? Does someone who actually experiences symptoms of something, which is definitely a mind-over-matter thing due to perhaps wanting people to pay attention to them, but not consciously ACTING ill when they really feel physically fine, is it still factitious disorder? Or, if people harm themselves physically because they do not believe their bad emotions are valid unless they are experiencing physical ailment (ie people will think "wow they must be going through a hard time if they are driven to physically injure themselves") is it factitious disorder?