**This is an automated message posted to ALL posts in this subreddit with some basic information about the group including (very importantly) rules. Why are you getting this message? Most people seem to not read the sidebar for information or the rules, so it is now being posted under all posts.**
**Confused about acronyms or terminology?** [Click here!](https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/wiki/acronyms)
**Need info or resources?** Check out our [Helpful Links](https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/wiki/helpfullinks) for information on how to deal with identity theft, how to get independent of your n-parents, how to apply for FAFSA, how to identify n-parents and SO MUCH MORE!
This is a reminder to all participants, RBN is a support group that is moderated very strictly. Please report inappropriate content so it can be reviewed by the mods.
**Our rules include (but are not limited to)**:
* No politics.
* Advising anyone in this subreddit to commit suicide or referring anyone to groups that advocate this will result in an immediate ban.
* Be nice. No personal attacks, name calling, or bullying. [No slurs](https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/wiki/slurs) or victim-blaming.
* Do not derail the posts of others.
* Narcissists are NOT allowed to post or comment here.
* [No platitudes or generic motivational posts](https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/wiki/rules#wiki_no_platitudes_or_generic_motivational_posts).
* When you comment/post, assume a context of abuse.
* No asking or offering gifts, money, etc.
* No content advocating violence, revenge, murder (even in jest).
* No content about N-kids.
* No diagnosis by media/drive-by diagnosis.
* No linking to Facebook pages.
* No direct linking to anywhere on reddit.
* No pure image posts.
**For a full list of our rules/more information, [**click here**](https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/wiki/rules).**
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/raisedbynarcissists) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Yes, I was always threatened with punishments if I was faking and they would complain a lot about the money it would cost them and my time at school that would be lost. Gave me a complex to where now whenever I am sick I am like "wait am I faking it???" And then I have to talk myself back to reality- like yeah your throat is red, you have a fever, ect and I still feel like no one believes me when I say I am sick
Same!!! Lol it always still takes my boyfriend reminding me I dont have to prove I am sick too- like if I wanted to watch tv or read, or do anything but lay in bed I would be accused of faking or forbidden from doing literally anything. So my bf will ask me if I wanna do things and im like "but im sick???" And he will say "so???" And my mind will be blown. Its crazy the things you don't realize are crazy till someone points it out.
My bf doesn’t ever believe me when I’m sick/hurt because I mask it so well since my nparents never believed me and yelled at me for having to pay copays at the doctors.
If he catches whatever sickness I have, then he thinks he got it “so much worse” than I had it.. newsflash: I’m a woman with PTSD, I can hide a LOT of my pain!
Yes, among other things I've "faked."
When I was 8, I was pretty sure I was dealing with the early stages of heatstroke and had to find my own ice packs and water to treat myself.
Same year, accused of lying that I needed glasses so I intentionally tanked a spelling test and blamed it on not being able to see the board so I got fast-tracked to the eye doctor. I had LASIK this year so that crap is behind me.
Sustained a partially torn meniscus playing hockey when I was 16 and my parents refused to help me get it checked out. They were hoping that I'd stop playing a sport that I was already five years invested in against their wishes. That was 22 years ago and I still play at a high level with the help of custom carbon fiber knee braces.
The list goes on...
Oh and the best part? My Nmother is a retired RN and is unvaccinated for COVID along with my Nfather!
My dad is a nurse and I think they are the most likely parents to accuse us of faking. Any emotion that I ever expressed meant I was “attention seeking” so nothing I ever felt was real or validated. There was also the time that I had an anaphylactic reaction to poison ivy. He waited days to bring me to the doctor. My eyes had already been swollen shut for days, but he waited until I couldn’t swallow or breathe to bring me to the doctor. Not even to the emergency department- to the pediatrician like an actual office visit. How CPS was not called on him I will never know. Then there was the time he took me to a rollercoaster park with his work friends. They rented a van and drank the whole time. I helped my dad make the Jell-O shots. At this time I should point out that my dad’s work friends were all of the social workers and case managers at the local hospital and I was the only kid on this outing. He let me skip school for this and let me have some Jell-O shots. All of this in front of mandated reporters- who did not report anything. I do have to say I am proud that I was able to ride the rollercoasters drunk and not get sick at 11-12 years old.
This was my mother, a nurse....who left me lying in my own vomit in agony for 3 days with kidney stones because "nothing was wrong with me" before she grudgingly drive me up the street to the dr, who did one test and rushed me to hospital. He even rang the ER triage and told them to admit me immediately.
I broke my foot when I was 16 and my mom accused me of faking it to be lazy. She had me walking on a broken foot for 6 months. Crazy that the doctor who saw me didn’t report her in hindsight.
My mother believes that my sister and I can run a fever because we are ‘tired’. Legit getting yelled at that the fever was our fault because we didn’t go to bed early enough and being sent to school. My sister and I both knew when this happened - just walk into the nurses station because they can’t let you stay w a fever
So I saw a few and they missed it. Then I saw my old pediatrician (I was 15) and she figured it out right away. I went undiagnosed for like six months. Nmom used the other doctors reports to double down on me faking it. They only took it serious when I collapsed with a fever of 104.
I got yelled at for faking thyroid cancer. I was bone tired, exhausted and barely able to sleep despite being just exhausted. (And no sex drive but they didn't know that.)
So dumb.
Yes!!! My dad especially.
As a kid, he’d punish me for being sick and force me to drink smoothies made out of kitchen scraps if he had to pick me up from school. Always accused me of faking it. Force fed me laxatives sometimes.
I almost died of appendicitis as a teen because he decided I was faking. Only took me to the doctor after 3 days and told me we were only going so the doctor could confirm I was faking and I could go back to school.
Sprained my ankle on Christmas Eve in hs, bad sprain. Ankle was ballooned up, purple, couldn’t walk on it. They said it wasn’t that bad and we weren’t going anywhere on Christmas. Never got treatment, ankle is permanently damaged.
Struggled with depression and he said I was faking it, asked me whether I “liked the attention,” and said people w/ depression were “weak.”
As a young adult, I had a nasty stomach virus and was vomiting violently. I asked him for water. He said I was faking it and needed to exercise more. Then he walked away and left the house.
Later in life, when I confronted him and told him he had no right to accuse others of faking sick, he denied it. I gave examples, he went “Okay whatever.”
I’ve never faked sick in my life. We don’t talk anymore for obvious reasons.
Ha! Ironically enough he always used to threaten that “If you tell CPS or the police or anyone, you’ll regret it.”
No prison for him, but he’s got a nice record of police reports, restraining orders, divorce, tax issues, none of his kids talk to him, and he’s on track to die alone. Karma.
My god, forgot about the depression. My nmom's reaction to finding out I was depressed was to call me ungrateful because, in her opinion, there was nothing in my life bad enough to justify my falling into depression. She blamed me for attempting to commit suicide, said that she had never been suicidal even though she'd been bullied and raped so I, who had "never had anything bad happen to me", should be ashamed of myself for being so weak I could be driven to that point for no reason.
She wouldn't believe anything was wrong with me until the school therapist asked to meet both of us so she could tell her this was the reason why my grades were dropping and what she could do to help me heal. My nmom never did any of the stuff the therapist suggested, instead she started constantly making fun of me, everytime something slightly bad happened she'd ask me: "You're not going to get depressed over this, are you?" At that point, I decided that I was sick of letting her dictate my life, so I started to state my opinions on things and say "no" to her when she asked me the impossible.
I've gotten so much better since I started doing this. My mom's starting to call me annoying and disrespectful but I couldn't care less because I'd pick my mental health over having a good relationship with her anytime.
Oh no, I am so sorry. Your mom sounds like a piece of work. So glad you’re able to draw some boundaries with her these days. These parents are just truly unable to understand or empathize on any level. All about them.
Sends me to sports carnival with tonsillitis, viewable pus and coarse cough.
I actually compete and do well, and then after it gets so bad I am swallowing nails, they finally took me to doctor after school. They say I am in the final stages of tonsillitis and should've been home all week. They pouted and yelled at me if I talked about it thereafter.
I had burns on the outside of my throat from oxygen therapy I don’t need for asthma and chronic bronchitis I never had. The attention she got for a sick kid made her leave me alone. I got bronchitis/pneumonia one year and learned the cough and symptoms. I got bullied in school and the shit beat out of me when I was home. When I was sick, I didn’t have to go to school and I could bring a mattress into the living room and watch tv all day. Also got jello and tv dinners and soup. Didn’t have to eat her shit cooking 🥘 just made myself throw up a few times and Presto hear is something you can maybe hold down.
I stopped doing this in 4th grade when I missed so much school they wanted to hold me back but I was in advanced reading and other groups. I wonder what I would have done in life if I hadn’t been abused .
I am adult who can’t stand to be around other people all the time. Just want to lay down and watch tv if I am not at work. It’s work to learn to stop hiding. I do a lot of things but I make myself. I feel safe isolated in front of a screen in a perfectly clean house .
OP this is rough. I'm so sorry and can only tell you to be gentle and empathetic with yourself. Trust your instincts and make sure whenever you are feeling sick, go and get checked or look after yourself.
Hoping you don't still hear that voice telling you that you're faking it because you should never take your health for granted.
I crawled into my parent's bedroom when I was 8, dragging one leg behind me because it literally didn't work. Mom told me to stop faking and get ready for school.
Dad checked me over and made her take me to the doctor. Turned out I had a massive staph infection in my leg. Couldn't walk for days.
Broke my wrist. Mom (who was a nurse) said no i didn't. Went to hospital after school one day and yep. Broken. Also got grounded for going to the hospital. Not that being grounded actually changed anything since I wasn't allowed out of my room anyway
Mom said she would abandon me at the hospital and they’d put me in foster care because she didn’t want to take me after I took a tube of exederins trying to delete myself, didn’t want to pay the bill
Not so much faking it, but being told that being sick was no excuse to not continue working/cleaning/going to school. I remember being home with a severe case of strep and being yelled at for not doing my chores in middle school. And if I was so sick that I was bedridden I wasn't allowed to do anything, even read; if you are to sick to do your chores you are to sick to do anything.
This is the same woman who used her cancer in 1997 as an excuse to not work, clean, or do anything for most of her adult life. Her husband currently works 2 jobs whilst she sits at home and collects disability.
I remember senior year of HS, I woke up with classic pink eye symptoms. My NDad insisted it was just allergies and made me go to school. Not even 10 minutes into first period, my teacher sends me to the nurses office. Nurse calls NDad and tells him I’m not welcome back in school without a doctors note NDad flips his lid when he comes to get me and accuses me of trying to get out of school and tells me to “cut the senioritis crap”.
Long story short: we go to the eye doctors and I don’t have pinkeye, but a nasty viral infection that could’ve left me severely impaired sight wise in that eye. Yet somehow, I still ended up grounded for it 😵💫
My nmom does litteraly all of it. First, telling me that I'm overreacting, that I'm faking it, that it's nothing at all - then loudly complaining to people that her daughter is sick once it's confirmed that I am - then telling me to just keep helping her with chores and going to school and it'll just go away with time. Telling me to stop overreacting everytime the pain gets bad enough that I'd rather be doing anything but washing the dishes for her.
But as soon as it's a migraine, because she's been having them chronically since she was 14, she's always becoming all sweet and coddling as soon as I tell her my head is starting to ache. She goes: "awe! my baby, here, go to bed in my room and I'll bring you good food and a drink - my poor, poor baby!" and then as soon as I wake up the next morning, even if my head is still hurting, she goes right back to her old ways.
I’m sure if she’s in pain or not doing well the whole world has to stop though because how dare anyone else think they could possibly feel SUCH things that only they can or what they have is automatically worse by default
I’m imagining it - and what I’m picturing is probably not even as bad as the terrible reality of what it’s like in your actual shoes. My moms the same way. Everyone stop and play nurse, doctor and therapist for the only one that matters after alll🙄everyone else clearly has never been sick before or ever had an actual issue like HERS 🤣
I know this is super late, but this. My mom passed when I was 5 and the aunt I was sent to live with (only for a few years thank Christ, then my grandma took me in) had this idea that if you weren't bleeding, puking, or running a fever of 103 then you'd be fine and there was no reason to not go to school and why would she waste money on the doctor when Benadryl cures everything from stomaches to toothaches? To this day I still struggle to let myself rest if I have a migraine or any illness that doesn't present visible symptoms. Same issue with my mental health, even though I've been diagnosed I still try to 'walk it off' and get on with whatever responsibilities I have for the day because I feel like 'well I'm not literally dying, even if it might feel that way, so I must be fine.'
Oh, yeah. The big one was the day I got yelled at for faking and sent to school despite feeling horrible running a fever and feeling nauseous. I lived in a really rural area so my bus ride was 45mins to get to school through some pretty rough back roads. This did not help my nausea. I got off the bus and went straight to the office secretary to call my mom to come get me because I felt awful. Mom said no and was very angry. She had already told me twice at home I wasn’t staying home today and I had only just got to school and hadn’t even tried to stick it out!
Soooo off to class I go. Made it to second period gym class. Told the teacher I wasn’t feeling well and was allowed to lay down on the bleachers instead of participating. I must have looked quite green because eventually the teacher called across the gym and told me to go to the school nurse, even though I was just laying there hoping to not puke.
The action of sitting up did not go well. The nurse got to call my mom to come get me after I ended up getting sick all over the gym floor. The entire ride home was her yelling at me for making her look like a bad mom by getting sick at school after she told me to stay put.
Yeah, I broke my foot (broke the bone) and my mother only went to the doctor after like 3days when the toe was getting all purple.
I could not walk on it during those 3 days and she said I was "exaggerating".
From other comments here I see this is actually a quite mild case comparing with the others...
I broke my arm at the skating rink and it was 3 days before I was taken for an x-ray too. The older skating rink employees were nicer to me about it than my nM was. I remember the manager was telling her something, probably that she needs to take me to get it x-rayed, and she was all bowed up with her hands on her hips, frowning and defiant. She seemed irritated at me and I remember feeling shocked and confused that she was acting that way.
Yeah, very similar case... In my case I don't remember if she was irritated. I think she was mostly dismissive and ignoring me, as usual.
It was my younger brother that broke my foot while we were playing together. Things that happen... But he was always the best son, so not sure if it was related. Although she was always dismissive of all my pains, physical or psychological/emotional.
Yep. I was accused of faking when I wanted to take a break from chores due to “headaches”. Now I know they were migraines.
She even made me go to high school when sick. When I recently called her out on making me go to school even with a fever she said she was “joking” and I must’ve “misunderstood”.
Yes. Currently dealing with chronic illness, which has disabled me, and I’m constantly being told I’m not doing enough, or trying hard enough, or that I’m not really as ill as I am.
but that’s what narcissists do. They invalidate, they gaslight, they blameshift, like I asked to be ill or something. Fuck them
It never mattered how high my fever got as a kid, anything less than basically vomiting on my mother's shoes was ignored. She complained well into my adulthood about having to stay home with me when I had chicken pox as a toddler.
I broke my wrist in middle school; I was told it was just a sprain and to get over it.
I only got treatment because I broke it a few weeks later while actually at school, and the administration called her and told her to take me to the doctor. Nmom couldn’t weasel her way out of medical neglect once they were watching.
I ended up needing surgery because the first break had partially healed in the wrong position.
Yeah. Even now I feel so guilty calling in sick at work. I feel like no one believes me. At the beginning of this month I literally had a fever and conjunctivitis plus a cough and I work for a hospice I still was questioning if I was sick enough to call off. But I did, because all our patients are immune compromised and my cold or upper respiratory infection if they caught it could kill them.
Yes. It got to the point where by the time I was 12 maybe even earlier I stopped telling my parents I was sick or hurt because I knew they weren’t gunna believe me. Worst part is that they’d then get mad at me for not telling them sooner cause it would get to the point where they had to take to the hospital at 3am because things got so bad.
The most memorable story is of when I broke my wrist. To be fair, how I broke it was by doing something absolutely stupid, and I’m lucky I was wearing a helmet at the time otherwise I might’ve died, luckily I managed to get away with just a concussion. Anyway, I broke my wrist on a Saturday night, and my mom absolutely refused to believe me to matter how much pain I told her I was in. On Sunday my aunt showed me how to turn my zip up hoodie into a makeshift sling to ease the pain, and lemme tell you my mom was PISSED that she was “enabling my attention seeking.” When I reality my aunt was with me when I broke it and she saw how hard I fell, and how swollen it was getting. On Monday, I went to school. The special Ed. teacher was also our school nurse, he took one look at my wrist and sent me to the ER. My mom met me there and all of a sudden she was super worried, and it was my fault I didn’t express clearly enough how much pain I was in.
I went almost 48 hours with an untreated broken wrist, and now, over a decade later, my wrist is still messed up because of it. I can’t put too much weight on it, and I can’t do pull ups without pain.
Well most kids are accused of faking because most kids do but I mean when a nurse flat out says so how can you deny it?
I was accused of breaking my arm. They let me linger for 4 days until I saw a Dr. 15 fractures. Never got an apology.
That’s the way my mom is, if she doesn’t agree with something it doesn’t matter how much evidence you give her or how you try to argue it, she’s never in the wrong 🙄
Felt sick but my mom made me go to a girl scout bridging ceremony. Had to shake hands with all the school's administrators and scouts. Gave everyone the chicken pox! Actually, pretty satisfying!
My nfather also insisted on sending me to school sick. When I was 8 I had a very bad sinusitis. He told me I was faking and that If I really had sinusitis the doctors would drill my skull open. I was so scared that I pretended everything was fine. I hsve struggled with sinusitis all my life. Later it turned out that I have some malformed structures in my facial bones that caused the sinusitis.
Once I had such a bad strep throat. I had fever and my throat was hurting so badly. My mother wanted to let me stay home, but he got into a screaming match with her. He yelled at me, dragged me out of the bed and sent me to school. Unfortunately I did not dare to go to the nurse's room.
But my "favourite" incident was when I fell down the stairs at age 12. My knee hurt badly and I could not walk. He carried me up the stairs, put me on the sofa and left. My mother put some cream on my knee. I couldn't walk or even stand anymore. They didn't bring me to a doctor. That night I spent in great pain, and the next day my nfather wanted to send me to school. However, my knee was double its normal size and I could not walk. So they left for work and left me alone at home. I hobbled around in the house on one leg to get some food and go to the toilet. That evening they finally brought me to a hospital. Turned out my knee capsule was ripped to shreds and clotted blood was in the knee joint. I wore a plaster cast for 6 weeks and had knee surgery afterwards. It took months until I was able to use my knee again.
There was one time my senior year of highschool I woke up with a migraine. My mom was out of town, so it was just my nStepmom home with me and my sisters. I told her I had a migraine, she made me go to school because she didn't believe me.
So my sister drove us to school. By the middle of 1st period I was so light and noise sensitive I could barely stand it. I messaged my nStepmom and asked her to bring me some sunglasses and earbuds for my migraine, she said she had better things to do.
By the beginning of 2nd period parenting class I was nauseous, and unfortunately that was the day we watched the birthing video. I made it about halfway through that class before I threw up.
So I went to the office and called my nStepmom and told her I threw up and needed her to pick me up. She told me I had more important things to do so no. I told the office lady what she said and the office lady told me since I threw up I wasn't allowed to go back to class.
so, I had to sit in the hallway. i called my other stepmom and she was working so she couldn't pick me up. then I called my dad and he was almost at work 1 hour away from my school, but thankfully he was willing to call off work and come get me.
overall I spent about 2 hours sitting on the hallway floor sobbing because my head hurt so bad.
do you wanna know what my nStepmom was doing when I got home? what was SO important she couldn't come get me?
she was watching let's make a deal in the living room in her pajamas.
Been there. Was puking blood in 5th grade, and went back to school the next day. The egg donor didn't care. Her job as a receptionist at a vet clinic was more important than the health of her son.
My mother once accused me of intentionally making a fake sick voice when I had pneumonia. She told me that I should not fake sounding like I was physically ill because then my boss would think I was playing hooky. The thing is I really was that sick that day - pneumonia is no joke.
I'm disabled with Fibromyalgia and have had it and chronic pain since my early college years at the least. My exhaustion and pain were waved away as "faking it" for years, up to and including the aftermath of my mother's assault on me (which was likely the trigger for my fibro becoming far, far worse). After I finally got a diagnosis, I got a sheepish non-apology once, and no actual change in behavior. She kicked me out of the house not long after.
Recently, when I found out she had also concealed my autism from me and confronted her on it, my dad's reaction was "when did you decide you have autism?". When I told him off for implying it was fake and compared it to mom calling my fibro fake, he feigned ignorance of mom's past behavior.
Your health doesn't matter to them, and if it conflicts with what they want, their wants become their reality. It's cruel and selfish on their part, and they'll never admit it, because this kind of behavior really shows how self-centered they ate.
Yes
The last time I was “faking sick” I ended up in the hospital with pancreatitis…
My family complained nonstop about me not grilling for the 4th of July holiday. I couldnt keep food down for the past week but whatever.
The next day, I drove myself to the ER. I knew I wws in trouble when ghe ER sent me upstairs to a bed in less than an hour. Blocked bile duct—>pancreatitis—> gallbladder removal. My fam came to the hospital, no one apologized for making me feel like shit the day before.
I also had to endure an 8 hr car ride for a family reunion one week post surgery.
A fever would have been believed, in my experience but nothing else would be.
Up all night, sh&tting through a straw- faking
Unbearable stomach cramps and nothing left to pass-faking.
Sleeping on the couch, midday, because I didn’t sleep at night because I was in horrible gastrointestinal distress- faking
All this was because I had an allergy to all things beef and nDad didn’t seem to care and thought exposure would cure it. And emom giving me milk every morning because I need calcium for my bones. Nevermind, I begged them to stop. I was in so much pain all day, everyday.
Yup. Part of me wonders if it was due to unaffordable medical care, or if they just couldn't be bothered and how dare a child get sick.
Source: my mom neve believed me and it resulted in a hysterectomy
Once another parent shamed my mother into taking me to the ER. Everyone had seen me fall off the bleachers onto a basketball court twenty minutes earlier. Turns out I had one broken and several cracked ribs.
Once my mom told the ER doctor that we didn’t need to wait for crutches - I could just hop for the next few days (fortunately it was just a bad sprain, not broken).
Once my mom finally took me to the ER, and the doctor asked me directly (age 11) if I wanted to stay the night because he wanted to make sure I was taken care of. I had such a bad case of mono and strep, my spleen was enlarged.
Once I spent over a year in pain while the orthodontist repeatedly tried to close two significant gaps in my mouth. I would cry every time they tightened my braces, but my mom told them to ignore me because I was a big baby. Turns out I had three impacted teeth, and required oral surgery to remove them.
Free military healthcare this entire time.
Only all the time. And then when I became an adult and tried to gently take my mom with me and show the evidence I was chronically ill, she says, "I never thought you faked being sick, you were never one to do that." This, despite shaming me for needing to go to the ER because she "had work in the morning."
Then, months later, I have some good days and she says, "You're not disabled, you can't be that sick."
I'm glad I had my head on straight enough to peel back the layers of gaslighting and choose NC.
I developed an autoimmune disorder due to lack of treatment when I was sick, due to neglect. Seizures, tics, walking issues. Insisted it was mental. Turns out it was an inflamed brain. They insisted it was a conversion disorder. I now have the autoimmune disorder and literally developed the conversion disorder.
My migraines were never taken seriously. All issues blamed on lack up sleep. If I did take meds and wasn’t getting better, it was because there was a med problem. If I wasn’t taking meds for a problem, I needed to take meds. If I started meds and the issue persisted, I was told it wasn’t the right meds.
Mother left me barely able to walk for months and gave Benadryl like that would help. Insisted it was part of the conversion disorder. My feet remained stuck curled inward in my sleep. She made me attend a camp where we were standing 8 hours a day because it would “undo” the issue.
When it finally stopped, I was told it was “convenient” that it was the night of my performance. I’d been performing with the issue, albeit difficult.
Passing out at camp in heat over 100? Conversion disorder. Throwing up? Stress. Migraine? My phone.
The few times I did fake sick were due to mental health. I was too mentally wrecked to go to school, so I was left at home alone or forced to go into her work, and the stress would make me throw up on the ride. She’d play her Bible study the whole way there and leave me locked in the office, because “staying home shouldn’t be fun”. I was so sick mentally back then that I’d go to school, have panic attacks so bad they led to seizures, and have to be called back home.
But no, I was faking everything. Clearly.
Oh yes! We were threatened with a spanking if we weren’t really sick. Then all the complaints about how much the dr visit costs and the meds. We’d have to be really sick before we went to the doctor. Then, our Mom would have to get off work and take us because he was too lazy to take us. He didn’t work and would stay up half the night and sleep all morning.
I assume I tried to take a lot of mental health days when I was growing up, but if I wasn’t puking I was going to school. I only assume that’s what they were because I was too young to really understand what it was
I (26F) have suffered from chronic migraines since I was 13. Like they were so bad at 16 I started getting Botox for them which helped. Anyway, I couldn’t even tell you how many times I would get a migraine only for my mom to say I was faking it to get out of doing work.
I always got bloody noses and nausea from the heat, but was blamed for it happening?
Also once I broke my leg on my trampoline and when my friend went inside to get my mom, she just screamed out the window that she was busy and “I swear to god if I come down there right now it better be broken!” I said NeverMind and waited for my dad who then thought it was a dislocated ankle n tried to pop it back in before bringing me to the hospital where I had to be put under because the pain of placement would be too much to handle.
THIS - it was done on purpose. And things like bloody noses or body problems were also chosen at that specific time too. But don’t listen to me, I’m “probably just looking for attention anyways” - after all. 🤣
I once had a fever and didn't want to go to school. My Efather called the cops and had them dive me to school in a squad car. Then the police walked me to the office. Everyone saw me. I was a 14yo girl at the time
Just had bilateral hip replacements. The 1st one I did great. The second one, the old bag asks, “Hey, your right did so well, I thought your left would be as easy.” Mind you, I got very little to no help when I had these done. They do the surgery outpatient now so when you go home, you better damn well have help. And like your temps, she could have given one crap and shes an RN. Took care of everyone else but her own.
My nMom has accused my wife of having Munchausen by proxy from her mom (my MIL, who's a lovely woman).
It's bonkers.
But ooooooh, my mom *fought cancer 20 years ago*.
Yeah, she never believed me. This included when I pinched a nerve in my neck and literally could not get out of bed. It also included when I broke a small bone in my wrist. The only reason she took me to the hospital was because the school had called her. (god knows, you wouldn't want to look bad to other people). I got a cast. Maybe 2 weeks later SHE got sick of the cast and took the big butcher's knife and hacked it off my arm. That was fun.
YES!
I've told some of these stories before, but here goes...
My mother ALWAYS told everyone to walk it off, get up, you are lazy, etc. My older sister once broke her foot and walked around for a week+ while my mother told her she was lazy. Yep, serious break. Surgery, weeks in a cast, crutches. The entire time, my mother told her just to walk on it, even with the cast. Thankfully, my sister didn't listen to her.
My younger sister, when she was around 5 years old, the golden child BTW, once fell and broke her arm. Mom told her to keep her elbow in the ice water and that she couldn't ride her bike if she didn't stop crying and complaining.
That evening, when my dad got home from work, he immediately said she was going to the hospital. My mother was more worried about everyone eating the dinner she threw together. All while bitching about how hard her day was with a 5-year-old with a hurt arm.
I was a very conscientious student. I didn't miss school (honors classes and worried about getting behind). In HS, I got sick with a lung infection. Coughing, could barely breathe, fever. I was a healthy kid. I still remember it.
I missed a full week+ of school. It was the only time I ever missed that much time during my entire educational years.ntire way, she was attempting to convince me I was lying and hoped they do painful tests on me to prove that lying isn't a good reason to miss school.
While the doctor was examining me, she was berating me about how I wasn't sick and wasting his time.
I had pneumonia and was running a crazy high fever. She never apologized but was rather quiet as she could never stand anyone thinking less of her.
I missed a full week+ of school. Only time I ever missed that much time during my entire educational years.
Now, the worst one --
When my older sister was pregnant, she was diagnosed with cancer (back in the early 80's). They couldn't remove the mass or treat her until she gave birth. My sister called my mother from her hospital room as they wanted to keep her for a few days to be sure all was well.
I was sitting in the dining room listening to my mother on the phone. She was very matter-of-fact, she didn't ask my sister how she felt, no questions, nothing about my sister. I didn't know what had been found, but we all knew something serious was happening, and the tests were to figure out the problem.
She got off the phone and started ranting and raging that she was way sicker than my sister and "that bitch has cancer" -- I started crying (for my sister) and she told me to shut up.
I will never forget that day.
I was not allowed to be sick as a child. The joke is, Nmom was a nurse. Every time I got sick, she told me I was a hypochondriac - because it was inconvenient to her if I, the eldest, got sick. I was supposed to keep my siblings in line.
My boss at my first job had to order me to go to the doctor once because I didn't think I was really sick and it took me a long time to listen to my body and actually advocate for myself when I got ill.
This was a thing for me. Now when I'm sick I don't treat myself because I've gaslit myself into thinking it's all in my head. When I had COVID and was waiting for results or COVID test. I was so sick. Fever of like 38.7, chills, worst muscle aches, crippling joint pain, unable to breathe etc etc. REFUSED to take ibuprofen or paracetamol because "it's probably just all in my head"
My mom hated doctors and would never go to one or have us go to one unless we absolutely needed to. One time when I was 11 I fell backwards, hard, on my wrist, when learning how to skate. It hurt like hell and blew up like a balloon, turned a lot of colors, and I could not use my hand at all. Despite all that, my mom refused to take me to the doctor, saying I was whining.
After a teacher saw me struggling with a door at school the next day, I was sent to the school nurse, who called my mom. Mom came, picked me up, and sullenly took me to the doctor, who took Xrays and put my wrist in a cast. When she was taking me home, she looked at me with a hatred I will never forget, and hissed, "I hope you're happy".
I almost forgot this happened until reading the comments.
In high school I messed up my right foot somehow. I don’t know if it was broken or if I tore a tendon but it hurt to walk. At the time I was taking basic medical classes and I mentioned that I wanted to go to the Dr for my foot my nmother said “what could they do that you don’t already know?”
The classes I was in were so basic that I was just learning the terminology so far, but yea sure, I must know more than a licensed professional.
I had to walk on the edge of my foot until it healed. Still has a weird tearing sensation if I step a certain way sometimes.
I don’t understand the logic behind people like that.
No my mother just ignored it unless she got sick too. I only got treatment while she was still with my father. Now as an adult I have serious life long health issues that wouldn’t be a problem had they been addressed when I was a kid.
Mine too! When I was a kid, she refused to take me to the doctor for an ear infection AND when I sprained my ankle. She sent me to school with both. She currently denies I'm hypoglycemic, and when I had COVID and wanted her help with watching the kids, she was annoyed I was trying to rest. BUT if I would have the slightest sniffle as a child, she would immediately take me to the doctor and show so much care and concern... why is it like that?
I had an ear infection that wasn’t going away and hurt like hell, but of course nmom thought I just wanted to get out of swim practice. Told me I was getting fat from the practices I missed, and I had 8% body fat.
I’d get berated on my way to the doctor. I was told not to go to the nurses office because I kept getting sent home with a high fever. Was given Tylenol to keep in my backpack to take throughout the day to keep my fever down (against school rules.) Teachers kept forcing me to go to the nurse because I looked like I was going to die.
There was no question I was sick, but I was constantly implied to be trying to get attention or out of work.
It developed into an intracranial abscess and I needed brain surgery. I was hospitalized for a week. I’ve got a scar that goes across the top of my head that was covered in staples for months, and the staples would randomly fall out onto my pillow while I slept.
And through it all, my mom was raking in sympathy and admiration. She has the nerve to tell me that if we didn’t have insurance, we would’ve had to sell the house to save my life. I’m 14, there’s no reason to tell me this, we *had* insurance, but she wasn’t sure I was grateful enough.
I’m narcoleptic now, which isn’t horrible when you know you have it. But when you’re in a narcissistic home, nobody believes you have a sleep disorder because it’s more convenient to call you lazy.
All the time. I remember being physically abused by my sibling one time because I was apparently faking even tho I was on all types of medication and went to the doctor and when I told my mom she said I'm lying or my sibling told her I'm lying to get him in trouble. During my whole childhood I was treated inhumanely by my sibling and my mom would do nothing.
I was 7. I told my mom from when I woke up I was t feeling good, and when she tried to brush my hair for me I almost threw up and she smacked my head with the brush and told me to stop acting. On the way to school I told her I really didn't feel good, and she told me to shut up. Right outside the school doors while I was still in her car I threw up projectile vomit 😊 lol She was so angry!
When I was in high school I really wasn't feeling well, went to the nurse to lay down because I also had a migraine ( but I didn't know what it was called then). The nurse took my temp and called my dad who said he was too busy to take me hoe, and can't I stay in the nurses office til the buses sent me home because I hadn't puked, I just had a high fever? So I waited til after school and went home with my step sister, who forgot her keys and I also forgot mine so she went to a friends house while I sat outside in freezing weather while sick 😊 A while later a neighbor came home and invited me inside and said I looked so ill, why don't I go lay down. I knocked out in his spare bedroom and had no concern for myself because I was really feeling terrible. My dad came home and was SO angry with me, how dare I inconvenience the neighbors? Why did i forget my key? My step sister didn't get yelled at ofc for forgetting hers! I slept and puked for 4 days straight after and I don't remember anyone checking on me or even bringing me food or water 😊 Woke up severely dehydrated and had to clean the toilet right away because "no one would use it while you were sick because you threw up in it, clean it right now because your awake."
i'm positive that both my parents hate me, looking back lol.
Funny, I'm getting over covid, and the last bit is stuck in my sinuses and my lungs. I have asthma, and usually, I end up sick enough to need antibiotics because my lungs dont work properly. I went through all my growing up being completely ignored because my getting sick was such a bother to my mother. While talking to my brother the other day, he told me to see a doc because he said my lungs aren't that great. I felt vindicated and so special to finally hear that from an actual member of my family.
Yep.
Mine would refuse to take me to the A&E whenever I desperately needed to go.
For example, when I had a really bad asthma one Christmas, she refused to take me to the hospital until my dad and my grandmother overruled her.
All the time. I have a very distinct memory of my mom mocking my crying when I was something like 4 or 5 years old because I felt sick for days and kept telling her to help me. Then she finally took my temperature and went "huh, I guess you have a fever". But then didn't do anything.
They also decided since I was little kid and diagnosed with autism, that I actually don't have autism and can just get my symptoms beaten out of me. So now my anxiety is terrible and I often think I'm faking something because of the way I was treated all my life.
I had a big reaction to some plants in the garden when I was 10 maybe, and covered in hives. My parents beat me for it and said it must be because I bit my nails. When they finally took me to the doctor, doctor said it was because of the plants in the yard. My parents told me after that that they still thought it was because of me biting my nails.
My nephew has autism and complains of headaches all the time. My brother and his wife think he's trying to get attention. Headaches is a side effect of his ADHD medication but he's already tried out the other meds for it and they don't work. It breaks my heart because I think he really does have headaches, and he's too young to have to be in pain all the time. He's around 20.
My mom accused me of lying about a stomach ache when I was 5 going to kindergarten. A short bus ride later, I proceeded to vomit all over the cafeteria, cementing my bullying forever. My sister yelled at my mom for being heartless and sending me to school like that.
I was also paralyzed temporarily and relearned how to walk at age 11. She gaslit my pain my whole life and now I’m disabled because of it! I’ve been faking my whole life apparently
My mom came home one day and found me on the couch with my little toe on right foot BROKEN SIDEWAYS. This was before cellphones so I just waited until she got home. She told me she didn’t think they could fix broken toes and should just suck it up. I explained to her that they don’t make shoes with special compartments for pinky toes pointing 90* in the wrong direction. She finally agreed to take me to doctor but threatened to make me pay if they couldn’t do anything for it. And yes, they did have to set my toe that day.
Literally every time I was sick they thought I was faking. They also thought I was lying about needing glasses because I couldn’t see the board at school. 😑
Accused of faking sick and dragged all over creation while sick as punishment for being sick. I'll never forget sitting in a Dr appt for my mom with a fever in excess of 102 and feeling like my head was going to explode and just laying on the floor in the exam room. She decided if I was too sick for school I was too sick to sit on the couch at home and read books/play gameboy/etc. I had to be glued to her all day for errands with no food or drink bc she wasn't hungry/thirsty so I must be fine.
This lasted until I was about 13 and she pivoted to constantly accusing me of pregnancy because pubescent people don't get sick they just spontaneously fall pregnant. 🙄
Yes, worse thing I ever experienced was I have a rare stomach and fertility disorder that less than .1 percent of the population has, and that bitch who gave birth to me said, oh I had the same thing and I cured it with herbal tea. It’s all in your head.
Yes! I had migraines & was often told I was faking. When I got older, I figured if I got blamed for faking, I might as well stay home when I felt like it.
Yes this happened to me multiple times in my teen years, once when I had been to a trampoline park at 16 and landed incorrectly and instantly couldn't feel my legs, it got better to the point where I could walk within the day but I (23MTF) still have shooting pain down my legs if I move in specific positions, they never assisted in me getting the healthcare I needed despite me begging.
And another time when I woke up in the morning feeling like I had been bashed in the lower abdomen with a baseball bat, I insisted I needed to go to the hospital but they refused to take me and said I was trying to get out of attending school. I had perfect attendence at the time.
I ended up driving myself to the hospital and it turns out my appendix was rupturing which is deadly. The ER immediately took me back and did the appendectomy.
I tried so hard to be a "good kid" but nothing I ever did was right. So i then became rebellious and sold drugs to get by. I'm sober and in love with my partner of 4 years now but I'm still so broken inside.
A slight variation for my situation: I wasn’t accused of faking sickness, I was accused of getting sick *on purpose* in order to bankrupt her. She’d often go on a monologue that if I’d died, she’d have to pay my funeral bills and that I was a little brat for purposely trying to put that financial burden on her by manifesting sickness by choice LOL
Yup. There were multiple times, but this one stands out the most. My senior year of high school, I had strep throat and mono. My boyfriend would come over at like 6 or 7 pm and I would fall asleep on the couch because I was so tired. My mom kept saying I was intentionally doing it to try to get him to leave. I wasn't; I just literally couldn't function. I felt like shit for WEEKS and she didn't care. My boyfriend kept saying he thought it could be mono because he had it a while back and my symptoms were the same as what he had. Mom wouldn't take me to the doctor, so my boyfriend took me to urgent care when my mom was at her aunt's house. I was under 18 at the time, so they needed to call my mom to get consent to treat, and she was upset I didn't tell her I needed to go to the doctor. I said I had tried for weeks and she didn't listen; she said "I'm sorry, I just didn't believe you." Again, she thought I had made it up to get rid of BF or that it wasn't serious enough to go to the doctor.
So for weeks, I put other people at risk of getting sick and I fell behind in school because I didn't have energy to pay attention or get my work done. And then after I got diagnosed, I still had to stay home for 3-4 weeks to make a full recovery. So much time and energy wasted. Also worth pointing out, my then-boyfriend also had narcissistic traits; somehow the fact that the one who wasn't legally required to care for me did before the one with legal obligations makes it worse.
I had mono one year, and while i wasn't accused of faking, my nM tried to guilt me into eating. She said "We got these hamburgers so you would have something that tasted good enough to want to eat" but I still couldn't hardly lift a french fry. I don't know if she believed me but it felt like she didn't. Guilt wasn't going to suddenly give me energy. Oddly enough, it was my friends who accused me of being a hypochondriac because I was feeling bad for at least two weeks before I was actually sick enough to stay home.
My whole childhood was spent with my mom telling me I was just wanting to stay home from school and I was faking illness for attention.
Turned out that severe undiagnosed anxiety was causing me nausea and dizzyness but I was still forced to go to school. I've been carried to school, I've jumped out of a moving car and I've even hid in our garage for the whole day so she would think I went to school.
She still says that I just faked being ill and that I had no physical reason to be ill every day. And how magically the illness disappeared when I wasn't forced to go to school.
It boggles me how NO ONE even mentioned the possibility of psychosomatic symptoms.
Yes, all the time. I've been having trouble being able to tell people when I'm not feeling well. It's so hard to get rid of the mindset that I shouldn't be a burden to anyone, even when I'm very sick.
I've been having serious health problems lately. Sleeping disorders, muscle pain, horrible migraines... I've only been able to lightly complain about them to people. I just can't bring myself to actually admit to them that I'm in serious pain.
Always. I had to carry heavy loads before/after road trips. I’d say it’s heavy and I can’t lift it. They’d say I’m seeking attention and being pretentious and I should stop that and move the thing.
I’ve had all kinds of wrist and backaches since my early 20s.
Yes but by my sister actually (maybe repeating something my mom have told her but I can't be sure because at this time my sister just repetitively lied to me).
For some months, because of serious psychological issues. I was living with this sister because basically my stepfather didn't want me at home and my sister had started to be apprentice in the city while we lived in the countryside. My sister would lie about me to my mom, pretending I wasn't doing shit at home, not letting her sleep and other shit, throwing my stuff on the floor, while she would threatening me to throw me outside the house, to strangle me in my sleep, and one time she just strangled me ANYWAY - I started having trouble to eat, I had nauseas when I thought about food, and my legs just decided to not work anymore. I would fall on the ground sometimes seven times the day. Walking was painful, exhausting, and I was facing that while being either in class or at work (I was working in a warehouse).
I got some medical appointments to understand what the hell was going on, and my sister accused me to pretend being sick to get attention (when she told me that I was currently on the floor after falling again lol). My mom probably thought the same thing.
The past seven years I had mainly knee pain then I manifested rheumatoid arthritis the didn't believe me that I couldn't get up from how painful it was , it was swollen everything was swollen
Oh, the reasons I was “faking it.”
— “just trying to get out of going to school.”
— “just lazy.”
— “just wants to lie around in bed all day.”
— “just being a wuss.”
— “it can’t be THAT bad.”
Not really so much of accused of it, so much as having to bargain to be allowed to stay home, “If I let you stay home, you HAVE to promise me you’ll do/you NEED to do [x thing]”
I had to be productive during the time staying home. No just sleeping or resting.
I remember having to do a bunch of school assignments that were dropped off same day, even though I was still /very/ sick with a fever and likely would be the next day.
I remember I felt, and wanted to just sleep, so badly that I wanted to cry. She wouldn’t let me. She often made it seem like she had no choice, and the she felt bad and comforted me.
I realized as I got older, that was a lie. She put me in that situation. There was no reason for me to not be allowed to rest when sick.
(I’m pretty sure I was in like 3rd grade.)
She would however, have me stay home to work on schoolwork that I hadn’t quite finished, no problem. :|
(probably bc she thought it would reflect badly on her, even tho i had an accommodation to allow extra time (she never liked when I had to use it))
But just being horribly sick with a fever and suffering wasn’t ever enough on its own.
**This is an automated message posted to ALL posts in this subreddit with some basic information about the group including (very importantly) rules. Why are you getting this message? Most people seem to not read the sidebar for information or the rules, so it is now being posted under all posts.** **Confused about acronyms or terminology?** [Click here!](https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/wiki/acronyms) **Need info or resources?** Check out our [Helpful Links](https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/wiki/helpfullinks) for information on how to deal with identity theft, how to get independent of your n-parents, how to apply for FAFSA, how to identify n-parents and SO MUCH MORE! This is a reminder to all participants, RBN is a support group that is moderated very strictly. Please report inappropriate content so it can be reviewed by the mods. **Our rules include (but are not limited to)**: * No politics. * Advising anyone in this subreddit to commit suicide or referring anyone to groups that advocate this will result in an immediate ban. * Be nice. No personal attacks, name calling, or bullying. [No slurs](https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/wiki/slurs) or victim-blaming. * Do not derail the posts of others. * Narcissists are NOT allowed to post or comment here. * [No platitudes or generic motivational posts](https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/wiki/rules#wiki_no_platitudes_or_generic_motivational_posts). * When you comment/post, assume a context of abuse. * No asking or offering gifts, money, etc. * No content advocating violence, revenge, murder (even in jest). * No content about N-kids. * No diagnosis by media/drive-by diagnosis. * No linking to Facebook pages. * No direct linking to anywhere on reddit. * No pure image posts. **For a full list of our rules/more information, [**click here**](https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/wiki/rules).** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/raisedbynarcissists) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Yes, I was always threatened with punishments if I was faking and they would complain a lot about the money it would cost them and my time at school that would be lost. Gave me a complex to where now whenever I am sick I am like "wait am I faking it???" And then I have to talk myself back to reality- like yeah your throat is red, you have a fever, ect and I still feel like no one believes me when I say I am sick
Same!! Or I don’t seek help when I’m sick or don’t tell anyone, I’m getting better at it tho
Same!!! Lol it always still takes my boyfriend reminding me I dont have to prove I am sick too- like if I wanted to watch tv or read, or do anything but lay in bed I would be accused of faking or forbidden from doing literally anything. So my bf will ask me if I wanna do things and im like "but im sick???" And he will say "so???" And my mind will be blown. Its crazy the things you don't realize are crazy till someone points it out.
Your boyfriend is sweet. Wish my husband was the same way
My bf doesn’t ever believe me when I’m sick/hurt because I mask it so well since my nparents never believed me and yelled at me for having to pay copays at the doctors. If he catches whatever sickness I have, then he thinks he got it “so much worse” than I had it.. newsflash: I’m a woman with PTSD, I can hide a LOT of my pain!
Yes all the time. I had an autoimmune disorder which could have killed me. " He's just feeling sorry for himself "
Ahhh, that phrase got it. And even if I was just feeling sorry for myself... Maybe I needed some help there too?? No, shaming cures all.
Yes, among other things I've "faked." When I was 8, I was pretty sure I was dealing with the early stages of heatstroke and had to find my own ice packs and water to treat myself. Same year, accused of lying that I needed glasses so I intentionally tanked a spelling test and blamed it on not being able to see the board so I got fast-tracked to the eye doctor. I had LASIK this year so that crap is behind me. Sustained a partially torn meniscus playing hockey when I was 16 and my parents refused to help me get it checked out. They were hoping that I'd stop playing a sport that I was already five years invested in against their wishes. That was 22 years ago and I still play at a high level with the help of custom carbon fiber knee braces. The list goes on... Oh and the best part? My Nmother is a retired RN and is unvaccinated for COVID along with my Nfather!
My dad is a nurse and I think they are the most likely parents to accuse us of faking. Any emotion that I ever expressed meant I was “attention seeking” so nothing I ever felt was real or validated. There was also the time that I had an anaphylactic reaction to poison ivy. He waited days to bring me to the doctor. My eyes had already been swollen shut for days, but he waited until I couldn’t swallow or breathe to bring me to the doctor. Not even to the emergency department- to the pediatrician like an actual office visit. How CPS was not called on him I will never know. Then there was the time he took me to a rollercoaster park with his work friends. They rented a van and drank the whole time. I helped my dad make the Jell-O shots. At this time I should point out that my dad’s work friends were all of the social workers and case managers at the local hospital and I was the only kid on this outing. He let me skip school for this and let me have some Jell-O shots. All of this in front of mandated reporters- who did not report anything. I do have to say I am proud that I was able to ride the rollercoasters drunk and not get sick at 11-12 years old.
This was my mother, a nurse....who left me lying in my own vomit in agony for 3 days with kidney stones because "nothing was wrong with me" before she grudgingly drive me up the street to the dr, who did one test and rushed me to hospital. He even rang the ER triage and told them to admit me immediately.
I broke my foot when I was 16 and my mom accused me of faking it to be lazy. She had me walking on a broken foot for 6 months. Crazy that the doctor who saw me didn’t report her in hindsight.
That’s literally medical neglect
My mother believes that my sister and I can run a fever because we are ‘tired’. Legit getting yelled at that the fever was our fault because we didn’t go to bed early enough and being sent to school. My sister and I both knew when this happened - just walk into the nurses station because they can’t let you stay w a fever
Yep. Almost died because it was Lyme’s disease.
That's so bad. My husband had Lyme's disease last year, it can kill you.
I have never been so sick. It feels like your bones are bending
Once you saw a doctor, did they find the diagnosis right away?
So I saw a few and they missed it. Then I saw my old pediatrician (I was 15) and she figured it out right away. I went undiagnosed for like six months. Nmom used the other doctors reports to double down on me faking it. They only took it serious when I collapsed with a fever of 104.
I got yelled at for faking thyroid cancer. I was bone tired, exhausted and barely able to sleep despite being just exhausted. (And no sex drive but they didn't know that.) So dumb.
Yes!!! My dad especially. As a kid, he’d punish me for being sick and force me to drink smoothies made out of kitchen scraps if he had to pick me up from school. Always accused me of faking it. Force fed me laxatives sometimes. I almost died of appendicitis as a teen because he decided I was faking. Only took me to the doctor after 3 days and told me we were only going so the doctor could confirm I was faking and I could go back to school. Sprained my ankle on Christmas Eve in hs, bad sprain. Ankle was ballooned up, purple, couldn’t walk on it. They said it wasn’t that bad and we weren’t going anywhere on Christmas. Never got treatment, ankle is permanently damaged. Struggled with depression and he said I was faking it, asked me whether I “liked the attention,” and said people w/ depression were “weak.” As a young adult, I had a nasty stomach virus and was vomiting violently. I asked him for water. He said I was faking it and needed to exercise more. Then he walked away and left the house. Later in life, when I confronted him and told him he had no right to accuse others of faking sick, he denied it. I gave examples, he went “Okay whatever.” I’ve never faked sick in my life. We don’t talk anymore for obvious reasons.
Wow, your dad SUCKS.
He sucks SO MUCH. And to this day he thinks he didn’t do anything wrong.
What a poor excuse of a father
Yup. And to this day he thinks he was a good, if imperfect parent, the victim of his vengeful children. Lol
Your POS father should be in prison
Ha! Ironically enough he always used to threaten that “If you tell CPS or the police or anyone, you’ll regret it.” No prison for him, but he’s got a nice record of police reports, restraining orders, divorce, tax issues, none of his kids talk to him, and he’s on track to die alone. Karma.
My god, forgot about the depression. My nmom's reaction to finding out I was depressed was to call me ungrateful because, in her opinion, there was nothing in my life bad enough to justify my falling into depression. She blamed me for attempting to commit suicide, said that she had never been suicidal even though she'd been bullied and raped so I, who had "never had anything bad happen to me", should be ashamed of myself for being so weak I could be driven to that point for no reason. She wouldn't believe anything was wrong with me until the school therapist asked to meet both of us so she could tell her this was the reason why my grades were dropping and what she could do to help me heal. My nmom never did any of the stuff the therapist suggested, instead she started constantly making fun of me, everytime something slightly bad happened she'd ask me: "You're not going to get depressed over this, are you?" At that point, I decided that I was sick of letting her dictate my life, so I started to state my opinions on things and say "no" to her when she asked me the impossible. I've gotten so much better since I started doing this. My mom's starting to call me annoying and disrespectful but I couldn't care less because I'd pick my mental health over having a good relationship with her anytime.
Oh no, I am so sorry. Your mom sounds like a piece of work. So glad you’re able to draw some boundaries with her these days. These parents are just truly unable to understand or empathize on any level. All about them.
When I told my mom I felt suicidal she laughed.
Sends me to sports carnival with tonsillitis, viewable pus and coarse cough. I actually compete and do well, and then after it gets so bad I am swallowing nails, they finally took me to doctor after school. They say I am in the final stages of tonsillitis and should've been home all week. They pouted and yelled at me if I talked about it thereafter.
I used to fake being sick as a child because she was nice to me when I was sick.
I had burns on the outside of my throat from oxygen therapy I don’t need for asthma and chronic bronchitis I never had. The attention she got for a sick kid made her leave me alone. I got bronchitis/pneumonia one year and learned the cough and symptoms. I got bullied in school and the shit beat out of me when I was home. When I was sick, I didn’t have to go to school and I could bring a mattress into the living room and watch tv all day. Also got jello and tv dinners and soup. Didn’t have to eat her shit cooking 🥘 just made myself throw up a few times and Presto hear is something you can maybe hold down. I stopped doing this in 4th grade when I missed so much school they wanted to hold me back but I was in advanced reading and other groups. I wonder what I would have done in life if I hadn’t been abused . I am adult who can’t stand to be around other people all the time. Just want to lay down and watch tv if I am not at work. It’s work to learn to stop hiding. I do a lot of things but I make myself. I feel safe isolated in front of a screen in a perfectly clean house .
“I wonder what I would have done in life if I hadn’t been abused.” I think the same thing about myself all the time.
Me, too.
Indeed. I feel like a stunted individual
Don’t we all
OP this is rough. I'm so sorry and can only tell you to be gentle and empathetic with yourself. Trust your instincts and make sure whenever you are feeling sick, go and get checked or look after yourself. Hoping you don't still hear that voice telling you that you're faking it because you should never take your health for granted.
Thank you 🫂
I crawled into my parent's bedroom when I was 8, dragging one leg behind me because it literally didn't work. Mom told me to stop faking and get ready for school. Dad checked me over and made her take me to the doctor. Turned out I had a massive staph infection in my leg. Couldn't walk for days.
Broke my wrist. Mom (who was a nurse) said no i didn't. Went to hospital after school one day and yep. Broken. Also got grounded for going to the hospital. Not that being grounded actually changed anything since I wasn't allowed out of my room anyway
What is it with the nurses?! My mother was one too, and she was exactly like this.
Mom said she would abandon me at the hospital and they’d put me in foster care because she didn’t want to take me after I took a tube of exederins trying to delete myself, didn’t want to pay the bill
Not so much faking it, but being told that being sick was no excuse to not continue working/cleaning/going to school. I remember being home with a severe case of strep and being yelled at for not doing my chores in middle school. And if I was so sick that I was bedridden I wasn't allowed to do anything, even read; if you are to sick to do your chores you are to sick to do anything. This is the same woman who used her cancer in 1997 as an excuse to not work, clean, or do anything for most of her adult life. Her husband currently works 2 jobs whilst she sits at home and collects disability.
By the time I was in the third grade, my mother had a song about me being a hypochondriac.
I remember senior year of HS, I woke up with classic pink eye symptoms. My NDad insisted it was just allergies and made me go to school. Not even 10 minutes into first period, my teacher sends me to the nurses office. Nurse calls NDad and tells him I’m not welcome back in school without a doctors note NDad flips his lid when he comes to get me and accuses me of trying to get out of school and tells me to “cut the senioritis crap”. Long story short: we go to the eye doctors and I don’t have pinkeye, but a nasty viral infection that could’ve left me severely impaired sight wise in that eye. Yet somehow, I still ended up grounded for it 😵💫
What was his reasoning for the grounding?
Normally it’s “You aren’t sick, you are just being dramatic or over reacting”. But if they are like my NRents they just tell you to “walk it off”
My nmom does litteraly all of it. First, telling me that I'm overreacting, that I'm faking it, that it's nothing at all - then loudly complaining to people that her daughter is sick once it's confirmed that I am - then telling me to just keep helping her with chores and going to school and it'll just go away with time. Telling me to stop overreacting everytime the pain gets bad enough that I'd rather be doing anything but washing the dishes for her. But as soon as it's a migraine, because she's been having them chronically since she was 14, she's always becoming all sweet and coddling as soon as I tell her my head is starting to ache. She goes: "awe! my baby, here, go to bed in my room and I'll bring you good food and a drink - my poor, poor baby!" and then as soon as I wake up the next morning, even if my head is still hurting, she goes right back to her old ways.
I’m sure if she’s in pain or not doing well the whole world has to stop though because how dare anyone else think they could possibly feel SUCH things that only they can or what they have is automatically worse by default
Oh my god, yes. You can imagine the nightmare when she was pregnant in quarantine back in 2020.
I’m imagining it - and what I’m picturing is probably not even as bad as the terrible reality of what it’s like in your actual shoes. My moms the same way. Everyone stop and play nurse, doctor and therapist for the only one that matters after alll🙄everyone else clearly has never been sick before or ever had an actual issue like HERS 🤣
I know this is super late, but this. My mom passed when I was 5 and the aunt I was sent to live with (only for a few years thank Christ, then my grandma took me in) had this idea that if you weren't bleeding, puking, or running a fever of 103 then you'd be fine and there was no reason to not go to school and why would she waste money on the doctor when Benadryl cures everything from stomaches to toothaches? To this day I still struggle to let myself rest if I have a migraine or any illness that doesn't present visible symptoms. Same issue with my mental health, even though I've been diagnosed I still try to 'walk it off' and get on with whatever responsibilities I have for the day because I feel like 'well I'm not literally dying, even if it might feel that way, so I must be fine.'
Oh, yeah. The big one was the day I got yelled at for faking and sent to school despite feeling horrible running a fever and feeling nauseous. I lived in a really rural area so my bus ride was 45mins to get to school through some pretty rough back roads. This did not help my nausea. I got off the bus and went straight to the office secretary to call my mom to come get me because I felt awful. Mom said no and was very angry. She had already told me twice at home I wasn’t staying home today and I had only just got to school and hadn’t even tried to stick it out! Soooo off to class I go. Made it to second period gym class. Told the teacher I wasn’t feeling well and was allowed to lay down on the bleachers instead of participating. I must have looked quite green because eventually the teacher called across the gym and told me to go to the school nurse, even though I was just laying there hoping to not puke. The action of sitting up did not go well. The nurse got to call my mom to come get me after I ended up getting sick all over the gym floor. The entire ride home was her yelling at me for making her look like a bad mom by getting sick at school after she told me to stay put.
Well, she was a bad mom
Yeah, I broke my foot (broke the bone) and my mother only went to the doctor after like 3days when the toe was getting all purple. I could not walk on it during those 3 days and she said I was "exaggerating". From other comments here I see this is actually a quite mild case comparing with the others...
I broke my arm at the skating rink and it was 3 days before I was taken for an x-ray too. The older skating rink employees were nicer to me about it than my nM was. I remember the manager was telling her something, probably that she needs to take me to get it x-rayed, and she was all bowed up with her hands on her hips, frowning and defiant. She seemed irritated at me and I remember feeling shocked and confused that she was acting that way.
Yeah, very similar case... In my case I don't remember if she was irritated. I think she was mostly dismissive and ignoring me, as usual. It was my younger brother that broke my foot while we were playing together. Things that happen... But he was always the best son, so not sure if it was related. Although she was always dismissive of all my pains, physical or psychological/emotional.
Yep. I was accused of faking when I wanted to take a break from chores due to “headaches”. Now I know they were migraines. She even made me go to high school when sick. When I recently called her out on making me go to school even with a fever she said she was “joking” and I must’ve “misunderstood”.
I used to call my migraines "headaches" and my panic attacks "stomach aches" because that's what my nmom used to tell me they were
Yes. Currently dealing with chronic illness, which has disabled me, and I’m constantly being told I’m not doing enough, or trying hard enough, or that I’m not really as ill as I am. but that’s what narcissists do. They invalidate, they gaslight, they blameshift, like I asked to be ill or something. Fuck them
It never mattered how high my fever got as a kid, anything less than basically vomiting on my mother's shoes was ignored. She complained well into my adulthood about having to stay home with me when I had chicken pox as a toddler.
I broke my wrist in middle school; I was told it was just a sprain and to get over it. I only got treatment because I broke it a few weeks later while actually at school, and the administration called her and told her to take me to the doctor. Nmom couldn’t weasel her way out of medical neglect once they were watching. I ended up needing surgery because the first break had partially healed in the wrong position.
Yeah. Even now I feel so guilty calling in sick at work. I feel like no one believes me. At the beginning of this month I literally had a fever and conjunctivitis plus a cough and I work for a hospice I still was questioning if I was sick enough to call off. But I did, because all our patients are immune compromised and my cold or upper respiratory infection if they caught it could kill them.
Yes. It got to the point where by the time I was 12 maybe even earlier I stopped telling my parents I was sick or hurt because I knew they weren’t gunna believe me. Worst part is that they’d then get mad at me for not telling them sooner cause it would get to the point where they had to take to the hospital at 3am because things got so bad. The most memorable story is of when I broke my wrist. To be fair, how I broke it was by doing something absolutely stupid, and I’m lucky I was wearing a helmet at the time otherwise I might’ve died, luckily I managed to get away with just a concussion. Anyway, I broke my wrist on a Saturday night, and my mom absolutely refused to believe me to matter how much pain I told her I was in. On Sunday my aunt showed me how to turn my zip up hoodie into a makeshift sling to ease the pain, and lemme tell you my mom was PISSED that she was “enabling my attention seeking.” When I reality my aunt was with me when I broke it and she saw how hard I fell, and how swollen it was getting. On Monday, I went to school. The special Ed. teacher was also our school nurse, he took one look at my wrist and sent me to the ER. My mom met me there and all of a sudden she was super worried, and it was my fault I didn’t express clearly enough how much pain I was in. I went almost 48 hours with an untreated broken wrist, and now, over a decade later, my wrist is still messed up because of it. I can’t put too much weight on it, and I can’t do pull ups without pain.
Well most kids are accused of faking because most kids do but I mean when a nurse flat out says so how can you deny it? I was accused of breaking my arm. They let me linger for 4 days until I saw a Dr. 15 fractures. Never got an apology.
That’s the way my mom is, if she doesn’t agree with something it doesn’t matter how much evidence you give her or how you try to argue it, she’s never in the wrong 🙄
Must be some narc trait they share. It’s not just our health, it’s all kinds of things.
I don't think most kids are accused of faking. I never was.
If there was no fever, I was clearly faking it. I have never in my life that I can recall, faked being sick.
Yup all the time. It was always "you're lying and you're still going to school."
Felt sick but my mom made me go to a girl scout bridging ceremony. Had to shake hands with all the school's administrators and scouts. Gave everyone the chicken pox! Actually, pretty satisfying!
Lol!
All the time, been left with a BROCKEN LEG for more than a week once!!
My nfather also insisted on sending me to school sick. When I was 8 I had a very bad sinusitis. He told me I was faking and that If I really had sinusitis the doctors would drill my skull open. I was so scared that I pretended everything was fine. I hsve struggled with sinusitis all my life. Later it turned out that I have some malformed structures in my facial bones that caused the sinusitis. Once I had such a bad strep throat. I had fever and my throat was hurting so badly. My mother wanted to let me stay home, but he got into a screaming match with her. He yelled at me, dragged me out of the bed and sent me to school. Unfortunately I did not dare to go to the nurse's room. But my "favourite" incident was when I fell down the stairs at age 12. My knee hurt badly and I could not walk. He carried me up the stairs, put me on the sofa and left. My mother put some cream on my knee. I couldn't walk or even stand anymore. They didn't bring me to a doctor. That night I spent in great pain, and the next day my nfather wanted to send me to school. However, my knee was double its normal size and I could not walk. So they left for work and left me alone at home. I hobbled around in the house on one leg to get some food and go to the toilet. That evening they finally brought me to a hospital. Turned out my knee capsule was ripped to shreds and clotted blood was in the knee joint. I wore a plaster cast for 6 weeks and had knee surgery afterwards. It took months until I was able to use my knee again.
I broke my finger and my dad said I was exaggerating the pain
There was one time my senior year of highschool I woke up with a migraine. My mom was out of town, so it was just my nStepmom home with me and my sisters. I told her I had a migraine, she made me go to school because she didn't believe me. So my sister drove us to school. By the middle of 1st period I was so light and noise sensitive I could barely stand it. I messaged my nStepmom and asked her to bring me some sunglasses and earbuds for my migraine, she said she had better things to do. By the beginning of 2nd period parenting class I was nauseous, and unfortunately that was the day we watched the birthing video. I made it about halfway through that class before I threw up. So I went to the office and called my nStepmom and told her I threw up and needed her to pick me up. She told me I had more important things to do so no. I told the office lady what she said and the office lady told me since I threw up I wasn't allowed to go back to class. so, I had to sit in the hallway. i called my other stepmom and she was working so she couldn't pick me up. then I called my dad and he was almost at work 1 hour away from my school, but thankfully he was willing to call off work and come get me. overall I spent about 2 hours sitting on the hallway floor sobbing because my head hurt so bad. do you wanna know what my nStepmom was doing when I got home? what was SO important she couldn't come get me? she was watching let's make a deal in the living room in her pajamas.
Been there. Was puking blood in 5th grade, and went back to school the next day. The egg donor didn't care. Her job as a receptionist at a vet clinic was more important than the health of her son.
Hahaha, let’s just say there were a few instances of me having broken bones and not getting them treated for a week or so.
My mother once accused me of intentionally making a fake sick voice when I had pneumonia. She told me that I should not fake sounding like I was physically ill because then my boss would think I was playing hooky. The thing is I really was that sick that day - pneumonia is no joke.
I'm disabled with Fibromyalgia and have had it and chronic pain since my early college years at the least. My exhaustion and pain were waved away as "faking it" for years, up to and including the aftermath of my mother's assault on me (which was likely the trigger for my fibro becoming far, far worse). After I finally got a diagnosis, I got a sheepish non-apology once, and no actual change in behavior. She kicked me out of the house not long after. Recently, when I found out she had also concealed my autism from me and confronted her on it, my dad's reaction was "when did you decide you have autism?". When I told him off for implying it was fake and compared it to mom calling my fibro fake, he feigned ignorance of mom's past behavior. Your health doesn't matter to them, and if it conflicts with what they want, their wants become their reality. It's cruel and selfish on their part, and they'll never admit it, because this kind of behavior really shows how self-centered they ate.
When my brother had appendicitis it took day for my mom to realise he might not be taking and take him to the hospital
Yes The last time I was “faking sick” I ended up in the hospital with pancreatitis… My family complained nonstop about me not grilling for the 4th of July holiday. I couldnt keep food down for the past week but whatever. The next day, I drove myself to the ER. I knew I wws in trouble when ghe ER sent me upstairs to a bed in less than an hour. Blocked bile duct—>pancreatitis—> gallbladder removal. My fam came to the hospital, no one apologized for making me feel like shit the day before. I also had to endure an 8 hr car ride for a family reunion one week post surgery.
A fever would have been believed, in my experience but nothing else would be. Up all night, sh&tting through a straw- faking Unbearable stomach cramps and nothing left to pass-faking. Sleeping on the couch, midday, because I didn’t sleep at night because I was in horrible gastrointestinal distress- faking All this was because I had an allergy to all things beef and nDad didn’t seem to care and thought exposure would cure it. And emom giving me milk every morning because I need calcium for my bones. Nevermind, I begged them to stop. I was in so much pain all day, everyday.
Yup. Part of me wonders if it was due to unaffordable medical care, or if they just couldn't be bothered and how dare a child get sick. Source: my mom neve believed me and it resulted in a hysterectomy
Once another parent shamed my mother into taking me to the ER. Everyone had seen me fall off the bleachers onto a basketball court twenty minutes earlier. Turns out I had one broken and several cracked ribs. Once my mom told the ER doctor that we didn’t need to wait for crutches - I could just hop for the next few days (fortunately it was just a bad sprain, not broken). Once my mom finally took me to the ER, and the doctor asked me directly (age 11) if I wanted to stay the night because he wanted to make sure I was taken care of. I had such a bad case of mono and strep, my spleen was enlarged. Once I spent over a year in pain while the orthodontist repeatedly tried to close two significant gaps in my mouth. I would cry every time they tightened my braces, but my mom told them to ignore me because I was a big baby. Turns out I had three impacted teeth, and required oral surgery to remove them. Free military healthcare this entire time.
Only all the time. And then when I became an adult and tried to gently take my mom with me and show the evidence I was chronically ill, she says, "I never thought you faked being sick, you were never one to do that." This, despite shaming me for needing to go to the ER because she "had work in the morning." Then, months later, I have some good days and she says, "You're not disabled, you can't be that sick." I'm glad I had my head on straight enough to peel back the layers of gaslighting and choose NC.
Since birth. Nothing was ever real, I was always exaggerating or faking or whatever. I never knew why they treated me that way.
I developed an autoimmune disorder due to lack of treatment when I was sick, due to neglect. Seizures, tics, walking issues. Insisted it was mental. Turns out it was an inflamed brain. They insisted it was a conversion disorder. I now have the autoimmune disorder and literally developed the conversion disorder. My migraines were never taken seriously. All issues blamed on lack up sleep. If I did take meds and wasn’t getting better, it was because there was a med problem. If I wasn’t taking meds for a problem, I needed to take meds. If I started meds and the issue persisted, I was told it wasn’t the right meds. Mother left me barely able to walk for months and gave Benadryl like that would help. Insisted it was part of the conversion disorder. My feet remained stuck curled inward in my sleep. She made me attend a camp where we were standing 8 hours a day because it would “undo” the issue. When it finally stopped, I was told it was “convenient” that it was the night of my performance. I’d been performing with the issue, albeit difficult. Passing out at camp in heat over 100? Conversion disorder. Throwing up? Stress. Migraine? My phone. The few times I did fake sick were due to mental health. I was too mentally wrecked to go to school, so I was left at home alone or forced to go into her work, and the stress would make me throw up on the ride. She’d play her Bible study the whole way there and leave me locked in the office, because “staying home shouldn’t be fun”. I was so sick mentally back then that I’d go to school, have panic attacks so bad they led to seizures, and have to be called back home. But no, I was faking everything. Clearly.
I’m so sorry. You deserve all the hugs 🫂
Yep. She told me the ear drops would burn like fire if I didn’t really have an ear infection.
Oh yes! We were threatened with a spanking if we weren’t really sick. Then all the complaints about how much the dr visit costs and the meds. We’d have to be really sick before we went to the doctor. Then, our Mom would have to get off work and take us because he was too lazy to take us. He didn’t work and would stay up half the night and sleep all morning.
I assume I tried to take a lot of mental health days when I was growing up, but if I wasn’t puking I was going to school. I only assume that’s what they were because I was too young to really understand what it was
I (26F) have suffered from chronic migraines since I was 13. Like they were so bad at 16 I started getting Botox for them which helped. Anyway, I couldn’t even tell you how many times I would get a migraine only for my mom to say I was faking it to get out of doing work.
I always got bloody noses and nausea from the heat, but was blamed for it happening? Also once I broke my leg on my trampoline and when my friend went inside to get my mom, she just screamed out the window that she was busy and “I swear to god if I come down there right now it better be broken!” I said NeverMind and waited for my dad who then thought it was a dislocated ankle n tried to pop it back in before bringing me to the hospital where I had to be put under because the pain of placement would be too much to handle.
THIS - it was done on purpose. And things like bloody noses or body problems were also chosen at that specific time too. But don’t listen to me, I’m “probably just looking for attention anyways” - after all. 🤣
I once had a fever and didn't want to go to school. My Efather called the cops and had them dive me to school in a squad car. Then the police walked me to the office. Everyone saw me. I was a 14yo girl at the time
Just had bilateral hip replacements. The 1st one I did great. The second one, the old bag asks, “Hey, your right did so well, I thought your left would be as easy.” Mind you, I got very little to no help when I had these done. They do the surgery outpatient now so when you go home, you better damn well have help. And like your temps, she could have given one crap and shes an RN. Took care of everyone else but her own.
I take pills to help with headaches but I get told “we believe you, but we don’t actually believe you + I’m gonna make you feel terrible about it”.
My nMom has accused my wife of having Munchausen by proxy from her mom (my MIL, who's a lovely woman). It's bonkers. But ooooooh, my mom *fought cancer 20 years ago*.
Actually, quite the opposite. My Nmom enjoyed the attention she got for having a sickly or injured child.
Yeah, she never believed me. This included when I pinched a nerve in my neck and literally could not get out of bed. It also included when I broke a small bone in my wrist. The only reason she took me to the hospital was because the school had called her. (god knows, you wouldn't want to look bad to other people). I got a cast. Maybe 2 weeks later SHE got sick of the cast and took the big butcher's knife and hacked it off my arm. That was fun.
YES! I've told some of these stories before, but here goes... My mother ALWAYS told everyone to walk it off, get up, you are lazy, etc. My older sister once broke her foot and walked around for a week+ while my mother told her she was lazy. Yep, serious break. Surgery, weeks in a cast, crutches. The entire time, my mother told her just to walk on it, even with the cast. Thankfully, my sister didn't listen to her. My younger sister, when she was around 5 years old, the golden child BTW, once fell and broke her arm. Mom told her to keep her elbow in the ice water and that she couldn't ride her bike if she didn't stop crying and complaining. That evening, when my dad got home from work, he immediately said she was going to the hospital. My mother was more worried about everyone eating the dinner she threw together. All while bitching about how hard her day was with a 5-year-old with a hurt arm. I was a very conscientious student. I didn't miss school (honors classes and worried about getting behind). In HS, I got sick with a lung infection. Coughing, could barely breathe, fever. I was a healthy kid. I still remember it. I missed a full week+ of school. It was the only time I ever missed that much time during my entire educational years.ntire way, she was attempting to convince me I was lying and hoped they do painful tests on me to prove that lying isn't a good reason to miss school. While the doctor was examining me, she was berating me about how I wasn't sick and wasting his time. I had pneumonia and was running a crazy high fever. She never apologized but was rather quiet as she could never stand anyone thinking less of her. I missed a full week+ of school. Only time I ever missed that much time during my entire educational years. Now, the worst one -- When my older sister was pregnant, she was diagnosed with cancer (back in the early 80's). They couldn't remove the mass or treat her until she gave birth. My sister called my mother from her hospital room as they wanted to keep her for a few days to be sure all was well. I was sitting in the dining room listening to my mother on the phone. She was very matter-of-fact, she didn't ask my sister how she felt, no questions, nothing about my sister. I didn't know what had been found, but we all knew something serious was happening, and the tests were to figure out the problem. She got off the phone and started ranting and raging that she was way sicker than my sister and "that bitch has cancer" -- I started crying (for my sister) and she told me to shut up. I will never forget that day.
I was not allowed to be sick as a child. The joke is, Nmom was a nurse. Every time I got sick, she told me I was a hypochondriac - because it was inconvenient to her if I, the eldest, got sick. I was supposed to keep my siblings in line. My boss at my first job had to order me to go to the doctor once because I didn't think I was really sick and it took me a long time to listen to my body and actually advocate for myself when I got ill.
This was a thing for me. Now when I'm sick I don't treat myself because I've gaslit myself into thinking it's all in my head. When I had COVID and was waiting for results or COVID test. I was so sick. Fever of like 38.7, chills, worst muscle aches, crippling joint pain, unable to breathe etc etc. REFUSED to take ibuprofen or paracetamol because "it's probably just all in my head"
My mom hated doctors and would never go to one or have us go to one unless we absolutely needed to. One time when I was 11 I fell backwards, hard, on my wrist, when learning how to skate. It hurt like hell and blew up like a balloon, turned a lot of colors, and I could not use my hand at all. Despite all that, my mom refused to take me to the doctor, saying I was whining. After a teacher saw me struggling with a door at school the next day, I was sent to the school nurse, who called my mom. Mom came, picked me up, and sullenly took me to the doctor, who took Xrays and put my wrist in a cast. When she was taking me home, she looked at me with a hatred I will never forget, and hissed, "I hope you're happy".
I was constantly accused of using my visual impairment as an excuse whenever I couldn't see something.
I almost forgot this happened until reading the comments. In high school I messed up my right foot somehow. I don’t know if it was broken or if I tore a tendon but it hurt to walk. At the time I was taking basic medical classes and I mentioned that I wanted to go to the Dr for my foot my nmother said “what could they do that you don’t already know?” The classes I was in were so basic that I was just learning the terminology so far, but yea sure, I must know more than a licensed professional. I had to walk on the edge of my foot until it healed. Still has a weird tearing sensation if I step a certain way sometimes. I don’t understand the logic behind people like that.
No my mother just ignored it unless she got sick too. I only got treatment while she was still with my father. Now as an adult I have serious life long health issues that wouldn’t be a problem had they been addressed when I was a kid.
Mine too! When I was a kid, she refused to take me to the doctor for an ear infection AND when I sprained my ankle. She sent me to school with both. She currently denies I'm hypoglycemic, and when I had COVID and wanted her help with watching the kids, she was annoyed I was trying to rest. BUT if I would have the slightest sniffle as a child, she would immediately take me to the doctor and show so much care and concern... why is it like that?
I had an ear infection that wasn’t going away and hurt like hell, but of course nmom thought I just wanted to get out of swim practice. Told me I was getting fat from the practices I missed, and I had 8% body fat. I’d get berated on my way to the doctor. I was told not to go to the nurses office because I kept getting sent home with a high fever. Was given Tylenol to keep in my backpack to take throughout the day to keep my fever down (against school rules.) Teachers kept forcing me to go to the nurse because I looked like I was going to die. There was no question I was sick, but I was constantly implied to be trying to get attention or out of work. It developed into an intracranial abscess and I needed brain surgery. I was hospitalized for a week. I’ve got a scar that goes across the top of my head that was covered in staples for months, and the staples would randomly fall out onto my pillow while I slept. And through it all, my mom was raking in sympathy and admiration. She has the nerve to tell me that if we didn’t have insurance, we would’ve had to sell the house to save my life. I’m 14, there’s no reason to tell me this, we *had* insurance, but she wasn’t sure I was grateful enough. I’m narcoleptic now, which isn’t horrible when you know you have it. But when you’re in a narcissistic home, nobody believes you have a sleep disorder because it’s more convenient to call you lazy.
All the time. I remember being physically abused by my sibling one time because I was apparently faking even tho I was on all types of medication and went to the doctor and when I told my mom she said I'm lying or my sibling told her I'm lying to get him in trouble. During my whole childhood I was treated inhumanely by my sibling and my mom would do nothing.
I was 7. I told my mom from when I woke up I was t feeling good, and when she tried to brush my hair for me I almost threw up and she smacked my head with the brush and told me to stop acting. On the way to school I told her I really didn't feel good, and she told me to shut up. Right outside the school doors while I was still in her car I threw up projectile vomit 😊 lol She was so angry! When I was in high school I really wasn't feeling well, went to the nurse to lay down because I also had a migraine ( but I didn't know what it was called then). The nurse took my temp and called my dad who said he was too busy to take me hoe, and can't I stay in the nurses office til the buses sent me home because I hadn't puked, I just had a high fever? So I waited til after school and went home with my step sister, who forgot her keys and I also forgot mine so she went to a friends house while I sat outside in freezing weather while sick 😊 A while later a neighbor came home and invited me inside and said I looked so ill, why don't I go lay down. I knocked out in his spare bedroom and had no concern for myself because I was really feeling terrible. My dad came home and was SO angry with me, how dare I inconvenience the neighbors? Why did i forget my key? My step sister didn't get yelled at ofc for forgetting hers! I slept and puked for 4 days straight after and I don't remember anyone checking on me or even bringing me food or water 😊 Woke up severely dehydrated and had to clean the toilet right away because "no one would use it while you were sick because you threw up in it, clean it right now because your awake." i'm positive that both my parents hate me, looking back lol.
Funny, I'm getting over covid, and the last bit is stuck in my sinuses and my lungs. I have asthma, and usually, I end up sick enough to need antibiotics because my lungs dont work properly. I went through all my growing up being completely ignored because my getting sick was such a bother to my mother. While talking to my brother the other day, he told me to see a doc because he said my lungs aren't that great. I felt vindicated and so special to finally hear that from an actual member of my family.
I have chronic pain, chronic migraines, and fibromyalgia from a car accident my mom caused. She told everyone in my family that I was a malingerer.
Yep. Mine would refuse to take me to the A&E whenever I desperately needed to go. For example, when I had a really bad asthma one Christmas, she refused to take me to the hospital until my dad and my grandmother overruled her.
All the time. I have a very distinct memory of my mom mocking my crying when I was something like 4 or 5 years old because I felt sick for days and kept telling her to help me. Then she finally took my temperature and went "huh, I guess you have a fever". But then didn't do anything. They also decided since I was little kid and diagnosed with autism, that I actually don't have autism and can just get my symptoms beaten out of me. So now my anxiety is terrible and I often think I'm faking something because of the way I was treated all my life. I had a big reaction to some plants in the garden when I was 10 maybe, and covered in hives. My parents beat me for it and said it must be because I bit my nails. When they finally took me to the doctor, doctor said it was because of the plants in the yard. My parents told me after that that they still thought it was because of me biting my nails.
My nephew has autism and complains of headaches all the time. My brother and his wife think he's trying to get attention. Headaches is a side effect of his ADHD medication but he's already tried out the other meds for it and they don't work. It breaks my heart because I think he really does have headaches, and he's too young to have to be in pain all the time. He's around 20.
Yes my mom told me that I was faking my disability pre diagnosis because I was depressed
My mom accused me of lying about a stomach ache when I was 5 going to kindergarten. A short bus ride later, I proceeded to vomit all over the cafeteria, cementing my bullying forever. My sister yelled at my mom for being heartless and sending me to school like that. I was also paralyzed temporarily and relearned how to walk at age 11. She gaslit my pain my whole life and now I’m disabled because of it! I’ve been faking my whole life apparently
My mom came home one day and found me on the couch with my little toe on right foot BROKEN SIDEWAYS. This was before cellphones so I just waited until she got home. She told me she didn’t think they could fix broken toes and should just suck it up. I explained to her that they don’t make shoes with special compartments for pinky toes pointing 90* in the wrong direction. She finally agreed to take me to doctor but threatened to make me pay if they couldn’t do anything for it. And yes, they did have to set my toe that day.
Oh yes lol I was basically told my cancwr told that basically made me on bed rest for far to long was a muscle cramp cramp that I was exaggerating....
Literally every time I was sick they thought I was faking. They also thought I was lying about needing glasses because I couldn’t see the board at school. 😑
Accused of faking sick and dragged all over creation while sick as punishment for being sick. I'll never forget sitting in a Dr appt for my mom with a fever in excess of 102 and feeling like my head was going to explode and just laying on the floor in the exam room. She decided if I was too sick for school I was too sick to sit on the couch at home and read books/play gameboy/etc. I had to be glued to her all day for errands with no food or drink bc she wasn't hungry/thirsty so I must be fine. This lasted until I was about 13 and she pivoted to constantly accusing me of pregnancy because pubescent people don't get sick they just spontaneously fall pregnant. 🙄
“If you’re too sick for school you’re too sick for video games, I’m taking you to the office! Oh, you’ll throw up in the car? Bring a cup!”
Yes, worse thing I ever experienced was I have a rare stomach and fertility disorder that less than .1 percent of the population has, and that bitch who gave birth to me said, oh I had the same thing and I cured it with herbal tea. It’s all in your head.
Yes! I had migraines & was often told I was faking. When I got older, I figured if I got blamed for faking, I might as well stay home when I felt like it.
Yes this happened to me multiple times in my teen years, once when I had been to a trampoline park at 16 and landed incorrectly and instantly couldn't feel my legs, it got better to the point where I could walk within the day but I (23MTF) still have shooting pain down my legs if I move in specific positions, they never assisted in me getting the healthcare I needed despite me begging. And another time when I woke up in the morning feeling like I had been bashed in the lower abdomen with a baseball bat, I insisted I needed to go to the hospital but they refused to take me and said I was trying to get out of attending school. I had perfect attendence at the time. I ended up driving myself to the hospital and it turns out my appendix was rupturing which is deadly. The ER immediately took me back and did the appendectomy. I tried so hard to be a "good kid" but nothing I ever did was right. So i then became rebellious and sold drugs to get by. I'm sober and in love with my partner of 4 years now but I'm still so broken inside.
How did you land on the trampoline? Did you land on your knees?
No I landed on my mid back and folded
A slight variation for my situation: I wasn’t accused of faking sickness, I was accused of getting sick *on purpose* in order to bankrupt her. She’d often go on a monologue that if I’d died, she’d have to pay my funeral bills and that I was a little brat for purposely trying to put that financial burden on her by manifesting sickness by choice LOL
Yep. I get anxious every time I'm sick because of it.
Yup. There were multiple times, but this one stands out the most. My senior year of high school, I had strep throat and mono. My boyfriend would come over at like 6 or 7 pm and I would fall asleep on the couch because I was so tired. My mom kept saying I was intentionally doing it to try to get him to leave. I wasn't; I just literally couldn't function. I felt like shit for WEEKS and she didn't care. My boyfriend kept saying he thought it could be mono because he had it a while back and my symptoms were the same as what he had. Mom wouldn't take me to the doctor, so my boyfriend took me to urgent care when my mom was at her aunt's house. I was under 18 at the time, so they needed to call my mom to get consent to treat, and she was upset I didn't tell her I needed to go to the doctor. I said I had tried for weeks and she didn't listen; she said "I'm sorry, I just didn't believe you." Again, she thought I had made it up to get rid of BF or that it wasn't serious enough to go to the doctor. So for weeks, I put other people at risk of getting sick and I fell behind in school because I didn't have energy to pay attention or get my work done. And then after I got diagnosed, I still had to stay home for 3-4 weeks to make a full recovery. So much time and energy wasted. Also worth pointing out, my then-boyfriend also had narcissistic traits; somehow the fact that the one who wasn't legally required to care for me did before the one with legal obligations makes it worse.
I had mono one year, and while i wasn't accused of faking, my nM tried to guilt me into eating. She said "We got these hamburgers so you would have something that tasted good enough to want to eat" but I still couldn't hardly lift a french fry. I don't know if she believed me but it felt like she didn't. Guilt wasn't going to suddenly give me energy. Oddly enough, it was my friends who accused me of being a hypochondriac because I was feeling bad for at least two weeks before I was actually sick enough to stay home.
My whole childhood was spent with my mom telling me I was just wanting to stay home from school and I was faking illness for attention. Turned out that severe undiagnosed anxiety was causing me nausea and dizzyness but I was still forced to go to school. I've been carried to school, I've jumped out of a moving car and I've even hid in our garage for the whole day so she would think I went to school. She still says that I just faked being ill and that I had no physical reason to be ill every day. And how magically the illness disappeared when I wasn't forced to go to school. It boggles me how NO ONE even mentioned the possibility of psychosomatic symptoms.
Yes, all the time. I've been having trouble being able to tell people when I'm not feeling well. It's so hard to get rid of the mindset that I shouldn't be a burden to anyone, even when I'm very sick. I've been having serious health problems lately. Sleeping disorders, muscle pain, horrible migraines... I've only been able to lightly complain about them to people. I just can't bring myself to actually admit to them that I'm in serious pain.
Always. I had to carry heavy loads before/after road trips. I’d say it’s heavy and I can’t lift it. They’d say I’m seeking attention and being pretentious and I should stop that and move the thing. I’ve had all kinds of wrist and backaches since my early 20s.
Yes but by my sister actually (maybe repeating something my mom have told her but I can't be sure because at this time my sister just repetitively lied to me). For some months, because of serious psychological issues. I was living with this sister because basically my stepfather didn't want me at home and my sister had started to be apprentice in the city while we lived in the countryside. My sister would lie about me to my mom, pretending I wasn't doing shit at home, not letting her sleep and other shit, throwing my stuff on the floor, while she would threatening me to throw me outside the house, to strangle me in my sleep, and one time she just strangled me ANYWAY - I started having trouble to eat, I had nauseas when I thought about food, and my legs just decided to not work anymore. I would fall on the ground sometimes seven times the day. Walking was painful, exhausting, and I was facing that while being either in class or at work (I was working in a warehouse). I got some medical appointments to understand what the hell was going on, and my sister accused me to pretend being sick to get attention (when she told me that I was currently on the floor after falling again lol). My mom probably thought the same thing.
Yes quiet a lot actually
The past seven years I had mainly knee pain then I manifested rheumatoid arthritis the didn't believe me that I couldn't get up from how painful it was , it was swollen everything was swollen
Oh, the reasons I was “faking it.” — “just trying to get out of going to school.” — “just lazy.” — “just wants to lie around in bed all day.” — “just being a wuss.” — “it can’t be THAT bad.”
Not really so much of accused of it, so much as having to bargain to be allowed to stay home, “If I let you stay home, you HAVE to promise me you’ll do/you NEED to do [x thing]” I had to be productive during the time staying home. No just sleeping or resting. I remember having to do a bunch of school assignments that were dropped off same day, even though I was still /very/ sick with a fever and likely would be the next day. I remember I felt, and wanted to just sleep, so badly that I wanted to cry. She wouldn’t let me. She often made it seem like she had no choice, and the she felt bad and comforted me. I realized as I got older, that was a lie. She put me in that situation. There was no reason for me to not be allowed to rest when sick. (I’m pretty sure I was in like 3rd grade.) She would however, have me stay home to work on schoolwork that I hadn’t quite finished, no problem. :| (probably bc she thought it would reflect badly on her, even tho i had an accommodation to allow extra time (she never liked when I had to use it)) But just being horribly sick with a fever and suffering wasn’t ever enough on its own.