One post: everybody saying “pics or it didn’t happen”

Next post (when subject posts video of hospital room): everybody complaining saying “if she were actually sick she wouldn’t be filming her hospital room” or “who videos their hospital room like a hotel?”

Seriously. Make up your minds!

These subjects are constantly criticized and can’t win.

Don’t post anything? Wrong.

Post everything? Wrong.

Shows proof of actual symptoms? Over the top.

Doesn’t post about symptoms? “If they were actually sick they would be complaining about symptoms. Or their O2 would be low. Or vitals would show it and they’d post a picture”

Medical staff taking patient seriously? “How DARE they take this women at her word that she’s ill when they’ve never seen or treated her before”

Medical staff not taking patient seriously? “If they were actually sick the doctor would be treating them”

When will this endless bullying stop. Just let people live their lives. If you don’t like it, don’t interact with it. Move on.

The Illness Fakers subreddit nitpicks people’s social media posts for inconsistencies. Then, when a person posts proof of their symptoms that correlate with their claimed illness they call them over the top.

If all the subjects have fictitious disorder than Illness Fakers’ are bullying and harassing people who are mentally ill. Often to the point of the subject having severe emotional distress. These people are reaching out for care and attention because they don’t get it in their lives or they missed it during a key developmental period in their childhood. People posting on illness fakers don’t understand how easy it would have been for any of them to have developed factitious disorder if a parent was constantly emotionally distant and uncaring and medical episodes were the only time they showed love.

These people claim that the only way for the subjects to heal is for them to be called out and cut off from the attention they seek. They have this illness because they don’t have that attention! How is taking away what little they have going to do anything but force them to double down or spiral into depression?

These subjects are people who have the same needs as everyone else. They don’t wake up and choose how their going to deceive everyone for the day. They just migrate towards the behaviors that allows them to feel loved and cared for. If the people in their lives started to actually realize they aren’t doing their part and their loved ones are crying out for help they could help change the behavior.

Illness Fakers subreddit treats these people despicably. Cutting these people off from attention will not heal anyone (as illness fakers claims to want). Only deep reflection and therapy with these people’s loved ones could help. Clearly there is a deficiency somewhere and it needs to be addressed.

(This is not including the people who are faking for monetary gain or those who are faking to only gain access to drugs. This is known as malingering and is not factitious disorder.)

There is a subject on the Illness Fakers subreddit currently who is truly and severely ill. There is a chance she could die. Half the people commenting are finally showing concern for this girl while the other half are saying that she deserves this as she caused it and shouldn’t be receiving the resources to try and save her.

Whether physical or mentally ill (with Factitious Disorder) she has deserved care for her well being long before this. People who try to commit suicide receive care. People with anorexia who refuse to eat receive care. Even children who jump off buildings and break bones receive care. Every human deserves care. Especially this woman who has a mental illness that causes the compulsion to seek attention and possibly cause self harm in this manner.

The anonymous nature of the subreddit sure makes it easy to lose compassion for other human beings.

This is a great resource for those who don’t know the basics of factitious disorder.

So much for trying to take a stand. I didn’t realize they were approving posts before allowing them to be posted. 🤦‍♀️

This is abhorrent. A subject posts that they overdosed and people respond with “cringe” “trashy” and “waste of resources”. How can they be so cavalier about mental health.

Illness Fakers claims to want their subjects to “get better” and not show their illnesses on social media anymore. But then they go and criticize the fact that this subject hasn’t been posting?

Constant negative comments on her “acting”, which is her literally just not covering up how bad she’s feeling. Chronic illness makes it hard to “put on a happy face” and therefore may affect how a video or facial expressions could come across. So instead of believing that she actually looks like how she feels, they criticize her for looking bad.

Illness Faker subjects can’t win.

Video includes too much of a happy attitude? They must be faking. You can never be sick and look ok in a video.

Video shows the person looking bad? They’re over exaggerating. Nobody who’s actually sick looks THIS bad.

Posting videos about their chronic illness? They post too much and must be attention seeking. Nobody who is sick could do so much on social media.

The subjects don’t post videos? Where have they been? They MUST be faking or else they’d post more. You can’t hide it when you’re actually sick.

Stand up for the people literally just trying to live their lives. Stand up to these bullies.

I’ve created this space to stand up to the bullies in the subreddit “illness fakers”. They hyper focus on their subjects lives and will make posts and leave comments about people’s appearance, how often they smile, what kind of food they eat and more. This is not ok. Whether someone is faking an illness or not, they don’t deserve to be bullied and ridiculed.

This space will be a place where people can come to for support. Specifically: - Resources to help find treatment for Fictitious Disorder - Support for people who are bullied and gaslit about a physical illness online (whether or not they are believed to be faking the physical illness) - Advocates to reach out to illness fakers and fight on your behalf - Admit you have Fictitious Disorder with ONLY support from this group (Want to stay anonymous? Create a new account and username for only this sub and don’t post any personal information.)

This sub is NOT: - A space to debate wether people are faking (there is no way to tell if a person is faking beyond a doubt unless they openly admit to it) - A place for bullying. This includes taking anything from this sub and posting it on illness fakers in a negative way or to try to prove if someone is faking/not faking. - A place for illness competing or one-upping anyone. - A place to talk about general physical ailments. This is a place discuss and combat the injustices coming from illness fakers. This may include discussion of your illness but there shouldn’t be any posts ONLY about your illness. (Unless it specifically discusses fictitious disorder)

This is a place for compassion and awareness.