Quote:
Originally Posted by ultramar
There's a patient who I've occasionally interpreted for who regularly comes into the ER with abdominal pain. A nurse, frustrated and annoyed, told me once that she's had every test there is, more than once, and they can find nothing -there's nothing wrong with her.
Well I ended up interpreting again for her last night and the doctor told me she had "factitious disorder." I didn't know what that was, so I looked it up -it's apparently a psychological disorder:
From the Cleveland Clinic:
People with Factitious Disorder deliberately create or exaggerate symptoms of an illness in several ways. They may lie about or mimic symptoms, hurt themselves to bring on symptoms, or alter diagnostic tests (such as contaminating a urine sample).
Those with Factitious Disorders have an inner need to be seen as ill or injured, but not to achieve a concrete benefit, such as a financial gain. Individuals with Factitious Disorder are even willing to undergo painful or risky tests and operations in order to obtain the sympathy and special attention given to people who are truly ill. Factitious Disorder is considered a mental illness because it is associated with severe emotional difficulties.
According to what I've read, this can occur with the mimicking of both physical and psychological symptoms. So it got me thinking: Is it possible that there are people who mimic/fake (consciously or unconsciously) psychological symptoms in therapy?
Do you think this can happen, and if so, why?
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It might be possible.
I actually have this big fear that I'm some sort of pathological liar. I fear that I'm faking and/or exaggerating my symptoms. I worry that perhaps I'm just imagining all of them and that I'm making them up or making them seem worse than they are just to get attention. I still worry about it but it's not as bad as it was about a year ago. Back then it was all I could think of. It consumed my life and gave me such horrible anxiety that I literally hit my head because I wanted it to stop. It made me research things over and over and over again. It made me go through memories, lists, conversations etc repeatedly to make sure I had told no lies and that I hadn't faked any symptoms.
Sometimes I still worry I'm faking.
What if I am? Perhaps I have some sort of Factitious Disorder. I really hope that's not true.
EDIT: However, if I look at it rationally (which is difficult to do sometimes) I realise that there's probably no way I could fake 10+ years of mental illness. And I guess if I really had Factitious Disorder I wouldn't worry about it, right?