Do you sometimes feel like a fraud?

Hey guys,

I sometimes feel like a fraud..... hard to explain but am hoping you know what I am talking about? Do you ever feel the same way or feel like people dont believe you?

I feel like sometimes people think I am just an *** instead of sick...or just crazy instead of manic. The first thought that came to my mind when I read the first line of your post was yes...but for a different reason...Sometimes I feel like I have so many different personalities that I just don't know who "me" really is. when I'm with someone when I'm manic (and some people have only known me in these states) I am wild and crazy, up for anything and I usually do just about anything I want. But then there are the times when I am so depressed.... I don't know where I was going w/ this but I feel like a fraud b/c not too many people know ME as a whole.

((((((allme))))), i believe we all might feel like that one time or another, i even doubt myself, and my thinking, like"do i really believe..." and so on, i do think the husband-ugh-thinks i use it as a scape-you know"i was so angry, but thats just my mood swings thing..." right now as i write this i doubt myself, my mother and father wont really acknowledge that im mentally ill they usually blame external circumstances, and its tough to deal with...anyways your not alone with this thinking and maybe it will change....

Sometimes things get so mixed up for me that I don't even know what to believe, so yes, I could say that I sometimes feel like a fraud. I think that BPD also makes you hypersensitive to the way others perceive you, and that makes it even harder. Take care of yourself.

Sometimes i find it hard to accept my diagnosis of being bipolar and think to myself am i using my condition as an excuse? (if that makes any sense) I can relate to the post that states "thoughts get so mixed up for me that I don't even know what to believe" so i guess i would say I sometimes feel like a fraud. Well hopefully that helped just so you know you're not alone with those thoughts

I grew up in a household full of secrets. Everyone was involved in some way with these secrets directly except for me. No direct abuse to me, father was a drunk sent to military prison, brother was schizophrenic. My mother spent her whole time trying to keep the family from getting embarrassed about our circumstance, that I seemed to be the 'normal' one out of the lot.

Growing up, the one quote I remember from my mom was, "suck it up and drive on". No validation to the problems I showed even then. Children shouldnt punch holes in drywall...etc ...etc. I grew up listening to my mother tell me pretty much that, no matter how bad I THOUGHT my problems were, someone had it worse than me. Do I agree, yes, but did I still have problems, yes. She never acknowledged me and my issues because it was, take care of the schizophrenic, take care of the abused daughter, talk with your husband who is 2 states away in the brig. And me, I was just a pain in the @$$ to her it seemed.

Growing up, I now realize that the problems I had, were still valid problems, I just got brainwashed into thinking that I was a normal kid who was 'misguided youth' so to speak. Had an issue before I finally just filed for disability because, as I told my doc, I didnt think I was disabled. I had that feeling of trying to get something for myself, even though I never "thought" I was disabled. I know otherwise now.

Yes, but not in the way that you're referring to. I was dx with bp more than 10 years ago and there is only a small circle of my friends that know this about me. I also work as a nurse and I know full well the stigma attached to this disorder. I feel like a fraud because I wont share my disorder out of fear.

Ditto to that.

I feel like a fraud for parading around going 'Stop stigma/discrimination/protect human rights" while I hide being a mask so people, particularly my family don't 'discover' my illness.

Sometimes I ask myself if I'm making this all up, hence fraud.

Hi Everybody,

I have read all these quotes, and yes, sometimes I feel like a fraud. And part of the stigma is getting blamed for past mania episodes to "You´re using BP as an excuse for your behavior. Ugh!

nirmal



((((((allme))))), i believe we all might feel like that one time or another, i even doubt myself, and my thinking, like"do i really believe..." and so on, i do think the husband-ugh-thinks i use it as a scape-you know"i was so angry, but thats just my mood swings thing..." right now as i write this i doubt myself, my mother and father wont really acknowledge that im mentally ill they usually blame external circumstances, and its tough to deal with...anyways your not alone with this thinking and maybe it will change....[/quote]

When I first got diagnosed as being Bipolar, I really feared I was making it up. I went in circles trying to prove to myself that this was just a cleaver personal ruse to confuse people and make myself different. But then I started to become more comfortable with my diagnosis. After about a year, I decided it was time to tell some of my closest friends and own up to the issues I had. For me that was one of the best things I could have done. But yes, there are still days when I think I am making this up.

Dave.

I feel like a fraud because I went years without any mania or depression. I took meds (the wrong kind) and seen a pdoc every 6 months. But I mean years. 16 years. And I went through some tough times. But I knew and it reared it's ugly head this past year and I almost comitted sucide. I'm on all new meds now and I move a little slower. But if I come out and tell someone I'm bipolar they can't believe it. So that makes me feel like a fraud.

My pdoc said that he hasn't fully settled on a diagnosis. I show all the symptoms, I'm on meds for it, and in the chat rooms several BP's have told me how similar I am to them. The chances that I am are actually pretty high. But I don't know a hundred percent that I am BP so I feel like fraud for even posting in this subforum. I feel like a fraud to all of you.

When it comes to the people around me I hide so much. People at work, classmates, friends I don't think I've told anyone including my wife, all about me. I have never let anyone get close enough to know the real me so I am a fraud to everyone.

I am on a Disability Support Pension (Australia) due to my illnesses and I sometimes fall into thinking - I shouldn't be on it - I'd rather be working - which I do wish I was working. But the truth is I have serious life-threatening illnesses and I can't work, haven't for three years. I tried with a huge lead-up and great support from a network of mental health clinicians and an employment support agency and I had a meltdown within a few days and had to resign.

Now I've started to do a part-time course at Uni. I don't even know whether I'll be able to do the course yet - it's a day-by-day proposition. But now I feel guilty because my head tells me, if you can study, you should be able to work and you are bleeding off the system. Which again, is bull, because I'm doing the part time Off Campus mode and I can do all the work at my own pace when I am well enough, the only time imperative being the Due Dates for assignments. If it was a consistent committment I would have to keep I wouldn't be able to do it - that has been shown by my efforts again and again to try to do things.

My therapist says I am a perfectionist and I never really understood what that meant until recently when the penny dropped. It's about me having unrealistic expectations of myself and others, which of course causes me pain all the time and limits my movement forward in my recovery. Oh well - sometimes it takes time for the penny to drop!!?? lol

I sometimes feel like that, but for different reasons.

1. Am I using my dx as an excuse? Could I actually just pull myself together and be a controlled and rational person?

2. People ask how I am and I'll answer "fine" (Which is the truth); yet hours later the wheels fall off and I start to panic and run back to those exact same people asking for help. How do you explain to people that you are on a rollercoaster?

sugahorse, maybe explain to them that, when they ask how you are and you say OK, that that's OK RIGHT NOW - you'll do everything to stay OK, but you may not be at different times, due to brain changes that you can't help. If they care enough, they'll listen. If it's a really important person, you could ask for them to come see you with your psych team and they can ask questions.

I bailed on a friendship of 30 years last year because it became terribly obvious that she was expecting quick fixes with my illnesses, which are life threatening and through which I nearly died. - and which will be lifelong. I mean, she was there in ICU while I was in a coma, but in the months following that she still expected me to suddenly get up, dust myself off and say "I'm not going to be sick anymore" (paraphrasing). In the end I found her to much to bear ironically. I've tried to see it in a non-combatative way and say to myself that my limitations were coming up against her limitations and something had to give. Which it did.

Wendy - so sorry to hear, but we do need to sometimes make decisions that are in favour of our health.
I've been in a VERY similar position so I can relate. The irony is that we were best friends, she was already dx bipolar and we assumed I was too. She now made the decision to cut all contact with me, as she felt her bipolar was getting the better of her, and that our friendship was becoming too much work, creating too much unrest and anxiety.

I do however find myself telling my p-doc I'm fine, then having to phone her the next day (Like last week) nearly ready to admit myself to hospital - the wheels have come off. I know they are meant to be professionals and understand, but sometimes I take a step back and look at myself and feel like a freak - one minute I'm 120%, then come crashing to rock bottom.

I am 57 years old and was "officially" diagnosed with mental illness in 1985. It was a mis-diagnosis and I wasn't correctly diagnosed until 2004. Since that time, I've discovered I've been bipolar since I was a wee child. I've always been "different"...a gifted musician, a gifted student, moody, ill-tempered at times, uncontrollable when disciplined by my mother to the point of being beaten, there were periods when I felt normal, there were periods when I felt like an alien from outer space.

I never could keep friends. I managed somehow to graduate from college. But there were times when I couldn't hold down a job. I've been married four times. My current marriage has lasted 11 years and is a good one. I have a 16 year old son who is a gift from heaven as I had him at age 41.

Yes, I've felt "crazy", I've felt normal, I've felt all kinds of things because of the symptoms of bipolar. But the one thing I can say is I've never felt bored!!! It's been a hard life. Stigma. Challenges. Hardships. Poverty. No family support. Parents were alcoholic. Siblings didn't know or care about my struggles. But guess what. I survived. And I honestly believe I'm here and stronger because of it. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

I don't wish it on any one of you. I feel very much for each of you. I know what you are going through. Each of our stories are a little different. But we can make it with each other's help. That's what this forum is for. Love to you all.

Sure, I often think maybe I've just made this all up. Even get paranoid to the point where I'm certain my doctors know I made it up too and I'm not taking real medications, but placebos, just because I'm silly enough to make up some mental disorder. Other times, I'm certain I have no disorder at all.

And then there are the other times, the times where I have, I admit, used the diagnosis, or more likely, the common perceptions of the diagnosis, to my advantage, not because I needed it, but because I could. It's terrible, I know this mentally, but I figure, if I have to be mentally ill, I may as well put that label to good use.

I beat myself up for about 30 years not understanding why I couldn't just pull myself together. There was nothing I could come up with to explain it except to assume that I was hopelessly weak willed or something, as I didn't *have* a dx (can we all say, "swept under the rug"? The symptoms were there, no doubt about it, but being surrounded by this attitude only made me more convinced that it just must be me being to blame). The dx explained a lot and was a relief actually. A point from which to understand that it wasn't simply some kind of personal failure. In terms of answering "fine", I am very often lying then. I simply can't deal with running into the same attitude from people that I had all those years. Soooo, I feel like a fraud because I simply cannot admit to others just how very bad it is. Also, because of the cyclical nature of BP, there are times when things are going pretty ok. At those times I delude myself into thinking, "maybe it won't happen again". I know it isn't true, but I wish it with all my heart. This morphs into, "well, maybe I don't really have it...". You guessed it. That doesn't last long at all before it gives me a big time reality smack down. Again. And again and again and again. But I think the biggest one is that BP is exhausting all by itself. Because so many people don't understand just how real it is, ie. they think it's "fraudulent" or an excuse or something -- they are only too happy to try to convince you its very existence is fraudulent... combine that with personally wishing it *weren't* so and not having the energy to fight to misconceptions.... yeah.

That was very eloquent Innerzone. It just shows that getting a proper dx is so important on many fronts: being able to address the illness thorugh meds and therapy, but also having yourself validated that there IS a majoe illness at play, it's not just a weakness of character - it's not that at all. You have a serious illness that requires serious solutions.

But I also understand your frustration and pain at the balancing act of communicating what's happening to people close to you. You need to vent and have love and support - but their love and support is not unconditional as you said - they judge, they minimise the nature of the illness or even that you have it. I've learned that people are preapred to be brave and learn about the illness - or they're not. And I've stopped trying to flog that dead horse.

And don't forget, and I think a lot of Beepers do forget this - all those family and friends are not perfect themselves, although they may like to try on their belief that because WE have the mental illness that they in comparison are perfect in all their glory. Ain't true and I'm not buying into that anymore.

But I must declare that I'm a cynic on this issue. I separated full from immediate and extended family in December permanently. I came out of abject denial that I had been in for decades that they loved and cared about me- a delusion I have cultivated for many years. Obviously it's been really hard, facing up to my delusion, then making the separation, then dealing with the grief that has ensured - But I have not regretting it for a moment - I know that for me this is one major aspect of life I needed to get sorted to enable my best run at a decent life. Doesn't stop the sadness though - but that's natural - it IS my whole family.

But I also know that some people with Bipolar are not in a position for various reasons to separate from family and I don't judge that. And I'm sure for some there is genuine love and caring, so it's worthwhile staying with family and friends in that case - but just adjusting expectations.

Yeah, I really do have that feeling, especially lately.
With the stress caused by my job, my doctor has actually put me on an intermittent FMLA.
It's not the job itself, but the environment.

And there are times when I call in sick that I feel like a complete fraud.

Amadeus - I hve sometimes thought of calling in sick, but haven't got round to it. Not sure what excuse I put down...?
If I'm feeling really low, I'll chat to a mate of mine via e-mail, or spend time on here to get strength. And I just sit in my corner at work, listening to my music and switching off. I know I am not productive that day, but I really cannot bring myself to calling in sick. It's a lot easier if you have flu or something, as people can physically see you are sick

Last week I got a review of my conduct for the field work I do for a course. My supervisor gave me a low mark and said I have no enthusiasm/motivation/always sick (though I've only had 3 days off for the semester and didn't get behind on my work). I was like GAHHHHHHHHHHHHH FUUUUUUUUUUUU. But there's no point. She won't get it. So I'm going to have to keep my crap conduct mark for something that I have no control over.
Not fair. In this case, I don't feel like a fraud. But when I had a regular job, I sometimes did. either case, I only call in sick when I don't have the energy to get out of bed and I have suicidal thoughts. I draw the line when I feel that bad and go, screw them, I need rest.

I wonder what I my company's policy regarding this kind of sick leave is. I've been here nearly a year and only taken 1/2 day off - I was so nauseous and sick and really couldn't be at work. But my colleagues had personally seen me, and told me to go home. I know if we take Tues, Wed or Thurs off we don't need a sick note. But if I come in the next day looking physically 100%, I will always get funny looks. And I'm not in a position, I feel, to tell my managers or HR department. I'd rather wait till I get called in for my performance slipping before I try explain why. Or even better, just carry on doing my best. But I just have no concentration and continuously need new challenges, so I can be a real headache, both for myself and my employer