People Who Lie About Illness & Dying
Believe it or not, this is a thing. It's absolutely amazing how far people on the internet would actually go to get attention. Many people fake illness, but not many will have the balls to actually say they're dying when they aren't, and it's important to notice the signs when somebody is doing just that. A few weeks ago I was in a Discord server, and one of the users, who everybody knew as Alice, who is very well respected there, managed to pull this off - even convinced everyone that she spent her last minutes there, just before dying. When I got around to looking at key details she told everyone, I realized quickly that what she had told everyone was literally impossible, yet nobody else did because her personality is probably the most likeable one out of that entire server. Without leaking any of the original messages or the server, I will relay the story, and use bullet points to address the parts that make it unbelievable. All of this has become public information there - information she gave.
Alice devoted her time on this server to making everybody happy, to a fault. Last December, everything changed when her father died, putting her family through financial hell. Sometime midway through that month, after being absent for a time, her server friends received text messages from saying that she cut herself, and that she was dying from brain damage sustained from blood loss while she was unconscious. Without further ado, I'll start dissecting this.
-Alice claims that she was unconscious for too long, and that she lost too much blood. Sure, that is possible, but unlikely unless you've slit your wrists or cut the carotid artery, which would cause you to lose enough blood that you die within minutes. If you've cut yourself in any other place and have lost enough blood that you've been unconscious for a long time, you're just as likely to die unless you're with paramedics.
-According to her though, her mom stopped her as she cut herself, and she recalled "all she saw was madness". So which is it, was she unconscious, or not? People on the server try to claim that this was a separate incident earlier that month. The problem is that she never mentioned this at any point, and continued the conversation as if this was the one that led to everything.
-Alice has mentioned that her condition was chronic, and that "pills help slow the process". When a close friend of her's messaged her in January and asked if her condition was treatable, she contradicted this by saying "Sure thing, but to get away from it will take a time." to which she goes on to explain that she was using a drug to treat herself, but specifically asked that nobody know about it. A few days later, she mentioned that for whatever reason, she didn't want her doctor knowing what she was using. Ignoring the fact that she just blatantly admitted to lying about her condition having no treatment options and that she was doing so, she was talking about being cured altogether, but that it would be some time before she was fine.
-Also, shouldn't her doctors have known about this? How was she sneaking drugs into a hospital without anybody noticing?
-In February, she remarks how that in 10-15 years, she'd need a wheelchair. Wouldn't that mean nothing since she claimed she was dying?
-The following Wednesday that week, she threatens suicide because, again "The pain is overwhelming, I'm dying". After berating one of the server owners for trying to be supportive, she calms down, and remains happy.
-Come Friday, she claims that she suffered a seizure, and that her disease rapidly progressed, and that she was officially going to die. She mentions phantom pain, with a partial understanding of the concept. "I feel the pain all over me, but my brain doesn't register where it's coming from.". Phantom pain is only present if you have a limb amputated and you still feel pain from its location. There is no way, she had phantom pain, not by her own description of her symptoms.
-The day before she supposedly died on the server, she posted a full color drawing that she made. It was never seen before that day, so she had to have made it that day. Problem is that she had already mentioned to a moderator there that she switched her pfp to the white Discord background because she had trouble seeing colors. Given how she claimed she was losing the strength to be awake, it just reeks of her being at home on a pc, not in a hospital on a mobile phone.
-Finally, on the day she supposedly died, she said "10 mins to euthanasia". Since she's from Russia, that's a flat out lie - it's illegal there. Not only do doctors have to keep a record of how they treat their patients, a licensed doctor would not kill a patient at their request when their medical condition was caused by a suicide attempt.
-Via messages with a friend of hers, she said that words on the internet do not have the capacity to harm people, and that any perceived harm "is all in your head". Meaning she believed she could say anything without consequence, even if it was a serious lie.
-The Friday before she died, she said that she came to the server to quench her thirst for attention. Stellar choice of words for somebody who's dying.
After trying to contact her Skype, somebody claiming to be the sister responded. When I got around to asking how she got on the account and why she was using it instead of her own, all communication stopped. Everyone on the Discord server concurs that the account was only used by her, and she never mentioned giving it away. If it was the sister chatting with me, I would've gotten an answer to that, but it appears it's Alice.
Bottom line: Don't lie about illnesses or dying. People will catch you eventually, and the end result won't be pretty.
