Do/can people fake anxiety?

[Proverbs31:28]

I have a friend who has been my "sounding block" for the past two years. She has helped me through a lot of really rough times and I am very appreciative of that. She and I have had extensive discussions about my symptoms of both anxiety and depression and I have shared many details with her.

Recently, she has been complaining of ALL of the same symptoms I have described to her. In fact, her first "anxiety attack" a couple of months ago was identical to the first attack I had. She has not been to work in 2 months now, although she was "well enough" to go on a business/pleasure trip to New York about 1 month ago. Since that trip, she has not been to work at all saying her anxiety has gotten worse. She has been to her doctor and is now on Lexapro and Xanax and was referred to a therapist who said she has "work stress." She says she wants a new therapist because she knows she has anxiety and this therapist obviously doesn't get it.

I see her everyday and there are just little things that make me think she may not truly have GAD. First, there have been several times when she has "too much anxiety" and can't "face the world" until somebody asks her to go shopping. She will drag herself along and within a short time she is laughing and seems fine. And, she has run into the people she says she is worried about seeing in public, the source of her anxiety, and will talk to them and visit with them like nothing is wrong. Personally, if I have anxiety over a certain person/figure, I just want to bolt. She seems completely unaffected by the encounter. There is much more, these are just a few examples.

So, now I am wondering if she is faking anxiety to avoid work? Is this even possible? And, better yet, why would somebody do that (other than the obvious answer "to avoid a negative situation.")

Should I stop sharing with her? Its been incredibly hard for me because I feel like I have to put my illness aside to "help" her. Don't get me wrong, if she is truly ill, I want to be there for her, as she has always been there for me, but it just doesn't add up for me.

[nightfalls]

Hi lifeless

I don't know if people could actually fake anxiety, I think that it would be very hard to be accurte enough to be diagnosed as such and also given a med? to me I think mabe it is as it is and mabe she is suffering as well. If she has been supporting to you it would be good to help her now even if you question things. I know for me in my life I hide alot from alot of people and there is not very many personal friends that know what I deal with. I only go out when my anxiety is at a low point and I think I can cope. If I am out and around and I run into somone I mostly chat it up as best I can and endure the extream anxiety secretly hoping that the person I'm talking with does not notice. I then feel absolutly sick and worn out after they are gone away. One little conversation can make me so tired and if I am at a mall I need to hide away for a few min. after to straighten myself out before I can go on. So, basically it is posible that she is really trying hard to have it together as best she can. There is no way for you to know for sure but if she is your friend you should try and just support each other...just my thoughts..take care:o

[Mark]

Anxiety is an internal experience, like pain, and invisible to people who aren't directly experiencing it except by how it manifests in the body and behavior. So I think that people can fake anxiety, if they learn the behaviors to display. They may not be so spontaneous about it as someone who is actually anxious, but that may be okay for their purposes.

There is a concept called malingering in mental health professions, which describes someone who fakes symptoms for secondary gain. Which is to say that they pretend to be sick/ill/disordered in order to get attention, or to not have to perform responsibilities. There are degrees of this sort of thing. There are the sort of sociopaths who fake disability purely for secondary gain, and then there are people who are truly having difficulties, but who then exagerate those difficulties as a way of communicating their need and for secondary gain. There are people who have factitious disorder, and who create actual wounds or illnesses in themselves in order to become ill and get the attention they crave. There is a spectrum, is what I'm saying.

People who "fake" disorders are generally looked down upon by people who have disorders becuase the people who have the disorder (generally) don't want it, and they find it cheapens their experience of the disorder if other people exploit it for selfish purposes.

In my own view, someone who is faking a disorder and who isn't sociopathic/selfish in nature is just showing that they have some other problem (other than what they are faking the symptoms of). It's hard to like someone who does this, but they may have a legitimate problem under the faking.

Mark

[Proverbs31:28]

People who "fake" disorders are generally looked down upon by people who have disorders becuase the people who have the disorder (generally) don't want it, and they find it cheapens their experience of the disorder if other people exploit it for selfish purposes.

I think this is exactly how I am feeling about this and why it bothers me so much.

In my own view, someone who is faking a disorder and who isn't sociopathic/selfish in nature is just showing that they have some other problem (other than what they are faking the symptoms of). It's hard to like someone who does this, but they may have a legitimate problem under the faking.

Mark

This is kinda what I was thinking. She does have an extremely stressful job and has said for several months now that she wants to quit but would never do it because it is a good job and she is not really trained for much else. I do believe she is incredibly stressed out but doesn't want to face it. The therapist she saw said she felt it was work stress and she needed to ask for reassignment within her company but she fears that, if she does, she will be blackballed for any future promotions.

[Guest ASchwartz]

It must feel terribly annoying to be faced with someone who appears to imitate every symptom you discuss with her. Suddenly, she has the same symptom? How do you cope with that??

Allan:confused::confused:

[Proverbs31:28]

It must feel terribly annoying to be faced with someone who appears to imitate every symptom you discuss with her. Suddenly, she has the same symptom? How do you cope with that??

Allan:confused::confused:

I'm ashamed to say, I am using avoidance tactics! And, I feel terrible because I guess maybe she truly has the same illness, but in my gut I don't believe it. I truly believe she is extremely stressed, doesn't know how to deal with and feels like anxiety gave me a "way out" since I have been disabled by it. That is what bothers me the most, because my inability to work has left me feeling inadequate and like a failure and I tried everything humanly possible to stay in my original career (law) including MAJOR job accomodations by my employer and then tried like h*ll to start another career, working at home.

So, I end up getting so hurt and offended, even though I am sure she does not intend to do so, so I just stay away. When I am around her, I simply change the subject when she starts speaking of her illness or asking me "did you ever feel like... (insert symptom)?"

And, unfortunately, I do let it gnaw at me. I can't for the life of me figure out why someone would fake an illness. This type of behavior minimizes my illness- as if it is simply an ends to a means, not a true medical issue. It tooks me years to accept that having depression and GAD are medical conditions much like diabetes or hypertension but then I start to wonder if it is so real, how can someone fake it? And, what if her behavior makes other question the legitimacy of my illness? I end up in a spiral. To avoid the spiral, the uncertainty, I simply avoid her or at least the topic of symptoms when I am around her. God help me if I have turned my back on a friend truly in need of help.

[Proverbs31:28]

I have been thinking about my reply to Allan's question earlier in the week and it is haunting me. I find myself constantly wondering "how should I be coping with this?" I mean, I know avoidance is never a good tool, but it is my comfort zone. My life is liveable only because I avoid the things which could cause me any anxieties or issues.

But, I can't stop thinking that Allan's question was meant to cause me to explore and identify better coping skills. I don't have any.

What would others do in this situation? Please don't say confront her because that will never happen.

I am very upset by the whole situation because I am seeing her invite stress into her life, falling apart because of the stress, and then blaming it on depression or anxiety. As an example, she confronted someone about a situation yesterday after declaring that she would not confront them until she had all the facts and had a chance to think it through. When their response to her was less than amicable, she flew into a rage and then started crying, climbed into bed and stayed there.

I am truly trying to give her every benefit of the doubt, but I am not seeing signs of true depression or anxiety, just the "symptoms" she describes.

Am I being too judgmental? How do I step away from the situation, or at least not allow it to bother me so much, without jeopardizing the friendship?

[Lizzy]

I'm not sure how I would deal with it. I would probably be so hurt by the trivialization of my own illness that I would also avoid the friend. I had something similar happen - a friend of mine, when I was upset that there was something wrong with me and complaining about my symptoms (but didn't know what exactly was wrong), told me that she used to have depression and that she thought that's what I might have, then told me she got better by just exercising and keeping herself motivated.

I just felt...attacked. I was so bad, the only way I could think to describe it was, "it hurts to be awake." I thought it was my thyroid acting up again, but recently I've been put on anti-depressants and they're really helping, so I think that's what was wrong (though I didn't get an official diagnosis). But for this friend to shrug off the hell I was living in as something that I was creating for myself by not getting outside and walking? It still angers me, still makes me feel hurt, vulnerable, violated.

I haven't talked to her about that, even now that I'm much better. I still think about it when I see her or talk to her, though.

I guess I'm at a loss for how to cope, too. I guess I've always had a hard time coping with other people judging me - I always feel mortified after I make a mistake in inter-personal dealings and it takes a lot for me to put that aside while at work so that I can take responsibility and grow from it, but it will still nag at me in the back of my head. I think this is part of that, at least for me - it nags at me that someone might think badly of me.

I'll have to think on that some more before I can figure out why it bothers me so much - and I have to figure that out before I can fix it. Maybe my ramblings will help you - I hope so!

[Proverbs31:28]

Thank you, Lizzy, for sharing your experience. What you have described is very similar to how I feel. I have had "friends" trivialize my emotions before and this is taking it to an extreme in my opinion! They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but I think in this case it is the most callous form of trivialization. These past few days, she has been perfectly fine and has neither complained not asked me about symptoms. I so pray this is over because I am not sure how much more I could deal with!

[Mark]

I can't get the wording right, but there is a saying something to the effect that the farthest distance in the world is the space between two people's heads. Meaning that it is really difficult sometimes for people to communicate, and this is doubly so when one person is experiencing something that is not widely experienced, like severe depression or similar issue. One way to perceive what is happening is to think that the person who doesn't get the intensity and depth is trivializing your experience, but that is not the only or necessarily the best interpretation. People really can only relate to things they have experience with or categories for. These people who don't get it may be doing the best they can, more or less, or more fundamentally they may mean no disrespect. It may feel like a personal attack, but it isn't necessarily that.

[Worried Dad]

I have been thinking about my reply to Allan's question earlier in the week and it is haunting me. I find myself constantly wondering "how should I be coping with this?" I mean, I know avoidance is never a good tool, but it is my comfort zone. My life is liveable only because I avoid the things which could cause me any anxieties or issues.

But, I can't stop thinking that Allan's question was meant to cause me to explore and identify better coping skills. I don't have any.

What would others do in this situation? Please don't say confront her because that will never happen.

I am very upset by the whole situation because I am seeing her invite stress into her life, falling apart because of the stress, and then blaming it on depression or anxiety. As an example, she confronted someone about a situation yesterday after declaring that she would not confront them until she had all the facts and had a chance to think it through. When their response to her was less than amicable, she flew into a rage and then started crying, climbed into bed and stayed there.

I am truly trying to give her every benefit of the doubt, but I am not seeing signs of true depression or anxiety, just the "symptoms" she describes.

Am I being too judgmental? How do I step away from the situation, or at least not allow it to bother me so much, without jeopardizing the friendship?

I know I am digging up an older thread but the title caught my eye. This is the first time visiting this forum for me. I came here to see if I can help out my 11 year old son. Your wondering if this woman is faking it is just what has went thru my head about my son many times.

He seems to have these "events" when being asked to do something. However, there are times when there is nothing like that at all happening like last night. We played a family board game and he went off to bed and we heard him in there having an attack, he didn't even bother us, he was just keeping to himself so I have to believe it is real.

This thought has came and gone and I am 95% sure 90% of the time that it is all real. There are those times when I wonder if he is exagerating or something like that. But I treat it as if it is real non-the-less.

Thank you for posting this I am on my way to helping him.

[Ronny]

I know I am digging up an older thread but the title caught my eye. This is the first time visiting this forum for me. I came here to see if I can help out my 11 year old son. Your wondering if this woman is faking it is just what has went thru my head about my son many times.

He seems to have these "events" when being asked to do something. However, there are times when there is nothing like that at all happening like last night. We played a family board game and he went off to bed and we heard him in there having an attack, he didn't even bother us, he was just keeping to himself so I have to believe it is real.

This thought has came and gone and I am 95% sure 90% of the time that it is all real. There are those times when I wonder if he is exagerating or something like that. But I treat it as if it is real non-the-less.

Thank you for posting this I am on my way to helping him.

My tip, is not easy for a kid to express himself about the difficulties in his life.

So when the issue is something, it quite often gets a issue about something completly els. It proably/is an scream for attention, but that dosent mean its not serious. But it can be about something completly els then anxiety?(if that was the issue). Just try and get to the bottom off it. Dont ask him how he feel about what happends to him. Ask him why he get the feeling.

I give u an example.

When i was a kid and got bullied a lot on school. Before i was going to school i quite often got stomach pain and headaches an so on. Evrybody asked me what i feel(like in a way.. how are you that sick/feel that bad, that u cant go to school). Nobody ever asked me why i have stomach pain and headaches. They just asked me generaly were the pain was. Its hard for me to explain (with a poor english an all). But i belive you maybe know what i mean. You have to ask the question inside the question.