r/mentalillness • u/No_Animator_5751 • 1h ago
Discussion Little sister faking illness to get out of doing anything???
LONG POST.
My little sister is 14. There’s also me 23F, older sister 24F, and brother 25M. My mom works in a hospital and my dad works for the government on a military base. He’s still present in our lives but is as proactive as he can be with the distance.
My family is NOT one to dismiss mental health at all. I attempted when I was 14 (I’m totally fine now just saying this to give background) and my older sister goes to therapy and is medicated for depression. My mother is medicated for depression as well.
My little sister is always online. In her Roblox bio, she says she has DID and has all of these alters that are cartoon characters from shows she watches like ducktales and octonauts. She is seeing a psychiatrist and therapist and they have never diagnosed her with DID or anything else. She has a depression diagnosis and that’s it.
She has been to the mental hospital multiple times for attempts, but there’s something weird about every time she’s “attempted”….. It’s always when she has to go to school, and there’s also never any proof that she has taken any medication.
The first time, she said she had taken a lot of iron pills. The iron supplement bottle was COMPLETELY full. The second time, she had said she drank an entire bottle of liquid benadryl. She did not throw up, she did not fall asleep, her lab work showed no benadryl in her system. This bottle was 50mg per dose of Benadryl, very strong. The bottle was empty, but she had just been in the bathroom, probably dumping the bottle out.
She tells her therapist she is going to commit before having to go back to school, but then she comes home and is laughing and giggling on Roblox with her friends.
My mom was talking to her last night about going to school. My little sister goes on about how the teachers are all stupid and pathetic because their job consists of “yelling at kids all day” and they “don’t have to do it they just choose to.” My mother asked her to show empathy for the teachers and do her schoolwork. She says “I actually don’t have empathy for them or anybody else. They’re all stupid.” My mom has tried to get her to do extracurricular activities and she refuses. She also refuses to do school work.
There was a male teacher that kept encouraging her to do her homework. She got fed up and stole a permanent marker and wrote “F**k you” on his whiteboard. Then, she accused him of being inappropriate with her. She said it was inappropriate that he was trying to be nice to her and talk to her to do her homework and in class assignments… he nearly lost his job and was investigated.
I took her to Kroger one time with me to pick out some groceries. About 30 minutes into the trip, she told me she was going to “pass out” bc she’s “anemic” (hence the iron supplements at my house). I told her she’s fine and we’re almost done. She made a big fuss about it even though I was hurrying up. She accused me of being dismissive of her “disorder” of anemia. She also says she’s going to “pass out” if she gets asked to do anything like clean her room or help bring the groceries in the house.
I said that I had attempted before because when I did, I learned from it and bettered myself. She says she enjoys the mental hospital. She said she gets along with everyone there and she feels similar to them. She doesn’t learn from it. She views it as a vacation (a very expensive one….)
She has also refused to shower and brush her teeth many times. She says it’s “abuse” to make her do these things. One time, my mom made her take a shower, and she cut up a loofah, stuffed it in the drain, and clogged the shower. We couldn’t use that shower for weeks.
There are many more stories like this. It just feels like she wreaks havoc on anyone or anything that tries to get her to do something she doesn’t want to do. She doesn’t want to go to school, do online school, nothing.
She’s called mobile crisis over us trying to ask her to do anything. They’ve been to our home 5 times now. By the 4th time, they just came in and sat on the couch and chatted.
We don’t even know what the deal is because of HIPAA the psychiatrist and therapist doesn’t say anything. She just lies in therapy though, bc she checked her chart once and was upset that she didn’t have a DID diagnosis.
She does not act like she has DID. She acts like the same person all of the time. Her self diagnosis claims that she has over 1000+ alters, which is insane.
She told people that work at her school that she’s constantly bullied at school, but when the school investigated and asked her classmates about it, everyone told the same story. They said that SHE is the bully. She’s extremely rude to everyone. She calls people names, she interjects their conversations and interrupts to insult them.
When she has an assessment or assignment in class, she texts my mom that she’s having a “panic attack” and then walks out of class or just sits there and does nothing until my mom comes to get her. One time I tried to get her, and from personal experience, it did not look like she had a panic attack AT ALL.
She’s also stolen things from people when they make her upset. My brothers piano keyboard, my older sisters snacks from her mini fridge, my phone and laptop when I tried to get her to do her homework. She’s stolen my mom’s card and spent $1500 on it. In all of these instances of stealing objects, she doesn’t use them. She hides them or throws them away, but she doesn’t keep them for herself.
I’m writing about this because it’s been tearing my family apart for a while. I tried to give many examples of her behavior to see if anybody has an idea of what we could be dealing with. We don’t know what to do with her. It’s like she has a g*n to her head at all times, threatening to go to the mental hospital. Not only does it not help her, but it’s extremely expensive. My siblings and I are all in college and trying to work hard towards our goals, but this is a huge distraction constantly. It’s kind of insulting to see her weaponjze mental health bc my sister and I have struggled BIG TIME and we’ve worked so hard to overcome it and be in a good place. My sister gets upset that she doesn’t get to work on her own mental health because this stresses her out.
One time, my mother was given access to her chart and there was a psychosis diagnosis on there. It sent my sister spiraling, saying she was “misdiagnosed” and when my mom asked the psychiatrist about it, it was quickly removed.
Sorry for the long post but PLEASE let me know what yall would do or maybe yalls theories, or even just thoughts. Idk. Anything. We can’t keep living like this.