An interesting article at the BBC about people online pretending they are ill to gain attention and sympathy.
I know I have run into this in the past (the first time was in 1992, so it isn’t new) and am wondering about the experience of others and how you responded to it.
The subject line was supposed to be Any body feeling “ill”?.
Damn quote marks.
Sometimes I lose feeling altogether.
I should worry, but it usually happens when I’m asleep anyway.
Sorry to ask the obvious question, but how do you know if you’re asleep?
Ack!! Flashback to the first two weeks of my “Intro to Philosophy” class!! Noooooo…Make it stop…
And you can run into it offline too. 
I think it’s just a part of some people’s nature.
This comes to mind: Concrete with his lies about his wife just having died of cancer (OK, so he wasn’t ill himself. Same principle). That was pretty tasteless.
I didn’t know that all that was a lie. How did I miss that? Fill me in please!
I think someone (forget who) who also posts at FFF (you know, Opals boards) pointed me to a thread where concrete (who’s also a member there) basically admitted to this.
short version of a long story:
In college, we had a Student Government President who was lying and stealing money. When I (the Vice President) exposed his actions, he first threatened me (he was a big, scary guy and it actually shook me up), then when that didn’t work to shut me up, he resigned. Actually, he typed up a letter to the other members saying that normally he would “stick around” and “fight the good fight against my lies”, but he was very ill. You guessed it, Colon Cancer. This lying sack of shit told people he had colon cancer and was being treated with chemo, etc. The saddest part of all was the number of people who believed him (or rather, couldn’t bear to think someone would lie about that). In the end, I was right. He was healthy as a horse and just wanted an out so he wouldn’t get in trouble. Very, very sad.
I often post to online illness messages (since I have health problems). If I get a weird feeling about a message, I just won’t post to it. When I hear of people who intentionally fool people online (or in person) I’m torn between anger and sympathy.
Zette
I was on a mailing list about three years ago. We were pretty close, did a lot of stuff together. The majority of th participants were in NYC, so they’d get together there, and it was a little community. It was nice.
The “Heather,” who lived in Chicago, got sick. Some rare form of cancer. Her friend would give us updates, as Heather had requested of her. We wanted to know where we could send flowers and friendly cards, the Chicago area people wanted to know which hospital she was in so they could visit. We were told Heather didn’t want flowers sent, because it would make her feel like she was in a funeral home, and she didn’t want visitors because the treatments made her look less than presentable. I had my mom’s church praying for her. After a few months of this, one of the people on the list posted an AOL IM conversation between himself and the friend, in which the poster accused the friend of being Heather, and the “friend” confessed and begged him not to tell the rest of the group. It was the first time I really felt betrayed and lied to, and the list fell apart shortly after that.
The sad part is that it is hard for me to take ANYTHING anyone says about themselves online seriously anymore. My first thought upon reading the initial thread about Wally being in the hospital was that if this was another Heather situation, I was never participating in another online community again. Unfortunately, it wasn’t another Heather situation.
I now know about Munchausen’s syndrome, where people fake an illness for attention. They do it in real life, and they do it on the net where it’s just easier. Human nature, I guess.
No not pretending to have an illness or anything like that… But im ashamed to admit that i did fabricate some stuff about my past… i basically lied about myself to get attention. :o 
I had just met this girl online… she was fun to talk to… cute… and we had a great time… anywho… the convo quickly turned to be about sex (doesnt it always) and well i was ashamed to be a virgin and didnt want this girl to loose interest in me… so i made up some stuff… ok so no big deal… i mean she was just someone i talked to online… not like we knew each other or anything… but well… we sorta started falling for each other… i was on vaca in the states and we decided to meet up… we had a wonderful time had fallen in love with each other… and i still hadnt told her… well the relationship kinda ended because it was impossible to pursue in the first place (mainly coz of her dad) but we kept talking on the phone… kept feeling love for each other… until the day i came clean with her and told her… she just lost all trust in me… didnt know what to belive and what not to belive anymore… what had been a truely GREAT friendship had been reduced to nothing…
Today were friends again… we dont have the same trust as back then, it just doesnt have the same “feel” to it… and weve been thru 6 months of barely speaking and some horrible fights…
I guess it was what i needed to realize that honesty i the ONLY way… that lying or just being untruthful about yourself and your past is just setting yourself and everyone else up for hurt and dissapointemt… its something so basic that i should already know it really… but i guess i had to learn it the hard way… I do belive i became a better person because of it tho…