I was recently reading through my medical history and came across the notes from all of the appointments I had throughout childhood. My symptoms made no sense and I had pretty much every test they could give me. I was in and out of the doctors constantly. There was even a note about how the doctors found my Grandma suspicious, overly protective etc, essentially accusing her of Munchausen’s by Proxy. The guilt I feel knowing this is unbearable.
As the title suggests though, I was never unwell. I was bullied severely throughout school, by other students but mostly by the teachers. I remember feeling so desperate not to go to school that I would have done anything to get out of going. I figured out that faking illness was the way to go and I put on a huge show every time. I faked illness more days than I didn’t and the longer I went, the worse it got. The thought of having to go back to school would have me shaking, hiding, throwing up, the whole works. Issue is that of course my grandma was worried sick and wanted me to get better, so she’d take me to the doctors every time.
Being 23 now, I’d pushed these memories away and not let myself think about it at all, the shame is just too much to handle. I have never admitted that it was all a lie. But reading those notes was just awful, it hurts so much to think how much pain I caused my family and how I wasted so many doctor’s time. I’m really struggling to move past this shameful time in my life and it’s hard to not be able to look back on my childhood with happiness.
Thank you for reading my vent. I do wonder if anyone else had had a similar experience and how you cope with it now as an adult.
Comments
I mean, it sounds like the bullying made you so anxious that you very much WERE too sick to go to school. Mental health is just as important as physical health, and you were struggling a great deal without having the tools to express what was really happening to your body. Don’t beat yourself up. I was the same at school, turns out I had severe anxiety and I’m in the process of being assessed for neurodivergence. Sometimes I still have days where the idea of being around people – even those who are nice to me – just makes me feel hopeless and sick. Mental distress can absolutely manifest itself as a physical problem, like what you said about feeling sick and shaking over the thought of going to school.
Darling, please let that guilt go. You were a child that was facing bullying, and you did what you could w the tools you had in that moment. You didn’t know better and that’s OK bc you were a kid! Please forgive yourself, no one is perfect and we all go through life making mistakes. Don’t judge your past self w the knowledge you have know. Give yourself some grace ❤️
Right here, same. Plus, our parents were incredibly abusive unless you were sick. When you were sick, you’d be lavished with what all the other kids had, parents who loved them. I don’t think ours were capable of love, but it got them the swooning attention from their friends. The friends knew how they were.
All of us went in to struggle with how we were raised. None of the siblings speak to each other.
She died 10 years ago.
He’s 87 and has never had my back, but he knows who to call when he needs a ride to a hospital in NYC.
Me? I go to the dr for regular checkups, but I generally ignore things I shouldn’t medically.
You were a child. You didn’t have the tools to deal with what was happening, so you dealt with it the best way you could AT THE TIME. Just because you might respond differently now doesn’t mean it wasn’t a good response to bullying at the time. Like someone else said, give yourself some grace.
Please let the guilt go, you survived and I think your method and the support your family provided by taking you to the doctors is a good thing. You did what you needed to do and you made it through without true harm to anyone.
I mean we all faked being sick a time or two, or more in my case because school is shit. It’s hard being bullied and subjected to teachers who are more like bullies than teachers. My sibling started my bullying experience at home and school. I had no escape either. But yeh I faked to get out of maths because I just couldnt ask for help I was so embarrassed (yr 3 maths) my parents knew I wasnt sick, except that one time I actually did throw up all over the car, boy was my father pissed lol
I feel you but I also know you were young and coping with a lot so did what you had to.
Sure you could have done something differently but hindsite.
Stop torturing yourself, its okay. Leave it in the past. You were young. You didn’t know how to speak up, hopefully now you do.
It sounds like you were failed by most people around you, who did not recognize or take your mental health issues seriously. This isn’t on you, you were a child. You’re only 23, some people would say they’re barely starting to understand themselves and the world at 25, maybe even in their 30s. You’re still learning and growing, take your time to cope with this however you need to and take your own mental health seriously now that you’re old and see things retrospectively. Help yourself learn how to take care of yourself.
All the best!
You weren’t faking such.
Getting anxious, nauseous and shaking are real symptoms, they just came from your mind as a side effect of negative stimuli, and not from your actual guts.
It’s psychosomatic, but the situation was still very real, so go easy on yourself.
i remember pretending to be sick so much my dad just gave up on waking me up for school. I took a year off and went back because I asked my dad to put me back in school.
You did what you had to do to survive. I hope you are doing better now.
as others have said you were a kid and genuinely struggling with school anxiety but were not in a place where you knew how to conceptualize that or put that into words. you were genuinely sick with anxiety but even the relatively recent time you were growing up school anxiety likely wasn’t a thing people would’ve thought to look for in you, don’t feel guilty about that
Young kids don’t “fake sick” the way teens and adults do. You were obviously dealing with something you couldn’t articulate to the adults in your life.
Mental health matters. Sounds like you were sick w anxiety.
Don’t beat yourself up like that. Let the guilt and the shame go. You were just a child trying to protect yourself anyway you could.
Plus, it sounds like the thought of going to school did actually make you physically sick.
It’s not shamful. The people who need to be ashamed are the people who bullied you. Especially the teachers who were a adults and were supposed to protect you and care for your emotional and physical well being.
Adults wouldn’t want to go daily to a place they expirience physical or verbal violence. They would probably call the police. Or they’ll resign from their job. You were a kid! And you were forced to expirience such hardships alone. You couldn’t escape. That’s just horrible.
I don’t know why your parents didn’t protect you or why you felt like you can’t tell them what you’re going through, but bottom line, you were left alone to deal with abuse from kids and grown ups.
Please have more compassion for yourself.
Kids always do things they shouldn’t do. I once caught a bird in the farmhouse, and played with it in the snow. Not for long either but it went into shock or died. I panicked and hid it in a jewellery box until i felt i could bury it. I still think about it and feel guilty sometimes but kids do things without realizing what they are doing a lot. I wouldn’t do it now, and i feel regret, so try to remember that you’re going through similar feelings and it’s not always a bad thing to feel bad. It’s learning and growth.
You feel bad because you are a good person, if you didn’t feel bad then that would be even worse because then that would mean you’re not aware of your actions. The fact you’re reflecting and thinking about past actions shows a lot about yourself, so be happy you have that personality trait. A lot of people would feel nothing, or not think twice about it.
*fun fact – when i used to get bullied in grade 8 i would pretend I was going to school and then hide in the woods for about an hour, in the snow! Then I would sneak back into the house through the basement door and hide down there. Bullying sucks!
Everyone else covered the anxiety piece, which I very much agree with (I have severe anxiety and it def can manifest in the way you described and I agree with giving yourself grace).
But I also want to add as someone who spends a lot of time in doctors offices, I’ve found their notes are not always accurate. So that’s yet another reason to give yourself grace. They may have been even more harsh sounding than things really were, especially if you blocked a lot of the experience out. Take good care of yourself as you keep moving forward ❤️
That was actually an incredibly intelligent self preservation mechanism for a young child to develop.
Bullying makes our amygdala hype af and makes our body have all sorts of random symptoms. I bet if you looked into symptoms of complex trauma it may correlate with your experience.
P.s.- I suggest therapy and inner child work if you haven’t done so already. Bullying is abuse, and i am sorry you had that experience 🫶🏼🫶🏼
You were sick. Just maybe not the kind they were looking for. If you’re physically unwell at the thought of going to school because of the way people make you feel when you’re there. That counts.
Unfortunately, they were looking in the wrong place so you never recieved the correct treatment, which would have been to find out and eliminate the blockers that were stopping you from enjoying school. Up to and including going to a different school if they couldn’t fix life for you at the current one.
Sorry you suffered.
Mental illness is not fake. I am surprised that with that much missed school there wasn’t a psych consult. Please don’t blame yourself. You did what you had to to survive. I how you have therapy now.
Sounds like you did have a medical condition that no one was able to discover, tho. Anxiety and depression have symptoms that made you look sick for physical reasons
First is your grandma still alive? Second you were a kid trying to survive. Where are your parents? Who let this bullying go on? You should not have had to fend for yourself. An adult or adults should have been up at that school trying to put a stop to that crap.
This happened with me. You’re not alone in this. I skipped a whole year of school. Similar reasons. U/rantymcthrowaway had the most accurate comment to what i did aswell.
I don’t know why I never did, even though I had every reason to do so.
I didn’t do well socially, and was doing well in school.
I blame it on the fact that my mom took my temperature in the butt.
There were more times I faked sick then being actually sick due to bullies but faking sick did save me when my appendix were about to burst and turn septic. They got me in time but did spend near a month in hospital after the surgery wound got infected after surgery.
Sounds like you were actually sick it just was caused by anxiety/ stress
You write surprisingly well for a person who spent more time out of school than in.
I’m also surprised that you were graduated. School districts have a specific number of days a student can miss in the year before they are not allowed to pass the year.
Hey- it’s ok. You were a kid having to deal with something that you just couldn’t because you were a kid. The adults/drs/teachers in your life should have noticed and protected you. You have nothing to feel bad for.
You were a child. Forgive yourself.
I’m sure I’m not alone in this sentiment: you have nothing to be ashamed of. You did what you had to to get out of an awful situation. You were a child, and you didn’t have the tools you needed to fix the problem. You had to make do with what you did have.