When me and my party met 20F (self-diagnosing person in question) we discussed some issues in our personal lives and they’ve explicitly denied any mental or physical illness, after a little bit one of the people in our friend group talked about a recent operation that they underwent which from then on 20F began to talk about some physical illnesses that she’s been experiencing, me having a medical background she began to ask me questions about some of the things she’s been experiencing, 20F began to talk about some really weird symptoms that I’ve never heard of before, 20F kept framing it like it was normal and how her family and friends aren’t really worried about these things even though the things she was saying would have been a massive red flag to conditions like lupus or various blood illnesses but also aren’t really consistent, me and a friend kept urging her to go to a doctor’s office because she kept talking about how it’s affecting her day to day but after a while it was clear that 20F had no intention to actually go to the doctor’s office to get it checked and so me and said friend gave up on trying to get her to go.
After a while 20F began to talk about some fairly serious mental illnesses (not self diagnosing herself at this point), 20F showed clear interest in learning about these illnesses yet nobody in our group could really talk about them besides one who she frequently discussed this topic with, after a few days said person began to get messages in her DMs about 20F self diagnosing herself with various very serious mental disorders (ex. DID, PTSD, Autism, ADHD, GAD) out of the blue within the course of a week after 20F had those conversations.
Ex. with DID we were all sent a spreadsheet of different alters (50 different alters) with different anime character pictures, with different races, ages, genders, physical disabilities and mental illnesses, in addition to that some of the races were fantasy races from D&D, fantasy monsters and heavily sexualized characters from different shows, also the ages for some of the alters were varied, the lowest age was 14 and the oldest age was 46.
It’s to the point where there’s a new symptom or mental illness every single week and it’s not only getting hard to keep up with them it’s also getting hard to interact with said person. 20F is also known for weaponizing her mental illnesses, them only being up for show whenever anything she doesn’t want to happen happens, for example, a few days ago we were discussing some political topic and when it wasn’t going her way she faked a panic attack to try and change the topic (confirmed by 20F).
Now me and this friend who got DM’d are sitting in a discord call thinking where do we draw the line?
TL;DR: Our group met a new person who after a few weeks began to self diagnose themselves with mental and physical illnesses, then they began to weaponize their self diagnosed illnesses whenever a conversation wasn’t going their way.
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When me and my party met 20F (self-diagnosing person in question) we discussed some issues in our personal lives and they’ve explicitly denied any mental or physical illness, after a little bit one of the people in our friend group talked about a recent operation that they underwent which from then on 20F began to talk about some physical illnesses that she’s been experiencing, me having a medical background she began to ask me questions about some of the things she’s been experiencing, 20F began to talk about some really weird symptoms that I’ve never heard of before, 20F kept framing it like it was normal and how her family and friends aren’t really worried about these things even though the things she was saying would have been a massive red flag to conditions like lupus or various blood illnesses but also aren’t really consistent, me and a friend kept urging her to go to a doctor’s office because she kept talking about how it’s affecting her day to day but after a while it was clear that 20F had no intention to actually go to the doctor’s office to get it checked and so me and said friend gave up on trying to get her to go.
After a while 20F began to talk about some fairly serious mental illnesses (not self diagnosing herself at this point), 20F showed clear interest in learning about these illnesses yet nobody in our group could really talk about them besides one who she frequently discussed this topic with, after a few days said person began to get messages in her DMs about 20F self diagnosing herself with various very serious mental disorders (ex. DID, PTSD, Autism, ADHD, GAD) out of the blue within the course of a week after 20F had those conversations.
Ex. with DID we were all sent a spreadsheet of different alters (50 different alters) with different anime character pictures, with different races, ages, genders, physical disabilities and mental illnesses, in addition to that some of the races were fantasy races from D&D, fantasy monsters and heavily sexualized characters from different shows, also the ages for some of the alters were varied, the lowest age was 14 and the oldest age was 46.
It’s to the point where there’s a new symptom or mental illness every single week and it’s not only getting hard to keep up with them it’s also getting hard to interact with said person. 20F is also known for weaponizing her mental illnesses, them only being up for show whenever anything she doesn’t want to happen happens, for example, a few days ago we were discussing some political topic and when it wasn’t going her way she faked a panic attack to try and change the topic (confirmed by 20F).
Now me and this friend who got DM’d are sitting in a discord call thinking where do we draw the line?
TL;DR: Our group met a new person who after a few weeks began to self diagnose themselves with mental and physical illnesses, then they began to weaponize their self diagnosed illnesses whenever a conversation wasn’t going their way.
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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> Well i want to call this person out because self diagnosing makes the entire friend group really uncomfortable, i just feel like i’d be an asshole if i confronted this person because like theyre not really hurting anybody it’s just really weird imo.
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Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.
I don’t really know what you mean by confronting this person. Their communications about these topics do indeed seem inappropriate, awkward, and dramatic. It also sounds like she is using these topics to her advantage, to garner pity, attention, or favor.
What is the party you’re referring to? Is this a D&D party kinda thing? I’m having trouble understanding why you need to engage with her at all. Perhaps you’re moderators or dungeon masters and thus have some facilitation-related responsibilities.
What is the setting for this group / party and why is a confrontation necessary, versus just speaking less to this person, ignoring her medical complaints, or adopting some passive “Sorry to hear that” / change of subject kinda handling of it?
lol, self diagnosed DID! 🤣
This is not a moment to confront. This is a moment to run. This person is unwell and based on your description has some mental health issues (faking illness and getting attention for illness is sign of an illness) and is unwilling to get help for them and weaponizes against you.
Until they get help, they are a risk to your own wellness. You cannot fix them by confronting and in fact, you could make the situation worse. This person probably has no power over their behaviour if they do have a mental illness or personality disorder, which it sounds like they do.
ESH. Is this woman your partner or a new friend? Either way, a confrontation is not going to accomplish anything except, probably, making her defend. Why not just have a frank conversation?
I think you are overthinking this. You can just not be friends with anyone you don’t click with. I don’t really see the need for a dramatic showdown.
I don’t think confronting her would make you the asshole but like… why bother? Just keep it moving.
NTA. Take her symptoms seriously.
If she refuses your offers and concerns, ask her why and recommend that she go home and get some rest. The point is: don’t let her off the hook as regards her alleged medical issues.
INFO:
What do you hope to accomplish by the confronting, should you do it?
Since we are limited by the rules of this forum to labeling people and their behaviour as assholes or not-assholes I will say that you are NTA and this “friend” is an attention-seeking AH.
Clearly something is up with her but who cares? Unless you are into this foolish drama I suggest you create distance between yourself and her.
YWNBTA.
But there’s no point in confronting her about it. She won’t admit to it, and it isn’t going to stop.
She’s using these diagnoses as a way to get attention and/or get what she wants. That behavior may or may not be indicative of another mental disorder (narcissism?).
If you confront her, you are still giving her attention. For some people being the center of attention is the point–accusations are as good as sympathy. And if you bring proof (pointing out her inconsistent stories, etc.), you are only teaching her to be more careful with what she says or claims.
This is apparently a fairly new acquaintance. My advice would be to simply give her as little of your time and attention as you can.
YWNBTA. I will note that as someone with diagnosed DID, none of the things you referenced regarding her spreadsheet are impossible. DID can happen when a small child endures severe and chronic trauma, and in the mind of a small child, it would be fairly reasonable to develop a protector alter who appears as a dragon, for example. However, self diagnosis of such a severe disorder is absurd.
Either she is wanting sympathy or DID ! Is she a danger to herself or others could take a mental hygiene they will do a 72hr hold and evaluate her? It’s a little extreme!
YWNBTAH, however, unless you are particularly close to this person, which from reading your post it seems you’re not at all, why bother confronting them? It would likely be a waste of time and setting yourself up for a lot of annoying drama from this person. This person thrives on attention, clearly even negative attention since most people don’t want to draw any attention to their illnesses of any kind.
If everyone in your group feels the same as you do, remove her from the discord/block her and ghost her and move on.
YWBTA if you confronted her about this. She clearly has some kind of mental illness. Either stop being friends with her or tell her to get real psychiatric help. “Confronting” her is not going to help anyone and is likely to just cause drama
NTA, but I don’t think confrontation is the best approach. It does sound like this person has some serious mental health issues, and I can speak from experience and say that it’s not a fun time.
Self diagnosis isn’t inherently bad, but I think the way she’s doing it is a little problematic. For a while, I self diagnosed with ADHD as I didn’t have access to diagnosis at the time, and I have since been diagnosed with AuDHD by a professional. But that self diagnosis came from doing my research and talking to other neurodivergent people. It sounds more like she’s struggling, and trying to find some form of a label that fits her problems, but she’s immediately jumping onto using them instead of looking into the conditions she’s labelling herself with.
I know that when I was going through the worst of my depression, that I would try to seek attention from others online because I could not turn to the people around me for various reasons, and people online would actually treat me seriously
Would it be at all possible for you to get her into a mental health hospital or facility? It sounds like she really needs some help and could endanger herself without it
Imma say something controversial. As someone who wasn’t professionally diagnosed with AuDHD until age 20 and as a result was previously self diagnosed (because…smart black AFAB who was a heavy daydreamer…we cant be Autistic IG🤦🏾♀️🤦🏾♀️) its usually the first step to getting a professional diagnosis however in this person’s case. YWNBTA but what do you gain from confronting her? She clearly has some sort of mental illness. Its best to just not interact with her.
NTA.
She is perpetuating a very serious problem within the mental health world by pretending to have serious mental illnesses, especially ones that are incredibly rare and hard to diagnose like DID. It is already a legitimate challenge for a lot of people to get the right diagnoses from psychiatrists let alone treatment for them, so, the self diagnosing just makes it even harder for people with legitimate issues to get real diagnoses. And thats not even talking about what type of issues that causes socially. The amount of people who dont get help for decades because nobody believed them or gaslit them is crazy high. I mean, look at the very recent trend of adults getting diagnosed with Autism. Autism is something that can be diagnosed in childhood, but, for whatever reasons, these people don’t recieve the treatment and therapies they need and end up struggling for a long time. Your friend sucks and needs to stop this right now. Attention seeking like this is typically a symptom of some sort of mental illness, but, it isnt really connected with any of the ones she listed.
NTA but don’t confront her, just drop her. confronting her isn’t going to change her behavior