I have heard of Münchausen. It’s a psychological disorder in which people feign illness to get attention and sympathy. I can’t believe it has taken this long for someone to catch me in the act.
I’m just a giant scam.
It was hardest to fake the narcolepsy. It’s a neurological disorder that has a very definitive test. I needed to acquire magic brain powers to fool the monitoring equipment of an MSLT. I found myself a crossroads, buried some trinkets, and sold my soul for magic fake narcolepsy brain powers. That test was completely fooled.
It is hard to get a prescription for narcolepsy medication unless you actually have narcolepsy, so this all worked out great.
Depression was harder. They can actually do these PET scans that show what a depressed brain looks like.
The trick to faking this one is watching that Sarah McLachlan Animal Cruelty commercial 50 times in a row. After that, they basically throw the antidepressants at you.
As some of you may recall, I have actually had shock therapy for my fake depression. When faking stuff, you really have to commit. You can’t half-ass it. So even though I didn’t need it, I signed up to have my brain electrocuted. My favorite part was when they put the rubber in my mouth so I wouldn’t bite off my tongue. Sure it was scary, but I just kept thinking about all the sympathy I could get from that.
My next feet of fakery was obstructive sleep apnea. Here I am before my last sleep study hooked up to a bunch of wires.
The polysomnograph showed that I stopped breathing quite a few times during the night. This was hard to pull off because you have to be asleep while you stop breathing. The key was to sneak a small child inside my overnight bag. Pay them $20 bucks and they will periodically strangle you throughout the night.
The insurance company (who loves to pay for things people don’t need) bought me this cool mask I have to wear when I sleep.
Since I was only faking that whole “not breathing” thing, I don’t even turn on the machine. I just do Bane imitations until I fall asleep.
Of course there is my fake diabetes. Before my blood test I just drank a gallon of high fructose corn syrup. Then they gave me all these cool insulin pens.
I have to be careful how much I take, because if you take insulin and you aren’t diabetic, then you can go into a coma. It’s hard to fake illnesses in a coma. It’s better to just fake the coma so you can hear everyone talk about you while you are secretly listening.
Lastly is the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I thought this one would be a bit easier to fake since there is no tried and true diagnostic test. Unfortunately, getting a firm diagnosis ended up being tricky.
I had to travel 500 miles to Detroit to see a specialist. To my surprise, she actually had a battery of tests that give strong indications you actually have CFS. They took 31 vials of blood and many of the tests came back positive for those indicators. To do this I bribed the lab technician to sprinkle a retrovirus into some of my samples. Almost none of this was covered by insurance, so I had to sell my car and most of my possessions to see this doctor. And I had to incur substantial debt to pay for the treatment I received. What is a lifetime of paying off debt for a treatment that didn’t work when compared to the oodles of sympathy I receive for spending all my money on a “failed treatment”?
It’s nice to get that out in the open. Faking all these things that make me tired has been exhausting.
