On Mother’s Day, a post from a recent widower went viral on Facebook.
Dana Dirr, wife of JS and the mother of cancer patient “Warrior Eli” Dirr, had been in a car accident the day before. She held on long enough to give birth to her eleventh child but then passed away. A family already struggling with a son suffering from his fourth relapse of cancer now had to pull themselves together after losing their wife and mother. Life truly didn’t seem fair for one family to suffer so much.
Here’s a cache of the family’s Facebook page created to share updates about Eli’s cancer battle. The page had 1100 fans before Dana’s death was announced. In the early morning hours of May 14, that number had swelled to over 6600.
Dana’s survivors didn’t ask for money, flowers or gifts to help ease their pain. Instead, a page was set up with a children’s cancer charity and readers of the Warrior Eli Facebook page were asked to donate to the foundation in memory of Dana Dirr.
By 3 AM on May 14, the family’s goal of raising $1000 in honor of Dana Dirr had already been exceeded.
At 3:30 AM, the Warrior Eli Facebook page was deleted and the profiles of Eli’s parents, JS and Dana Dirr, became private. Why? This blog was created. Hundreds of people all over the world, those who had been online friends with “Dana and JS” and those who had been moved by the story of Dana’s death, came together and researched the story, gathered evidence and, in less than 24 hours, proved that “Warrior Eli” was a hoax and that the woman behind the curtain was a medical student from Ohio.
The first clue that something was off about the story of Dana’s death was when no news agencies carried stories about a young mother of eleven, an accomplished trauma surgeon in Canada, had died on Mother’s Day after delivering a healthy baby girl. That seems like the kind of story that the media would jump on immediately, but 24 hours after Dana’s death, nothing.
A bunch of ladies in a community devoted to talking about another emotionally manipulative blogger started to become more and more suspicious of the story of Dana’s death. When several started to take a closer look at pictures posted online of the Dirr children, it became clear there were no group shots of all of them together. We started using tineye.com and Google image search to see if we could find the children’s pictures anywhere else on the web,
Bingo. JS and Dana’s twins, Lily and Jude
They turned out to actually be Adam and Kate, the children of Tertia Loebenberg Albertyn, a popular blogger in South Africa.
Many other examples of the Dirrs stealing pictures from around the web and claiming they were snapshots from their own lives were found.
It was puzzling because, from Facebook, JS and Dirr looked so real. Each had hundreds of friends and they were tagged in dozens of their friends’ posts and pictures. Both Dirrs had many albums filled with pictures, even participating in those photo a day challenges. Friends posted on their walls constantly. These didn’t look like sock puppet profiles.
A closer look at the friends’ profiles, however, showed that all the friends were basically obsessed with talking about Eli’s cancer battle. Almost all the friends “liked” two Facebook pages, Squeeze the Day and Fla-Vor-Ice. Profile picture after profile picture of the Dirr’s friends were found elsewhere on the net. We figured out originally that whoever was behind the hoax had at least 25 Facebook profiles devoted to making his or her story look legitimate.
Eventually we’d identify 71 fake Facebook profiles.
By now, we’d realized that Dana Dirr was fake, her husband and children didn’t exist and her son Eli really wasn’t suffering from cancer. The lengths to which the person behind the hoax went to in order to make the story look real were staggering.
The family had a CaringBridge page that went back five years and documented every aspect of Eli’s cancer treatment. JS also had a Xanga journal, a MySpace blog and a huge presence on an online photo sharing site, Mobog. All of these were updated often, included tons of (stolen) pictures and had very detailed stories about life in Canada. JS also maintained an extensive Yahoo! Answers account, answering questions from parents of cancer patients, looking for emotional support for his family and even asking how much to pay a babysitter.
By now, I’d set up this blog and created an email address for people to send any information they could find. Early on, a reader sent me a link to a genealogy site with information about a woman whose name had been on the list of donors to a fundraiser for a cancer charity that was set up to honor Eli.
I figured it was just a coincidence because I didn’t think whoever was behind this story would use her own last name. Then people started emailing me about bracelets that the Dirr family had sent out to raise awareness of Eli’s fight. The return address on the packages? Rootstown, Ohio.
JS and Dana claimed that Emily was JS’ sister who lived in the United States. She would be handling sending out the bracelets because postage was cheaper from Ohio than it was from Saskatchewan. Emily sent out hundreds and hundreds of these awareness bracelets, sometimes including artwork by Eli and pictures of him that she had printed out.
I revealed Emily’s name on this blog. She emailed me, at first spinning yet another ridiculous lie, but then called me and confessed. I felt a great deal of sympathy for her and urged her to get help and move on with her life. She sent me an apology to post on this site. Later, I found out most of the sob story she had told me over the phone was also a lie. I too had been duped.
The scariest part? Emily is a med student studying to be a doctor. That might explain how she was able to pull this off. It’s a labeled bag of chemotherapy medication that Emily posted on her Warrior Eli CaringBridge site.
It turns out Emily had also carried on cyber affairs with several women, all the while pretending to be a handsome man in his 20s from Canada. She had dozens of friends whom she texted and instant messaged every day, including a young girl who was 13 when she met the Dirr family. She’s 17 now and absolutely devastated that her friend was just an illusion. Dozens of people who considered JS and Dana close friends and allies in the fight against childhood cancer have been left shattered.
Many of the parents who took the time to emotionally support and comfort the Dirr family had sick or dying children of their own. They now look back and realize that they wasted time on fictional characters, precious time they could have spent with their own children. Some parents have removed their support pages from the web, terrified that someone will steal their children’s pictures and pull this same thing all over again.
If Emily does have Munchausen by Internet, she needs some very serious mental help. People who have this disorder do not stop. When one of their stories is revealed to be fake, they pull up camp, move on to a different community of victims and start all over again.
Thank you to the huge number of people, all over the world, who researched this hoax, sent in exchanges they’d had with the Dirr family, took pictures of their bracelets, floated crazy theories that ended up being true and taught me that nothing is ever anonymous on the Internet
A lot of work has gone into this and hopefully it will help those people who were duped by Emily Dirr. Also, I pray that Emily will get help. We do not need a Doctor out there with this kind of problem. I wonder if she can ever be “cured”?
Well done Taryn! Very well written. It’s nice to have all of the events laid out so nicely. Hopefully she will soon be held accountable. The thought of her practicing medicine makes me so uncomfortable.
So the whole story she told you about being young and this being her escape was the lie on the phone? What about the friend’s.younger sibling being having cancer? Is that part true? Also, so she is still in school? The part about her dropping out was another lie?
Melissa, I don’t believe she was 11 when she made up JS Dirr. I think she was 14 or 15, and he started out as a rock and roll bad boy and serial womanizer. I think she said 11 to sound more sympathetic.
No idea about the friend’s younger sibling.
The school couldn’t tell me if she was currently enrolled due to privacy issues.
Okay, so that makes her closer to about 27 now. Which makes the whole thing that much more pathetic.
No, she’s definitely 22. The first online stuff I have for JS Dirr is the band page and that’s from 2004.
Okay, I get what you’re saying now.
Unless she has something up from earlier that no one has found or that she took down.
Right, exactly. That was the earliest anyone could find, but it may have started earlier.
” She emailed me, at first spinning yet another ridiculous lie, but then called me and confessed. I felt a great deal of sympathy for her and urged her to get help and move on with her life. She sent me an apology to post on this site. Later, I found out most of the sob story she had told me over the phone was also a lie.”
I gotta say, you walked right into this one. After what you’d found out, I don’t know why you’d believe a single word this woman told you.
I know, heavy sigh.
This sounds VERY similiar to a fraud in the online Cystic Fibrosis community that got blown out of the water about 3ish years ago. She went by Gina and when she was finally dying and waiting for a second pair of lungs with b. cepacia people started questioning her. It was traced to a woman in the Midwest in her mid-20s who loved horses. However, no one ever got a full answer except that she had infilitrated the online communities back as they were first forming, had been involved with other CFers for at least five to eight years. She had a friend who helped her pepetuate the fraud. He was a real CFer, a college professor who died in his 40s name Paul. No one ever found out if Paul knew she was a fake or not. This seriously sounds a lot like the same woman. We questioned if she had infiltrated other online illness communities at the time, especially since she had been so busy as the social medias were built up. When tracked down, the woman had nearly identical sob stories except for the claim she was a med student. Just a thought. if you can find the old info on Gina in the CF communities, it might be work tracking down.
Was she about 19 when you outed her? It wouldn’t surprise me if Emily had more than one game going.
Google down with the trolls blog, Gina went by Pepe as well. This was in summer of 2008, there is a letter written by her in apology as well on there.
I got duped by “gina” and yes this is identical in a lot of ways. That was outed by Down with the Trolls wasn’t it?
It looks like Gina is older than Emily, if she was 25 when the hoax was uncovered.
Any word from her parents or family members who could hopefully confront her and get her some help?
This first mistake you people are making is believing there is an “Emily Dirr”! Lol
If you can back this up with research, I’d love to hear it.
Ding ding. Exactly what I’ve been thinking the whole time. I have nothing to back this up with other than gut instinct.
Nope.
I fully appreciate you answering your own question, but you have no definitive proof that there is an Emily either…
The “Nope” was in response to someone asking if anyone has heard from her parents.
This person has pretended and quite Well actually to be numerous other people, why would they throw their real ID into the mix? Do you actually think they would be that stupid? Especially after pulling all of the other chracters off so flawlessly. There’s not an Emily, anyone could see that. How could you even believe one word this entity has told you?
Check public records. I got emails from her from her school email address. The cell phone she used to contact me is registered in her name.
Here’s how we came up with Emily Dirr. JS and Dana used her as their American contact, the person who would send out the awareness bracelets. Like you, I assumed Emily Dirr was another fake name.
Someone found a genealogy page mentioning an Emily Dirr in Ohio. People researched further and found she was a student at Kent State and a research assistant in science classes.
When we received the return address on the Eli bracelets, the house was owned by a William Dirr and Judith Ribak. They are Emily Dirr’s parents.
Emily wrote to me from an .edu email address and the phone she called me with is registered to her name.
Hell I’d be willing to travel to Where ever to meet “EMILY”…
I see a number of people saying this needs to be taken to the authorities, but I’m not sure that a crime has been committed. If she had solicited funds, that is fraud and illegal, but if she didn’t solicit funds or gifts, then she’s just a liar which isn’t illegal.
Am I correct in this? Or was there a crime committed?
oh, I should have clarified before putting my name in that comment, my name really is Dana, it’s a coincidence, I swear. =)
Nope, unfortunately it doesn’t seem to me like there was a crime committed here.
Haha, Life is full of weird coincidences 😉
I’m sure stealing parent’s pictures of their children and posting without their permission comes under some sort of crime? If not it should!
A curious private investigator may be willing to do this for free, especially since there is obviously still a big stinky fish in the water… *cough*
A private investigator to see if a crime had been committed?
It IS illegal to impersonate another… and yes taking anthers photos is too.
I personally don’t think any crimes have been committed, but people have contacted authorities, and they’ll be the ones to determine that.
That’s some really hard evidence you’ve got there, Sherlock. Lol
If you can prove we are wrong or come up with something else entirely, I’d love to hear it, honestly.
Please do share, Anonymous 12:50 a.m. We’ve had plenty of visitors to this blog throw out plenty of theories and accusations, but none with any proof, research or even the tiniest hint of validation. You’d be the first so please, don’t stop with the “Lol” and by all means…do share.
I’ve said the same thing many times.
Bravo for the unveiling and all the hard work. What a sickening case. Sadly Emily is only the tip of the iceberg. There are many Emily’s out there pulling the same crap. It seems that there’s more white women doing this than any other group. Check out the site linked to my name for another case. This kind of behavior is fascinating to observe, and hopefully educates others so they don’t get burnt by these criminals.
Great work. I’m not sure about a crime committed, but have you considered contacting her med school? The idea that this woman could become a doctor creeps me the fuck out. Talk about a breach of ethics…
Her school has been contacted and they are doing there own investigation as well.
Sure they have.
She has proof they have – where’s your proof they haven’t? Please share.
Clearly her’s is a name that will return links such as this site if Googled. You are kidding yourself, Anonymous, if you think employers are NOT searching their candidates, especially in the medical profession…an employer has to protect themselves. Emily Dirr’s life will have to over to have a career, meaning she will have to change her name. Those trained as MDs cannot do that and keep their license. I actually hope she changes her name now that this is out and she has started to apologize so she can have a fresh start. I also hope she doesn’t go back to this old way of building her life if she does so, but puts her talents, medical or fiction writing or other, to good use.
I just wanted you to know that the work you have done to expose this lie has touched hearts here in the UK too, I came here today because of this article http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2155831/Blogger-exposes-woman-tricked-hundreds-people-weaving-web-fictional-social-network-accounts-11-years.html my little sister has been battling cancer for the past 7 months and it makes me sick to see someone exploiting real sufferers pain to feed their own deluded mind. Thankyou for the commitment you have shown to exposing this lie.
Good luck to your sister!
Spectacular teamwork and research! I know the layers of deception (and sob story) can go deep. Thanks for doing this.
Hey, I go to school with Emily. If someone wants to have a discussion about this, I’d be more than happy to. Other than that, lets chalk it up to this–she is no longer enrolled due to academic difficulties, she was a nice girl (I knew her for 2 years), and she obviously does have some issues, but with all I’m sure she’s going through, it’s only going to be another casualty to keep beating the issue into the ground. Did she do it? Most likely, if thats what the research shows. I know myself that I have enough free time to do quite a few extracurriculars, so the time issue isn’t surprise if that’s what you’re trying to deduce. Overall, it’s a tragedy for all angles. Also, her dad only owned the house in Rootstown…she lived there with a room mate, not her father. My sincerest condolences to all people affected, but I really do fear an internet lynch mob. The issue is devastating and sad, but let’s not breathe any more life into a dead horse.
Hans — that was an interesting and thoughtful post, but she was the conductor on this runaway crazy train and regardless of her intent, her actions have created a sense of fear and skepticism throughout a very open and trusting community of wonderful people. She knowingly played with the hearts and minds of people with not only much to GIVE, but even more to LOSE. Emily’s legacy is that for a very long time some of the most compassionate people on the planet will look at cancer support FB pages/networks with skepticism – and for that alone there is understandably tremendous frustration and anger. Yes, people are looking for justice, but I think it is not so much to punish her, but to know that actions have been taken to ensure that her access is to the internet is cut off/monitored and that she receives help. Because only then can the community stop worrying if it is Emily on the other end of the line.
@ Christine, I don’t disagree with you that her actions on the internet were deplorable, and damaging to all whom look for support from online communities in times of need. There are people who genuinely connect with others through electronic means, and thus have probably lost an inordinate amount of faith in whatever systems they used to achieve such connection; it’s unforgivably sad. However, I must indicate that, at least from what I have observed, somehow some people now seem to milk such issues for attention anyways on the web, especially sites like Facebook. Maybe Emily’s story underlies a much graver problem than has been addressed here…one that revolves around tragedy being exploited as entertainment in a culture so numb that the wow factor is the only thing capable of eliciting a response. But that’s just pontificating, and nothing good comes of that 😉
Anyways, if there was a good way to monitor one person’s internet access, I’d be all for it. Unfortunately, such things are impossible without the utmost in intrusion, and have served as the basis of poorly written, manipulative laws before in the past. You’re absolutely right, though–she needs help and the community deserves better. I just don’t know how such a thing would be enforced…the devil lays in the details.
Hey Hans, I sent you an email. Could you reply to me there? Thank you!
Hans, aren’t you worried about using your school email to discuss this, especially since your point of view seems somewhat supportive of Emily? I apologize, but you are a future doctor I would never want to be in the care of. I do not feel any real sympathy to the victims in your writing. How did she get “Eli’s” name on an IV med bag? If you truly care for her well being, you have more ability than any of us to contact her and her family instead of posting your opinion from your school email. I don’t think any school would look too kindly on that. These people DO escalate and maybe her being called out in public is EXACTLY what she needs – not people who are going to make excuses for her behavior.
For the record, Hans, I didn’t tell anyone your email address. There was concern that you might be Emily herself and I just said you emailed from the school’s email address. I wouldn’t reveal your identity to anyone.
Hans is another sock puppet.
Hans, it could be “enforced” if she was willing to get help and voluntarily have a “sponsor” who would not only monitor her internet usage but also guide and support her in making real, healthy social connections, something I think she desperately needs. But that can’t and won’t happen if she just blows it all off and thinks it’s no big deal.
I’m also not quite sure what you’re implying when you say an issue is “one that revolves around tragedy being exploited as entertainment in a culture so numb that the wow factor is the only thing capable of eliciting a response.” I hope you aren’t suggesting that parents who have found out that their child is facing a life-threatening situation speaking up and reaching out to each other are “exploiting tragedy.” I think you were trying to say something else, but I’m not quite sure what it is.
Hans – Anonymous 11:44 and Tea have both responded far more articulately and on point than I could (Thanks guys!!) :
1. “If you truly care for her well being, you have more ability than any of us to contact her”
– I hope as her friend you really consider this (keep reading as to why).
2. “it could be “enforced” if she was willing to get help and voluntarily have a “sponsor” who would not only monitor her internet usage but also guide and support her in making real, healthy social connections…”
— I suspect Emily comes from a close family that must engage in her “rehabilitation.” She is mentally ill, and as Anon 11:44 pointed out – it will only get worse. If Emily was a raging alcoholic or drug addict at the age of 22, I would certainly hope that they would stage an intervention and get her help – both psychotherapy and environmental. By environmental I mean taking whatever steps are recommended by her doctors to assist in her recovery – such as taking her computer and internet accessible devices, installing tracking/blocking software, shutting off her ISP and taking the modem, limiting her time on the internet and/or physically observing her browsing habits, etc. (Obviously I am not a tech person – so dont critique the specifics, just roll with the concept! 🙂 ) Yes, Emily can certainly get around any/all of these controls, and they are not supposed to be failsafe – merely deterents. This is no different (actually worse) than being a alchoholic/drug addict -because as you took great pains to point out, it is awfully hard to limit internet access, and Emily is no better than an addict in need of a fix. Obviously, first and foremost, Emily needs to admit she has a problem and accept help – ASAP!! She has really screwed up her life. No school/employer worth their salt will fail to Google her name and discover that she is severely disturbed. She needs to pull it together immediately and get off the net and into therapy. However, all is not lost. She probably needs to actively and willingly participate in some long, hard, intensive therapy and then a lifetime of followup and diligence… just like an addict. But at the end of the day there is no shame in recovery and Emily can only benefit from the hard work of creating a REAL life! I hope as her friend you help both Emily and her family realize that this is something that must be addressed immediately.
Just in case there is any confusion: I only meant the following as EXAMPLES of a few INDIVIDUAL controls that my non-techie mind could come up with to curb an individual’s access to the internet. I didnt mean for this to be interpreted as a list of controls that I thought would actually work or that should be implemented as a part of a professionally developed and managed treatment program.
“… such as taking her computer and internet accessible devices, installing tracking/blocking software, shutting off her ISP and taking the modem, limiting her time on the internet and/or physically observing her browsing habits, etc. “
And like Tea, I am also curious as to what you meant by: “Maybe Emily’s story underlies a much graver problem than has been addressed here…one that revolves around tragedy being exploited as entertainment in a culture so numb that the wow factor is the only thing capable of eliciting a response.”
Did you all see the movie Catfish? It sounds very very similar to this. Its about a woman pulling a facebook hoax like this.
A bunch of the people who helped dig up information watched it “together” one night, each in our own houses, while chatting about it on Facebook. It hit home for a lot of people who were taken in by “JS and Dana”
Catfish is fictional. Have a hunt for the documentary Talhotblond. Chilling and true.
It’s sad & disgusting to see so many people screaming, no harm, no foul and saying it was a great work of fiction and defending the actions of what she did.
This was in no way a fun fiction story. She inserted herself into a Community who struggles every day with the lives & deaths of children with Cancer. She didn’t sit on the sidelines, or quietly write a blog about her fake families battle to save their little Warrior Eli. She actively sought to create personal relationships within this Community, knowing full well, just how vulnerable they were. She took advantage of the fact that maybe because they were dealing with such everyday heartache of their own. Perhaps they wouldn’t notice if there were inconsistencies in the story of the Dirrs? She didn’t merely sit back & post a few lines here and there. She emailed, texted, private messaged and corresponded through the mail with people constantly.
She stole the photos of people, adults and children, for years. She used these images to spin her lies and convince people it was true. Such a huge violation of privacy for the families of all these children that she passed off as the “Dirrs”. Or stealing photos of pregnant woman to pass off as a Dirr pregnancy. Infants photos as new babies in the Dirr family. Photos of someone’s mom or dad, as the Dirr grandparents. Photos of “JS Dirr” were a young college guy as he worked his way through milestones in his life right into his adult life with a high profile career. Many of his close friends and family were sucked into the lie as their images were stolen & they were the faces & personalities of her fake Facebook profiles, creating Dana Dirr as well as the Dirr family & friends.
The images of these real people, are associated with anything the Dirrs or their family & friends ever did. Some of which wasn’t always very nice. If she thought of this as a fun, harmless game, story or experiment, she could have used her own friends and families images. But she didn’t.
She inserted herself into the story which added further credibility. Eli’s Aunt Emily would be happy to handle anything you would like to send to Eli. Does anyone really think that in all that time, no one sent her money, gift cards or gifts for Eli & his 9 brothers and sisters? Just because there was a public announcement to send to the legitimate charities doesn’t mean there was no personal gain. But that is yet to be determined as Emily herself has not come forward to shed some light on her part of the story. The Dirr children, even drew pictures in crayon for people..or posters depicting the names and images of real warriors. And yes, Aunt Emily even sent out Warrior Eli bracelets to the masses.
Yes there are lessons to be learned from all of this..on Internet safety and trusting your instincts. But with all of the evidence presented to these families, they opened their hearts and accepted the Dirrs into their Cancer family, they cried, prayed, laughed and poured their hearts out to another mom & dad, who maybe like them, were just trying to hold onto some hope for another day.
All of these things are merely crib notes to the extent of this story. If that’s a fun work of fiction and didn’t cause any “real harm” then I guess it’s ok for anyone to do something like this to your family or steal your face or take away the good that people see in others.
How convenient for Hans to start posting, when people are starting to questioning if the real Emily Dirr is a part of this. This whole blog is a freaking joke.
If the real Emily Dirr is NOT part of this, then how do you account for the mail & packages that were shipped & received to and from her name and address? Or the emails and phone calls with Emily? Or, the fact that all of her personal accounts were locked down as soon as the scam was even coming to light? This blog has been here for almost a month now. It didn’t spring up to coincide with the stories in the media.
If I were being accused of something like this and I didn’t have anything to do with it, you can bet that Iwould come forward and defend myself.
If you think it’s a joke, why do you bother reading it? You make ZERO sense. Go away. You’re annoying.
I’m not going anywhere. I have to stick around I’m the only voice of reason here. 🙂
I find it a shame that Emily, Emily’s friend(s) (assuming she has any IRL), and/or Emily’s family members are wasting their time trying to discredit the blog rather than confiscating her computer and getting her some professional help.
Frankly, as she’s a grown woman, no one of her friends could simply confiscate her computer.
Oh absolutely!! But I know that if I was bordering on bat-sh*t crazy and now all over the internet thanks to “multiple-fake-internet-personality-disorder” (Sorry, just made that up and the acronym (MFIPD) is admittedly weak!) My family would be staging one hell of an intervention! 🙂
anonymous at 5.20pm.erm just too cprrect you,i think YOU are the ONLY person starting too question if emoly dirr isthe real person behind it..maybe youre trying too turn thr limrlight off of her,maybe you are related too her??!
Are you drunk or what?
no! i was typing in a dark lit room,smart arse.
If Emily just attended a memorial service for body donors like she said in her email, then it means she just finished her first year of medical school and she’s getting promoted to 2nd year. This contradicts some posts on the net saying she had dropped out and we shouldn’t be beating a dead horse. Beware!
I truly think this person may have stolen the identity of the real Emily Dirr, all of the proof here can be disproved. It’s really easy to explain away all of it. A close friend, a neighbor, a family member. I once had a neighbor using my address to receive packages, they would get their “MAIL” while I was at work and it went on for over a year and a half before I found out about.
Is there anyone even living at the house? Can someone find a phone number for the house? Anyone wanna go knock on the door with me?? Lol I’ll provide the body armor! 🙂
Seriously though if the person has assumed Emily’s ID it could ruin her life, career everything. 🙁
I write as a sufferer of factitious disorder. I say sufferer because whilst I am no longer engaged in actively factitious behaviour I believe that the tendancies to lie and manipulate are deeply entrenched: I have to battle daily to keep my behaviour under control, and doubt I will ever be ‘free’ from this being my natural instinct and coping mechanism.
I also write as an ex medical student – I had to leave my course due to my factitious disorder. It was the hardest thing in my life, and at the time felt unfair, but I am now able to see why it was necessary. It was not right for me to work in such a trusted position as a doctor when I had such an innate tendancy to be untrustworthy myself.
I have serious concerns that Emily is potentially still practicing as a medical student. Yes, we’ve heard from people that she’s not – but what is to say she is not impersonating people in order to keep her deception under cover? (Ashamed to admit it but I did do that in a desperate attempt to get people off my case because I could not immediately accept that I had lied – and we know from Taryn’s account that she a) did not admit the truth when initially confronted and b) has a history of creating additional characters to add to the story. Honesty and integrity should be key features of a doctor. Furthermore to be living so much in an unreal world (which to be honest starts to feel real) must mean concentration cannot solely be on patients. Finally there is always a (minimal, but must be considered) risk that they may be put at risk as part of a factitious scenario.
I hope it does not come across that I am bitter at what I have lost and therefore want “Emily” to suffer the same. Rather I know that I needed to lose something major in my life to drive me to accept help, accept my problem, and actively work to resolve it. If you cannot accept your factitious disorder you can never even hope to be free of it.
I have no idea what to do about these concerns (I’m not even in the US) but wanted to voice them in case anyone had any suggestions? Or am I being unreasonable? Maybe there is nothing more can be done… but this has been nagging me a lot over the last few weeks since the hoax came to light.
I appreciate the concerns that this could be someone posing as “Emily Dirr”. However if this is the case it should easily be provable by the “true” Emily Dirr that she has had her identity stolen – therefore whilst there may be transient implications for her career and life etc during an investigation it would be rapidly proved that she was innocent and not have long-term consequences for her (in terms of being allowed to continue practicing her profession – obviously if the name is in the papers etc there are implications for the public’s attitudes to her). I believe the risks of this going ignored in a medical student/doctor are potentially far worse.
How did you end up getting help? Did your family support you getting it?
I got help as part of my medical school’s investigation into my fitness to practice as a doctor. There was help from my GP and a psychiatrist, particularly for the terrible depression I fell into (shame at what I had done, distress at what I was going to lose, fear of how my family would). My GP is also excellent at now keeping an eye on me overall, and keeping me accountable for my behaviour. I am also having psychotherapy. This was recommended and referral instigated by the psychiatrist (who specialises in factitious disorder) that I was sent by the medical school in order to assess my fitness to practice.
When I was willing to accept it and work with them I realised there are a lot of people willing to support me working through this. However I had to want to change – psychotherapy is hard, having to discuss events, emotions, behaviours I am so acutely ashamed of. It is possible I could have been forced to attend appointments and it might be enough, but I suspect if I was not willing to discuss and think through the difficult issues (which no number of family, friends or professionals can make happen) there would be limited or no progress.
The benefit the family could have – it was my shame at what I was, and how other people would (reasonably) view me, that motivated me to change. If her family knowing can help generate this impetus and conviction that she needs to work with those who can help her it might help. And if they can provide the accountability necessary to help prevent her slidding back into the same behaviour (so distressingly easy).
Very sorry for such a long comment -hope I’ve given an answer to your question. This is only my perspective and opinion from my experiences though.
This is a really excellent comment. I’m proud of you for working hard to get help for your problem. I’d love to get in touch with you via email with some questions I have. warriorelihoax@gmail.com.
Thank you. I do get nervous of admitting what I did because I am so ashamed – no I did not hurt any of these people, but I did hurt someone in a very similar way. I will never forgive myself for that. However it also makes me want to see others get help so they cannot continue to hurt people (and themselves). Happy for you to email, will send an email now.
clevelandclinic.org says “factitious disorders are mental disorders in which a person acts as if he or she has a physical or mental illness when, in fact, he or she has consciously created his or her symptoms”. So it’s a form of hypochondriasis. Emily Dirr is not like that. She never said she had any symptoms herself. In fact, she said very little about herself when running this hoax. Howver, we all know she has issues, obviously (such as being a very gifted liar). The problem is she will do it again if history is any guide.
I agree with you – except I was given this diagnosis on the basis of pathological lying about my health, not actually creating false symptoms. I did not lie to medical professionals but still the diagnosis. Google pseudologica fantastica and factitious disorder/Munchausen’s.
I know I personally spent ages trying I’ve made his bed up in my room. convince myself the diagnosis was wrong using exactly the logic you have given – but deep down I knew it described me. I wonder if this is what Emily is doing. I agree it is purely speculation though.
factitious disorders is a broad term for several different types of attention seeking behaviors. If you look more into the definition, you will actually see Emily’s actions there. To “B”, you are to be commended for the work you have done to get help for yourself and make amends. Good luck in all you do and keep working hard!
cannot edit my previous comment – could you delete it for me (typo), sorry
I agree with you – except I was given this diagnosis on the basis of pathological lying about my health, not actually creating false symptoms. I did not lie to medical professionals but still the diagnosis. Google pseudologica fantastica and factitious disorder/Munchausen’s.
I know I personally spent ages trying to convince myself the diagnosis was wrong using exactly the logic you have given – but deep down I knew it described me. I wonder if this is what Emily is doing. I agree it is purely speculation though.
Question to “Hans”: If you say she had to quit med school due to academic difficulties, how do you explain her email saying she attended the year end memorial ceremony for her anatomy class? Obviously she finished and likely passed that class.
I’ve heard from sources that Emily repeated her first year twice and then left school because of academic difficulties.
Sources?? Are you even remotely serious?
Also, why has your personal blog been shut down and why are the people on the mom blog, which you claim is were this whole hoax was uncovered, just now discussing it?
This is my blog. This is where the Warrior Eli was first discussed on the MWOP blog, on Mother’s Day.
Taryn,
I think you should ask your sources to confirm. No U.S. medical school will allow a student to repeat a year twice.
If they fail a class, they can retake the exam. If they fail the exam again, they fail the class, but since they can’t just take a single class by itself, they have to repeat the whole year.
If they fail a class again during the repeated year, then it’s curtains i.e. they’re dismissed if they don’t withdraw.
Medical schools bend over backwards to prevent attrition. There is plenty of free tutoring (handholding/spoon feeding), and they allow students to take a leave of absence and come back without penalty.
Typically people fail out due to felony conviction, serious misconduct like cheating or lying to faculty, prolonged illness, severe depression, family or relationship issues.
Remember the joke P = MD? It’s true. It’s very hard to get kicked out of medical school once you got in.
The school has now said that Emily withdrew from classes earlier this year. I talked a classmate of hers that told me she had to repeat her first year and when she had difficulty with the repeated classes, she left.
My good friend who is finishing his last year of residency to become a board certified emergency pulmonary specialist and he said the same thing that you did here, that the hardest part of med school is getting in. He said the school gives you every opportunity it can to succeed, but obviously in this case it didn’t work out well for Emily.
Here’s a new article with information from the school.
I mean to say if they fail a class again after remediation (retaking the exam) during the repeated year then they’re done for.
Dear Emily,
If in fact you are the person that perpetrated all of this. Listen to me very carefully, Do Not talk to any media, do not respond to emails from media or anyone associated with this blog! You have already paid the price for your actions. I’m not saying, what you did wasn’t wrong, you know it was. But you have definitely been punished enough. The owner of this blog is out for herself, she cares Nothing about you. Don’t give this woman anymore leads to go on. Her continued actions, repeating the same story to any media outlet that will listen proves that she is a fame whore! I honestly wish the best! I hope you get better, you are not alone
You were alone and only wanted friends and love, I get ya! Just remember what I said, don’t talk to Anyone who doesn’t have your best interests at heart!
Isn’t it curious that someone always comes along saying the perp has been punished enough?
People who think Emily is the victim in any of this is sick in the head.
Emily failed out of med school because she couldn’t cut it – because she had spent all her time on Facebook trying to deceive people instead of studying.
11 years of lies and deception. She could have stopped at any time, and she chose not to.
Did Emily really care about other people? By tricking them? By stealing other people’s photos? By carrying on affairs with married women?
I get it Emily did the wrong thing and she hurt many people but this was done by a teenager who must have been hurting so much for this to happen. Anti is enough that her life is ruined there is no need to ruin it further. She deserve help. Yes she should not have lied and pretended but the other people were adults and they are responsible for their actions too. They decided to trust the story without anyone ever asking to see her on video, or speak with JS not Dana or Emily.
If I was online friends with someone I’d question their identity if I never spoke to them for 11 years or video chatted etc.
Trying to ruin the poor girls life even more is not right and makes everyone else no better than her. An eye or an eye is not necessary.
That’s just it. The personality of JS Dirr.was done by a teenager…but all the cancer drama was done by an adult.
If this was indeed all done by this one person, I really think she is in huge need of help but not further scrutiny. We are all responsible for our actions, Emily for hers and the people that believed the story. It really works both ways, in my opinion.
I can see why people would be hurt, but to further try and ruin her life is just unfair. She has not ruined anyone’s life, in fact I’m thinking this was all done so she could maybe help people deal with their children’s illness. I am not saying it is right, but there is no proof that she gained anything from this “hoax”.
So why try to ruin her life and make it even more difficult when she probably already had a ton of daemons — considering one would have to in order to pull this off.
I speak as someone that has used the internet in a way to help me deal with my real life, I have not always been honest with people I corresponded either and I had my reasons too. Sometimes In order to deal with ourselves we try to escape the reality of our lives and pretend — and that pretending can cause other people a lot of pain, but for someone to go that far to feel something they must be hurting 10x that just to create that imaginative-online-life.
Every Time I had a depressive spell or a horrible day I always knew I could escape into the world of the Internet where I don’t have to be me, and I can just let my mind go to rest because reality can be so painful sometimes. Maybe Emily’s reality was so painful that this all began as something innocent and spiraled.
I lost my grandmother to cancer, she was my best friend, and in many ways protector. I try to put myself in the shoes of these people hurt by Emily’s actions, and I think if I were one of thise people that was close with via this whole fake-life I probably would be hurt too, but I really wonder what caused this poor girl to take all of this so so far. So maybe instead of trying to ruin her life we can somehow help her.
I speak as a “broken” imvididual because I think I have a lot of demons to overcome too. I come from a war forms country, left my homeland when I was 8 and until I was 11 endured many, many emotional traumas and witnessed things no 11 year old should. It has been 19 years since my family and I fled our home country and I still feel those past demons and those childhood expenses lingering around. And sometimes it is painful because I feel I don’t belong here nor there, and reality can be so hard — this is probably hard for some people to understand unless they have been in similar shoes, but it is quite possible that this Emily experiences something really traumatic in order to fake this life, a life that isn’t even appealing, she didn’t pretend to be rich or poor, she just wanted to give people some hope. Maybe just maybe she is looking for some hope too. Who knows what is really going on with her.
Igetya- Try telling that to the individuals she duped and hurt. Taryn isn’t in it to ruin her life. Emily was a grown woman who hurt others! Do you get that? She basically made a mockery of the real parents of children with cancer. She made a mockery of their feelings and their hurt.
just wondering… in the picture with the “warrior eli” bracelet, is that emily’s hand in the picture, or is it someone she sent the bracelet to?
It is the hand of someone who received a bracelet and took a picture for me after the hoax was revealed. JS Dirr did use a picture of an arm with a Warrior Eli bracelet on it as his Facebook cover photo; that picture was taken by a professional photographer who donated the picture to the family.
okay, just checking. i think i’m on to something (though a bit late to the game), so i just wanted to check everything.
Cool! Keep me posted.
You people are just pissed because you have nobody to blame but yourselves! Somebody lied on the internet? No shit! I’m not condoning what she did but you people fell for it so going after her is just misguided anger at yourself for believing in something you had no reason to believe. The internet is a scary place, don’t forget it. How bout of instead of attacking and probing into this person’s life and that of her family, learn from this situation and don’t be stupid in the future.
And hey, the money went to a real charity and donations she received (without asking), she returned. There is good and bad to come out of everything. The bad was obvious, and the good subtle, though now you people are making it even worse by trying to probe and diagnose this girl (ironic when I have read that people are mad for her medical advice given online). You have turned a bad situation worse because of your anger at yourself.
YOUR JUST MAD BECAUSE YOU BELIEVED IT!
Tell that to the people she hurt! She made a mockery of parents who have children with cancer. She made a mockery of their feelings and their hurt. Try remembering that next time you decide to blast Taryn when all she’s trying to do is protect others from further harm.
I’ve been reading all this over in work and it fasinates me… Emily had a thing with the number 11, didn’t she? 11 imaginary children, a fake baby born at the time of 11:11, a status about ‘J.S’s’ wifes death in which Emily wrote ”its been almost 11 hours”, her apology mentioning that it started 11 years ago when she was an 11-year-old girl… Anybody else notice this?