It’s almost too horrible for the human brain to comprehend. One family with five children all suffering from various forms of cancer? How can anything be that tragically awful?
Yesterday morning, Juliet Swift let the world know about her family tragedy. On her public Facebook prayer page (now deleted but which can be found here), Juliet wrote that her beautiful four year old daughter Angel had died of DIPG. Juliet posted that although it was hard on the kids, she herself felt peace that Angel was out of pain.
Of course, kindhearted people rushed in to support Juliet and her family after their horrible loss. When these new readers found out about the plight of Juliet’s other family members, it became too much to bear.
Later in the day, Juliet’s husband Mike posted.
Mike, as you can read above, feels dumb because it took the death of his child to “start a whole thing about childhood cancer.” Apparently seeing all five of his children and his wife get diagnosed with various forms of the disease wasn’t enough.
Luckily, Juliet has a close friend, Rita Joy, who stepped in to show her support.
Yes, poor Rita also lost two children to cancer. She also adopted another child (thirteen short days after meeting her at a hospital), a young girl named Arianna who is dying of cancer. Arianna also has a Facebook prayer page. Horribly tragic. Horribly fake.
We found all the pictures of the children on other blogs, and the vast majority of them were taken from the blogs of families whose children had died. Died in reality, not on a fake Facebook page.
Last evening, after watching Juliet Swift’s fake drama play out on Facebook all afternoon, we decided to post on our public Facebook page that the Prayers for the Swifts page was fake. I didn’t have time to write a blog post, but watching actual parents who have lost children mourn for a fake child on a Facebook page was too much. A few hours after my post, the fake page had a new post.
Now, first of all, I need to say we take suicide threats very seriously. I called the police station in the town where I believe this hoaxer lives and I explained the situation. It didn’t seem like there was much they could do, but I did let them know. Many of our readers reported the post to Facebook. I messaged the page and gave the hoaxer my phone number and asked her to call me. She ended up making several comments saying she had called an ambulance and was getting help and then she deleted the page.
That being said, I don’t believe our hoaxer is a 24 year old who lost a baby to cancer years ago. I’m very convinced it’s a much younger person, a teenager. In fact, our plan was to post that the Facebook page was fake and not reveal the hoaxer if we found out his or her name.
Why do I think it’s a teenager? Well, ever since Taylor Swift’s beautiful song Ronan came out, we’ve had an explosion of fake blogs created by teenagers writing about losing their children to cancer. They all reference Taylor Swift at some point. A few of them have been laughingly bad and such obvious fakes that after one email from me, the hoaxers deleted the blog.
Rita Joy, who we believe is another creation by the same person who made the Prayers for the Swifts page, has many friends who all attend the same high school. It’s too many friends to just be a coincidence. We suspect the hoaxer also attends this school.
That being said, because we suspect the hoaxer is very young, we’re not going to reveal his or her name even if we figure it out. We ARE going to continue to try and figure out who the person is to make sure he or she is getting help. If the writer of these Facebook pages is reading this (and we know you are), I would love to talk with you. Please get in touch at warriorelihoax@gmail.com.
As usual, we ask our readers to show compassion to this person in the comment section. Trust me, I know that it can be hard at times when you see how badly these hoaxes hurt people, but we appreciate it.
she has set up a new page wen u click on the here on your part up the page omg i cannot believe it
Charmaine, that’s the old page. We just saved it and you can access it as if it’s still live.
Wow, some people are so disturbed and such a disgrace to those who’ve really lost children.
Another website / facebook page that is good to check in with or like to get the updates is called Facecrooks. They did a post today about “fake sick kids & fundraising on facebook”, although it is more about those ones that say that facebook will donate based on the number of likes & shares. But since so many of the real sick kid pages will like & share others that come up, it would be worthwhile to read
I howled at “Diffuse Introsentic Potvin Glioma”
Here’s a tip scammers – learn how to spell your fake diagnoses. Oh, and also the one that you use as an excuse for your disgusting behaviour. Can’t say I’ve heard of Baron von Munchean.
This is interesting to me, as a cancer mom I follow quite a few children. One little girl who passed away about 2 years ago (fom rhabdosarcoma) was named Ellie POTVIN..she had a HUGE following on CaringBridge, over a million page views/visitors, and Twitter following “Lift up Ellie”. Coincidence? Maybe, but POTVIN is not the most common name. I’d be really curious to know if there is a link between the two.
Thank you so much for sharing this, I may have read and commented,thanks for tips, sometimes I read post thatseem outside,, of sort,but chock it up to being stressed?
So, the hope for arianna is fake? Luckily it hasn’t beem up for too long
Wow, maybe this group should be more careful before sending the hell hounds after fakers. Many of these people really do seen to have mental disorders and having people attack them can involve in some serious injury. Like this suicide “threat”. Online bullying is serious. I’m not saying this blog is specifically bullying people, I’m saying that readers of the blog may and probably DO go after these people and attack them. There has to be less of a crass way of outing these people. Plus, if the page was so obviously fake, then why even bother with them? If they’re not taking money or gifts, then what more is it than someone who needs more of a life?
Just my opinions. I hope that person didn’t follow through with their suicide “threat”.
I don’t think anyone “sends” people, people are doing it on their own accord. Though I do agree some can be really crass towards a faker, I tend to see that those involved with outing fakers don’t mean any ill will-they’re disgusted and frustrated that someone could pull a stunt, and though I saw a few comments with “this is gross, how could you do such a thing?” I wouldn’t exactly call that bullying. From what I understand, Warrior Eli Hoax does contact people beforehand to give them a chance to explain themselves or to prove their legitimacy before they go forward with the find, so it’s not as if they had no idea it was coming. This person in question wasn’t taking any money or gifts that I saw of, but they were talking to real people, some who who really do have cancer or children with cancer and pulling on their heartstrings with their lies. One person commented that the person with the fake page(s) in question was in contact with her very real, very sick young daughter and told her graphic details of a death. To me, just because someone isn’t asking for anything of monetary value doesn’t mean they should just keep faking along. Internet relationships may not be seen as “real” to some, but to others, they’re very important-especially to those who are battling an illness and thought they found someone who would understand what they’re going through.
That being said, I do hope whoever this person is did indeed get medical attention if she tried overdosing.
This faker had not asked for anything … yet. There is always the “yet”. The harm is that people who really do have sick children are wasting their time and energy and being put on an emotional roller-coaster grieving someone’s child that did not exist. Some true cancer parents are sharing the hoaxed pages on their own pages and asking people to go Like the page and pray for them. It may seem harmless but it is not. And SO MANY people will ask for addresses to send little gifts, handmade crocheted blankets (time-consuming and yarn is expensive) or other gifts to send the sick ones. We have seen “I can’t afford a funeral what am I going to do. Any help is appreciated.” I know that I had put together some items that were a favourite of the original “Eli”, to send after I was sent bracelets. It included a couple of little books, some lip balm of the child’s favourite characters, and a WalMart gift card. I didn’t get a chance to mail it, the hoax was revealed shortly afterwards. I grieved for that family. Just because someone doesn’t ask, the majority of people on the sites *want* to help them somehow; I’m sure that many a gift card or gift was sent to each hoaxer so far. Some hoaxers are dispensing “advice” to REAL parents of kids with cancer — advice based on the hoaxers so-called experiences, which is incredibly wrong and could really harm someone who really is sick.
The only reason this particular hoax hadn’t gotten that far is that it was not that old of a page, I think it ws created only a week or two ago.
“It may seem harmless but it is not.”-My thoughts exactly. I have two chronic illnesses-Type 1 diabetes and Graves’ Disease (which actually is now ‘resolved’,so to speak, thanks to a second treatment of radioactive Iodine to destroy the thyroid gland) They are in no way comparable to cancer, but there are days I feel absolutely frustrated with my body. Hopping on message boards and sharing my frustrations with those who have the same diseases as me and venting helps a lot, because they know what I’m going through, and even if I don’t know them in real life, it’s nice to hear others offer their advice, support, and suggestions about things. If someone had come on a message board and claimed they had diabetes as well but were having terrible symptoms/bad complications/basically very sick and myself and other members are typing out messages of support, love, and hope and even offering to send cards or what have you-and then to find out that person was faking everything? It’s infuriating. To me, even if someone never asks for anything, lying about their condition, or making up a person and having them ill or “die” is just a mean, cruel thing to do, period. Even if nothing is actually exchanged gift or money wise, fabricating an illness for sympathy is not something I think should be taken lightly.
I understand that perfectly, J. I have a couple of health issues and also find emotional support in places online where people who also have the same chronic illnesses. My friends who do not have fibro & CFS just don’t get it, they can’t possibly get it because they don’t deal with it every day. Just like I can’t fathom what day to day life is like for a parent of a child with autism — that is *why* groups form to begin with! Common ground is what makes friendships start out, whether it is neighbours or classmates or pregnancy/parenthood, various diseases or conditions, being parents to someone with an illness, and so on. And we all often dispense advice to each other, what works for me, what works for someone else, love this/hate that — to discover that the advice or experiences were pulled out of thin air is distressing!! It honestly feels like you’ve been violated — it’s the same feeling as when you come home to find your house broken into & ransacked. You sit & try to think about each and every cupboard, drawer, closet & what was in it, what did someone see that was private??
I was hit very hard by the original hoaxer; I had known the “family” for a few years, and was very hurt discovering it was all a lie — and there are so many things about that hoaxer, Emily, and the things that she did, that we will NEVER know. She glossed over it pretty quiickly and disappeared. I know that she dispensed a LOT of advice through the years to other parents of children with cancer, and to parents of kids with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (because of the adopted child, “Katie”). What if a parent followed some advice from their friend JS & that “advice” killed someone??
So many of these hoaxers try to say “I was just trying to raise awareness”, it’s the most common cop-out, it seems. But if someone really wanted to raise awareness, then you have a banner at the top of your blog or in your profile stating that it is a work of fiction meant to raise awareness, you DON’T steal photos of other people and try to pass them all off as your own family! It’s ridiculous. And no, it should not be taken lightly by anyone — and if someone is pish-poshing it as nothing, then they have some serious mental issues, too. It is mean, cruel, and just a shitty thing to do to people. If someone really wanted to help, they would go work in the trenches — volunteer at a soup kitchen, be candy striper, there are SO MANY better ways to spend all that time & energy on instead of duping people & emotional blackmail.
I’ll tell you why we “bother with them”, one reason is to discourage others.
If you/a family member has a chronic or terminal illness you rapidly become isolated from real-life friends/family/colleagues.
It’s lonely, painful work trying to cope alone, especially if your condition is relatively rare, or has the potential to progress very rapidly.
The internet means that no matter how rare your condition is, you’ll almost certainly be able to find someone who has the same diagnosis. It means support and advice about how to stay comfortable, what to expect from treatment and procedures etc. It can be incredibly helpful to have someone who supports you, who you can vent to, who’ll let you cry on their virtual shoulder, because real-life friends/family can only take so much.
The fakers have ruined all of this. Support fora have been closed, some sites require proof of dx to join, and people are suspicious and mistrust new users/members. Too many hoaxes have soured too many victims on ever helping again.
They can also create false hope. This scammer claimed one of her kids had DIPG (diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma) a horrific childhood brain cancer with a devastating mortality rate. Someone falsely claiming they/their child has beaten DIPG or is still alive years after diagnosis is wildly irresponsible. The false hope it engenders, in parents whose child actually has DIPG, is toxic. Conversely, them “killing off ” someone you cared about who shares a diagnosis with you/family member is deeply traumatising. Parents in particular can’t fail to look at their child and think “Are you next?”
That’s why fakers need to be exposed, because they cause untold mental damage. It’s not just about money.
So is your position that the people who “really do seem to have mental disorders” shouldn’t be held accountable for the situations they’ve created, or that they aren’t worthy of the help being offered? I’m trying to understand.
There are a number of studies that promote the idea that publicly exposing the fabrications is the most effective long term deterrent and thus treatment catalyst available for MBI. I’d link some but I can’t post comments with links. I’m sure you can find them with Google.
Sorry this was a question for Heather in reply to above but the thread thing didn’t work.
The group that runs this blog cannot be responsible for the actions of readers or anyone else.
And regardless if this person asked for money of gifts, they have asked for sympathy, and were getting it, from parents who are already grieving for their own VERY REAL children.
Yes, the people that follow the prayer pages for these sick children get pissed about fakers. We spend so much time sharing these pages and trying to reach as many people as we can for them that it makes us feel we have mislead their good intentions to help someone. Just think about all the time and energy people put into praying for someone and sending help for someone that doesn’t exist how it makes them feel. How would you feel if you done it for someone?
Personally, I have decided to put my energy to better use working with legit organizations, and people in my own community. When I was in tx for cancer, I couldn’t get out much so I did some care boxes for people I had gotten to know on cancer forums. As far as I know, they are all real people, but it makes more sense to take that time and money and spend it where you can be confident it will do good, Almost every community has a cancer organization that needs volunteers, and if you can’t easily make it out of the house, you can always become a phone mentor. And of course, there are many, many other causes that need support, other than cancer. We all spend too much time in the virtual world while the real world goes begging. That is part of what gives the hoaxers so much power.
The public’s good intention to help someone.
Just curious, not accusing anyone of anything, what would happen if a faker really did kill themselves over being outed? Especially if they were a teenager? It’s not really that out of reach, since the Jonathan Jay faker killed herself when she was outed.
The Jonathan Jay White faker wasn’t outed, she confessed on her own accord. Melissa Ann Rice sent an email to a Livestrong campaigner confessing the story was a hoax. No one suspected (at least not publicly) prior to her confession. She was charged with grand theft a very short time later for the tens of thousands of dollars in cash and celebrity donations she accepted as Jonathan, and committed suicide days after the charges were filed.
I would be surprised if anyone who created a fake page or blog would actually kill themselves. They create these pages to get attention, and a suicide attempt, faked or real, is the same sort of cry. They never intend to die, just to get people to listen. Over the years, I have known people who actually did take their own lives and let me tell you, there were no threats, no last minute phone calls, they just did it.
Having said that, I find that WarriorEli tries very hard to contact these people and to act responsibly. I do agree these people should be outed publicly. They chose a public forum and as such, opened that door themselves. However, I find myself feeling very sorry for the fakers themselves also. How desperate your life must be, that you feel the need to create such tragedy just to give yourself value. I hope that people will begin to take this behavior seriously and that these people will be able to find help.
Google Melissa Ann Rice, Jonathan Jay White, she was 24 and was caught faking cancer and being a 17 year old boy. It has happened.
I do agree that the person wouldn’t talk about suicide if they were serious. Hence why I asked the whatif question.
These scammers are not being “bullied” by being outed here (or elsewhere). They are simply suffering the consequence of their poor, scamming choices. Their actions are 100% their own responsibility and I commend WarriorEli for the kind, gentle approach to trying to get them help.
Sorry, but this is an old myth that needs debunking. Parasuicide or talking about suicide isn’t, as you glibly put it, “attention seeking”. It’s usually a serious scream for help, a way to say “I’m hurting and scared”
Proper MH evaluation and appropriate interventions after parasuicide can save lives. Writing off that, self-injury, and talking about suicide as being in the same category as sick scans like this can cost lives.
The suicides you’ve personally known may not have mentioned it to you, but unless you interviewed everyone they knew IRL or talked to online, you’ll never know what they said.
Please trust me when I say that your advice is dangerously outdated. There are too many grieving family members and friends out there who wish they hadn’t written off suicide threats as childish attention-grabs.
Of course there’ll always be people who feign suicidality without ever intending to go through with it, but that still indicates some sort .of mental disturbance, even if it is comparatively small compared to suicidal ideation.
It’s always better to be safe than sorry, because it’s almost impossible to discern who will commit suicide and who won’t. Not to mention that responding to threats/parasuicide with proper mental health intervention can literally mean the difference between life and death.
Thank you for debunking this.
I have just read and reread my post and fail to see anywhere that I offered any advice. What I did proffer was an opinion, and one that has valid points. I also very clearly stated that I think these types of people are to be pitied and need help. Thank you for debunking my opinion, which I thought I was still allowed to have in this country.
This isn’t a personal attack. Like you, I just want to share my thoughts on this subject, because I happen to have had personal experience with the issue.
A few months after 9/11, I attempted suicide. As a college student, I had been assaulted by two neighbors. I shut myself in my room for months on end. One morning, I took every bottle of pills I could find. As they kicked in, I picked up the phone and called my parents to tell them goodbye. While on the phone with my father, groggy, my mother called my roommate and she rushed in and got me to the hospital. My stomach was pumped. I was furious and ashamed when I came to, but I was alive.
While the above may be your opinion, it still felt like a slap in the face. I didn’t call my parents for attention or to be saved. I called to apologize for taking my life. I truly wanted to die, because life had become hell. I did not want to wake up one more day trapped in my apartment by the men who raped me, terrified if I stepped outside I would see them. I did not want my family to have to suffer through the misery I felt, which seemed to be metastasizing and congealing into a solid, permanent obstacle between myself and the rest of the world. I lived in darkness, I cried in darkness, and if I’d had my way then, I would have died there, too.
I can’t tell you how grateful I am about having been saved by roommate. I have never once allowed the thought to put down roots since then, because the anguish I saw in my families faces when I woke up were the reality check to what I almost did to them. I never even thought about how awful their pain would be if I killed myself. I just thought it would be a blessing for them not to have me around in such a broken state. I was wrong. They need and love me to a depth I cannot fathom, and my suicide had gutted them. The pain on their faces and in their voices was a buffet of blasphemy against the very bonds of family/friendship we shared and I hated myself for violating that for a long time.
Afterwards, the most common thing I heard was guilt. My actions caused guilt in others, because they felt they should have known things were that bad for me. I did not say anything about killing myself, but I stopped going out, I stopped dressing girly, I stopped going to school, stopped talking, I just…stopped, on all fronts. Looking back, my roommate and my childhood best friend each felt terrible, because “all the signs were there that something was wrong”.
Suicides are not all the same. Some talk about it beforehand, some don’t. Some write letters, some pick up phones. Some grab a belt, some a weapon, some pills.
I’ve had a hard road coming to terms with what I very nearly did to myself. I didn’t broadcast that my thoughts were at deaths door, but I did pick up that phone as the equivalent of a suicide letter.
Assuming someone who mentions suicide won’t go through with it is fallacy of the worst sort. All threats, minor or major, should be taken seriously. The death toll for suicide has skyrocketed, and a staggering half of all gun deaths are self-inflicted. As a society, we can’t afford to be dismissive of such words, not in an environment like the one we live in now where the means are within our reach to actively save lives on the cusp of being extinguished. I would rather be wrong and embarrassed at kicking up a ruckus over a suicidal comment someone has made than be right and know I did nothing when I could have. If my roommate had felt like that, I wouldn’t be here today.
Brittni, I am so happy you survived. Thank you for your post. Very well said.
You are correct. And I’ve discussed this with my husband, who is a school psychologist (he is working with an inner city population right now) if a mentally ill person is “cornered” so to speak & is suffering from any number of DSM-IV DX’s, it’s walking a fine line as to what their reactions may be. As well as what the fall out might be to their families. And this includes IMBP. They may actually be pushed to do more self harm or harm to their children in order to “prove” themselves.
Traditional Münchausen syndrome is usually an often hard to understand mental illness. People exaggerate or create symptoms of illnesses specifically to get attention, sympathy, and comfort from medical personnel because it fills some psychological need in them. The by proxy version is once removed – i.e. a caregiver has compulsions to hurt the person they are supposed to be taking care of in order for the caregiver to receive sympathy from medical personnel and the community. Both are a subclass of factitious disorder and are classified in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders as an actual diagnosis. The motivation is not for monetary gain or to avoid reality, but is a deep compulsion to attract compassion or to control and manipulate people.
MBI, which I assume is what you’re referring to when you say IMBP, is Munchausen by Internet and is a descriptive phrase that was first discussed and studied in depth beginning in 1998 by psychiatrist Marc Feldman, who coined the term “Münchausen by Internet” in a 2000 article and is largely considered the only “expert” on the subject. It is not classified in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and is not actual diagnosis and seems to be up for some debate as to whether or not it is actually a subclass of factitious disorder in every case or if it is sometimes more of a personality disorder driven ‘crime of opportunity’. Either way it has differing methods and motivations from the others in that there is often an element of sadism present in the personality of the perpetrator as well as an underlying personality disorder. Dr. Feldman is quoted as saying he classifies some hoaxers as perpetrators and some as patients and says some are sadistic and some are genuinely sick. There has never been a correlation between MBI and an increased risk of suicide.
I think it would be better if people let Taryn contact and handle the hoaxer, instead of rushing to the fake page and posting angry messages. I understand people get angry, I do too. But, as Taryn pointed out, often these hoaxers are very young and/or disturbed people. It does not do any good to plaster the pages with contempt.
One of the things I value about the group here is the fact that people are treated with dignity. That includes the hoaxers.
One does not kill themselves over someone else’s actions, one kills themself as a result of their own choices and actions. If someone commits suicide then it is very sad, particularly if the people around them were unable to recognize the level of disturbed thinking going on or able to help them receive the psychiatric help they obviously were lacking. It doesn’t change the fact that ultimately we all make our own choices though and someone else isn’t responsible for them.
How strange that you would blame the people trying to help for the behavior of the people needing help.
Are you sure they were blaming people or just pointing out how other people are assholes and attack without thinking? Both sides sound legit to me.
Yes, I am sure. I see no evidence of other people being assholes and attacking without thinking but several comments insinuating that it would somehow be someone else’s fault if someone committed suicide after being caught faking illness. I find that thought concept strange and bewildering.
the above was in reply to AZ (and a reader I think, they sound the same). not sure why it posted by itself instead of inline as a reply.
I’m not blaming anyone.
The word “bully” has never been commented on by me in reference to Taryn.
Somone said that no one had ever killed themselves after being outed as a fake, and I knew someone HAD. I don’t know how that community reacted because I didn’t witness the suicide or the outing. I am, however, curious about how this group would handle a real suicide, or, god forbid, if they were wrong about someone being a fake and inflicted harm on that person.
I am curious about these things because in my anti-faking community, I did not know how to handle them and I was heart broken and upset when an outed faker’s mother said she was going to send me her daughter’s death certificate and due ME for payment of the therapist her daughter went to, the hospital bill and the funeral and autopsy bills because I allowed people to post about her daughter. She never went through with it, but I still wonder “whatif” ya know? Genuine curiosity that I think the anti faking community would benefit from a discussion regarding the subject. Suicide threats are unfortunately not an isolated event, even if the person does not intend to go through with it.
And I’m not posting as anyone else “Reader ” is my only username here. Taryn can verify that via IPs.
Yes, god forbid if any information posted here happened to be wrong. I also wonder how people would handle it. Luckily, it appears that’s not the case here. I’m sure the hoaxer will be alright.
Ok, Munchausen Syndrome–faking ILLNESS and/or INJURY in yourself.
Muchausen Syndrome by Proxy–faking ILLNESS and/or injuring or killing real, alive children.
Pretending to have 5 children with cancer, getting caught, using the sucide card and then making the one’s who exposed the fraud feel bad, is a mental disorder that I won’t get into, if in fact, she is a teenager.
Ronan Thompson was not only special enough for a song by Taylor Swift but also he lead an upper class life. He had a lot more than most and that maybe the source of fixation for this person.
Just don’t believe all this “I have this syndrome, this problem, now feel bad so I can keep this up” talk. I hope they get a lot of help and will actually have a doctor to guide them back to mental health.
Even if this person didn’t commit suicide, who’s to say the next one won’t, or the next? Warriorelihoax, you’re messing with mentally unstable people. Sooner or later someone is going to get hurt. You’re not qualified to diagnose them with Munchhausen Syndrome. What if they have much deeper problems and they hurt themselves or someone else because of your bullying? Are you prepared to live with that?
So in your opinion, people who engage in this level of deception should be given a pass because of their mental condition? How do you know that all the people who do this sort of thing are in fact “mentally unstable”? Being an attention-seeker, or seeking gifts and money as some of these people have done, is not necessarily the sign of mental instability. It is a sign that a person lacks an ethical core, but that is the case with most people who commit fraud. Should all of those people be allowed to go on their way, deceiving and causing pain without repercussions? Do you apply this “look the other way” philosophy to all wrongdoing in life? Or just in the virtual world?
I am coming out of Lurkdom to reply to Sandy. I am trying to choose my words very carefully, because I understand that these hoaxers have fragile egos. I think we could compare them to someone who has taken a hostage because really, with all their dramatics, they are holding people hostage emotionally. This most recent hoaxter told an eleven year old child with cancer a very graphic made up story about her made up child’s death. Can you imagine being that little girl, and hearing or reading about this horrible death? The effects could cause nightmares or any other number of problems. So back to our original idea of a hostage situation. The perpetraitor, no matter how disturbed, has to be stopped, or they will keep hurting people. No one says, “oh, they are fragile, maybe we should just ignore them because they might kill themselves.” We stop them from hurting others and if their ego is so fragile that they are suicidal, we try to lead them to the best available care. That’s what Taryn does here. She reaches out to the hoaxers and tries her best to turn them toward help. There has never been any bullying on this blog that I have read. Just people venting their feelings over being extremely manipulated by someone. I try hard to see booth sides, but it’s hard to feel bad for someone who plays with people’s emotions for their own gain.
The faker said that he/she had Munchhausen Syndrome, no one put that upon them. Everyone is right, when someone does this they are holding people hostage. What is worse exposing the fraud or letting people play make believe to get attention or money from people who are trying to help those who need it. Who see a picture of a sick child and need to reach out? It isn’t “bullying” when someone is commiting a crime.