How To Tell If Someone Is Pretending To Be Crazy

[Mr. Somebody]

In medicine, it’s called “malingering” if a patient is trying to deceive someone by faking, feigning or exaggerating symptoms.

Doctors try to discover fakers the same way that people good at detecting lies discover liars. They look for inconsistencies, or things that don’t quite match.

For instance, if a supposed schizophrenic can tell you clearly and without confusion that they’re extremely confused, their actions don’t correspond with what they are saying. A very confused person can’t clearly say how confused they are.

Or, if they act mentally disorganized while talking with a psychiatrist, yet later they can play chess with another patient, something doesn’t match.

It’s considered an advanced skill to detect a malingering schizophrenic, because a psychiatrist must know in detail the difference between real and fake psychotic symptoms.

So how do doctors catch the fakers?

A malingerer is like an beginning actor who’s overacting. A beginning actor may try to play a drunk person by slurring every word and swaying and falling down, but an experienced actor knows what a drunk is like, and plays the drunk as someone who is drunk, but is trying to act normal.

Many people who try to fake a mental illness try to “play crazy.”

A faker will try to make their illness front and center, and make their psychosis the first thing they want to discuss, while a real patient will be reluctant to explain their symptoms.

A faker will be hostile and act as if nobody believes him or her, which is rare in genuine psychotics.

A faker will act stupider than they should be, not realizing that intelligence will not diminish just because he or she is psychotic.

Fakers will be vague about details. Instead of saying that a voice was male or female, the faker might say “I don’t know.” Real psychotics would know the answer.

It’s also difficult to fake certain schizophrenic symptoms, such as getting off track while speaking, coining new words, finding associations between unrelated things, or speech which is so disorganized that at first it sounds correct but which actually makes no sense.

In acting, a beginning actor will keep trying to add things to a performance. To play the emotion “sad,” a bad actor will add heavy sighs and crying, while a good actor will subtract emotion, such as letting the character smile just a little, but making it a tight smile with no happiness showing around the eyes.

An inexperienced faker will do the same, by adding symptoms of “craziness,” forgetting that there are also many things that get subtracted from an individual with schizophrenia.

 

[Remote]

I don't have a problem with bytches pretending to be crazy.

I have a problem with crazy bytches actually being crazy.

 

[Mr. Somebody]

Malingerers may have inadequate or incomplete knowledge of the mental illness they are faking. Indeed, malingerers are like actors who can portray a role only as well as they understand it. They often overact their part or mistakenly believe the more bizarre their behavior, the more convincing they will be. Conversely, “successful” malingerers are more likely to endorse fewer symptoms and avoid endorsing overly bizarre or unusual symptoms.21

Numerous clinical factors suggest malingering (Table 4). Malingerers are more likely to eagerly “thrust forward” their illness, whereas patients with genuine schizophrenia are often reluctant to discuss their symptoms.22

Malingerers may attempt to take control of the interview and behave in an intimidating or hostile manner. They may accuse the psychiatrist of inferring that they are faking. Such behavior is rare in genuinely psychotic individuals. Although DSM-IV-TR states that antisocial personality disorder should arouse suspicions of malingering, some studies have failed to show a relationship. One study has associated psychopathic traits with malingering.23

Malingerers often believe that faking intellectual deficits, in addition to psychotic symptoms, will make them more believable. For example, a man who had completed several years of college alleged that he did not know the colors of the American flag.

Malingerers are more likely to give vague or hedging answers to straightforward questions. For example, when asked whether an alleged voice was male or female, one malingerer replied, “It was probably a man’s voice.” Malingerers may also answer, “I don’t know” to detailed questions about psychotic symptoms. Whereas a person with genuine psychotic symptoms could easily give an answer, the malingerer may have never experienced the symptoms and consequently “doesn’t know” the correct answer.

Psychotic symptoms such as derailment, neologisms, loose associations, and word salad are rarely simulated. This is because it is much more difficult for a malingerer to successfully imitate psychotic thought processes than psychotic thought content. Similarly, it is unusual for a malingerer to fake schizophrenia’s subtle signs, such as negative symptoms.

 

[Mr. Somebody]

Uncommon psychosis presentations that suggest malingering

Hallucinations

• Continuous
• Voices are vague, inaudible
• Hallucinations are not associated with delusions
• Voices use stilted language
• Patient uses no strategies to diminish hallucinations
• Patient states that he obeys all commands
• Visual hallucinations in black and white
• Visual hallucinations alone in schizophrenia

Delusions

• Abrupt onset or termination
• Patient’s conduct is inconsistent with delusions
• Bizarre content without disorganization
• Patient is eager to discuss delusions

If you suspect a person of malingered auditory hallucinations, ask what he or she does to make the voices go away or diminish in intensity. Patients with genuine schizophrenia often can stop their auditory hallucinations while in remission but not during acute illness.

Malingerers may report auditory hallucinations of stilted or implausible language. For example, we have evaluated:

• an individual charged with attempted rape who alleged that voices said, “Go commit a sex offense.”
• a bank robber who alleged that voices kept screaming, “Stick up, stick up, stick up!”

Both examples contain language that is very questionable for genuine hallucinations, while providing the patient with “psychotic justification” for an illegal act that has a rational alternative motive.

Delusions. Genuine delusions vary in content, theme, degree of systemization, and relevance to the person’s life. The complexity and sophistication of delusional systems usually reflect the individual’s intelligence. Persecutory delusions are more likely to be acted upon than are other types of delusions.20

Malingerers may claim that a delusion began or disappeared suddenly. In reality, systematized delusions usually take weeks to develop and much longer to disappear. Typically, the delusion will become somewhat less relevant, and the individual will gradually relinquish its importance over time after adequate treatment. In general, the more bizarre the delusion’s content, the more disorganized the individual’s thinking is likely to be (Table 3).

With genuine delusions, the individual’s behavior usually conforms to the delusions’ content. For example, Russell Weston—who suffered from schizophrenia—made a deadly assault on the U.S. Capitol in 1998 because he held a delusional belief that cannibalism was destroying Washington, DC. Before he shot and killed two U.S. Capitol security officers, he had gone to the Central Intelligence Agency several years before and voiced the same delusional concerns.

Suspect malingering if a patient alleges persecutory delusions without engaging in corresponding paranoid behaviors. One exception is the person with long-standing schizophrenia who has grown accustomed to the delusion and whose behavior is no longer consistent with it.

 

[Mr. Somebody]

When you suspect a patient is malingering, keep your suspicions to yourself and conduct an objective evaluation. Patients are likely to become defensive if you show annoyance or incredulity, and putting them on guard decreases your ability to uncover evidence of malingering.9

Begin by asking open-ended questions, which allow patients to report symptoms in their own words. To avoid hinting at correct responses, carefully phrase initial inquiries about symptoms. Later in the interview, you can proceed to more-detailed questions of specific symptoms, as discussed below.

If possible, review collateral data before the interview, when it is most helpful. Consider information that would support or refute the alleged symptoms, such as treatment and insurance records, police reports, and interviews of close friends or family.

The patient interview may be prolonged because fatigue may diminish a malingerer’s ability to maintain fake symptoms. In very difficult cases, consider monitoring during inpatient assessment because feigned psychosis is extremely difficult to maintain 24 hours a day.

Watch for individuals who endorse rare or improbable symptoms. Rare symptoms—by definition—occur very infrequently, and even severely disturbed patients almost never report improbable symptoms.10 Consider asking malingerers about improbable symptoms to see if they will endorse them. For example:

• “When people talk to you, do you see the words they speak spelled out?”11
• “Have you ever believed that automobiles are members of an organized religion?”12

 

[Rawtid]

I don't have a problem with bytches pretending to be crazy.

I have a problem with crazy bytches actually being crazy.

All women are crazy.

 

[Remote]

All women are crazy.

Lady, you are wise beyond your years.

 

[Rawtid]

Lady, you are wise beyond your years.

.

 

[Mr. Somebody]

All women are crazy.

What makes you say this?
When you were on that voice mail message saying you'd show up to someones house with a hacksaw, did you really mean that or were you pretending to be crazy to generate fear in your enemy, friend?

 

[Rawtid]

What makes you say this?
When you were on that voice mail message saying you'd show up to someones house with a hacksaw, did you really mean that or were you pretending to be crazy to cause fear in your enemy, friend?

It depends on how much hacksaws cost. I never priced them.

 

[Mr. Somebody]

It depends on how much hacksaws cost.

Come come now rawtid, with that attitude, youd be in prison by now for murder. You arent really bout it bout it, im gonna have to really doubt it doubt it. I think your more of a key the car try to frame someone type of friend, not the serial killer swag. I mean they're all demonic, but that? That right there?

Its so demonic, friend.

 

[Rawtid]

Come come now rawtid, with that attitude, youd be in prison by now for murder. You arent really bout it bout it, im gonna have to really doubt it doubt it. I think your more of a key the car try to frame someone type of friend, not the serial killer swag. I mean they're all demonic, but that? That right there?

Its so demonic, friend.

How do you figure that? I was mad at one person...nearly a decade ago. Maybe no one has ever made me that mad again. I don't destroy people's property either.

 

[Mr. Somebody]

How do you figure that? I was mad at one person...nearly a decade ago. Maybe no one has ever made me that mad again. I don't destroy people's property either.

Maybe you're right. Im struggling to understand you right now.

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

In medicine, it’s called “malingering” if a patient is trying to deceive someone by faking, feigning or exaggerating symptoms.

Doctors try to discover fakers the same way that people good at detecting lies discover liars. They look for inconsistencies, or things that don’t quite match.

For instance, if a supposed schizophrenic can tell you clearly and without confusion that they’re extremely confused, their actions don’t correspond with what they are saying. A very confused person can’t clearly say how confused they are.

Or, if they act mentally disorganized while talking with a psychiatrist, yet later they can play chess with another patient, something doesn’t match.

It’s considered an advanced skill to detect a malingering schizophrenic, because a psychiatrist must know in detail the difference between real and fake psychotic symptoms.

So how do doctors catch the fakers?

A malingerer is like an beginning actor who’s overacting. A beginning actor may try to play a drunk person by slurring every word and swaying and falling down, but an experienced actor knows what a drunk is like, and plays the drunk as someone who is drunk, but is trying to act normal.

Many people who try to fake a mental illness try to “play crazy.”

A faker will try to make their illness front and center, and make their psychosis the first thing they want to discuss, while a real patient will be reluctant to explain their symptoms.

A faker will be hostile and act as if nobody believes him or her, which is rare in genuine psychotics.

A faker will act stupider than they should be, not realizing that intelligence will not diminish just because he or she is psychotic.

Fakers will be vague about details. Instead of saying that a voice was male or female, the faker might say “I don’t know.” Real psychotics would know the answer.

It’s also difficult to fake certain schizophrenic symptoms, such as getting off track while speaking, coining new words, finding associations between unrelated things, or speech which is so disorganized that at first it sounds correct but which actually makes no sense.

In acting, a beginning actor will keep trying to add things to a performance. To play the emotion “sad,” a bad actor will add heavy sighs and crying, while a good actor will subtract emotion, such as letting the character smile just a little, but making it a tight smile with no happiness showing around the eyes.

An inexperienced faker will do the same, by adding symptoms of “craziness,” forgetting that there are also many things that get subtracted from an individual with schizophrenia.

you're religious though

 

[Blankthawtz]

just wave a gun in they face....watch the "crazy" go away....