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Why Netflix's 'Mythomaniac' Storyline About Faking Cancer Hurts People With Chronic Illness

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An upcoming TV series on Netflix adds to a growing list of shows that portray people faking health conditions for personal gain, a trope people with lived experience of chronic illness continue to call out as harmful.

Scheduled for release Nov. 28, a new French Netflix series titled “Mythomaniac” has so far flown under the radar. There aren’t many details, but according to Netflix, the basic premise is a woman goes to great lengths to fake having breast cancer after learning her husband is cheating on her in order to win him back. “Mythomaniac” is the clinical term for “pathological liar.”

Mythomaniac” is just the latest in a string of Netflix shows that suggest people with chronic illness are “faking” their symptoms. In “Sick Note,” Rupert Grint’s character fakes cancer to cover up a series of personal failures in his career and relationships. During “The Politician,” it’s discovered Infinity Jackson, a character who was diagnosed with a chronic illness, wasn’t really sick but a victim of Munchausen syndrome by proxy.

For people with chronic illness, being accused of faking their symptoms isn’t limited to onscreen representation — they face real-life stigma, discrimination and mistreatment from strangers, loved ones and even doctors. Chronic conditions, even when they’re invisible to outsiders, are serious, life-changing diagnoses. However, TV shows that perpetuates the myth people with chronic illness are “fakers” can lead to patients minimizing their experience.

“When I was first diagnosed, I questioned the validity of my illness often,” explained Mighty contributor Molly McCarthy in an article, adding:

When I start to feel like I’m not sick enough to be considered chronically ill, what I really need to ask myself is: ‘Not sick enough for whom?’ Who am I trying to prove my illness to? Society? The chronic illness community? Myself? The reality is, this isn’t the Olympics. No one is (or should be) comparing and judging illnesses and symptoms. All illnesses are different and they all affect people differently.

Another example is the Netflix docuseries “Afflicted,” which followed seven patients with difficult-to-treat chronic illnesses. According to the cast, the series producers at DocShop Productions told them their health conditions would be portrayed accurately. The end result, they claimed, cut out interviews with critical doctors and “sensationalized” a “faking it” narrative instead. “Afflicted” cast members publicly called out the show’s creators and sued the production for defamation.

“I had no idea that the ‘documentary’ would be a reality show that asks the question Is this real? Are they crazy? Had I known, I would never have signed up. I am heartbroken and furious,” cast member Jill wrote in an essay.

“Many of our concrete diagnoses and test results are excluded from the series,” the cast explained in another collective essay. “Our conventional medical doctors were not consulted during filming. Even our own skepticism about some of the alternative treatments we pursued (sometimes with the help or at the suggestion of the production company) was carefully edited out, all to craft the most sensationalist narrative possible.”

The “Afflicted” cast’s experience of having their conditions questioned or assumed to be a psychological problem happens to many people with chronic conditions. Mighty contributor Siobhan Simper called this “gaslighting” in their article, “We Cannot Continue to Let Doctors ‘Gaslight’ Chronic Illness Patients.”

“My severe ME/CFS had affected me to the point where I was in bed 24/7, so weak I was unable to sit upright, talk, or feed myself,” Simper explained, continuing:

A psychiatrist came to my bed. ‘You’re depressed, aren’t you,’ he insisted. I explained, with my limited ability to speak, that I still wanted to do things, I just physically couldn’t. ‘That doesn’t mean you aren’t depressed,’ he countered… I tried in vain to signal I still derived enjoyment from life, but my protests were silenced.

There is nothing wrong with having a mental illness and some people have both a chronic illness and mental health diagnosis. But having doctors who consider all your chronic symptoms with respect is important to getting an accurate diagnosis. When patients are told they’re “faking” their illness, they are prevented from getting proper treatment and suffer longer.

“After being in the hospital for about seven months, you concluded there was nothing wrong. You even insinuated that I was ‘making it up,’” wrote Mighty contributor Maddie Feder in a letter to a doctor who didn’t believe her. Feder added:

I would like you to think about all the nights I spent on the bathroom floor throwing up, and how you even doubted I had thrown up at all. I want you to remember all the days I spent crying because you were forcing me to eat food that was making me sicker. You made a choice not to listen to me, and that choice ended up nearly killing me. I was in pain for so long. It could have been avoided if you were willing to listen to and believe me.

“Mythomaniac” is another show that borrows the tired trope of people faking an illness for personal gain. Representation matters, and, as the cast of “Afflicted” pointed out, shows like this lead to the dismissal of real people’s chronic health concerns. And when that happens, people don’t get the care they need.

“Just because I battle something you may not see or understand doesn’t mean I’m faking,” wrote Mighty contributor Tabitha Johnson. “Every day I wish I would wake up and realize this was a dream or bad joke. It’s not. I have to eat, sleep and breathe in fear of when the next seizure is going to strike or when my meds will once again throw my blood levels off. I don’t like seeing you. But when I do, I sure wish you understood.”

Header image via Netflix

Originally published: November 22, 2019
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