Wanting to be ill

I find I get extremely triggered by people being ill. I have two friends who are quite seriously ill and I find it very hard to sympathise because I just feel horrible jealousy. Then I feel mad at myself for feeling this way.

One of them recently started coughing up blood and was taken to hospital and sent me a photo of her with a drip in her arm. I just felt jealous.

I should add I don't want my friends to be ill, I'm the one who wants to be ill. And I try hard not to let my feelings show, but my friends are aware I have this issue.

Recently I had the flu and could barely move for a week, I felt so awful that I thought I was cured of these feelings, but as soon as I got better I wished I was worse again and it's like it never happened.

I know why it is- it's the attention. I want to be ill so people can feel sorry for me. Trouble is my mental illnesses do get me some attention, which means part of me resists getting better because I want to be ill.

I've done some googling on this and I think it is related to BPD. Does anyone here experience it? Any advice on how to stop thinking like this?

i know that feeling. i want to be taken care of, i do not want to be the responsible adult one. i want to be the child.but growing up with family that gets antagonistic who is the sicker is very abusive. i know to not be antagonistic and stop it somehow and control it or i do not care in that extent really . but i grew up with others that always had to be the sicker and i felt it as abuse.
my mom ussualy treats me like i am the child and wants to take care of others,and put herself down, but when i say i am sick she will say she is sick too always.i feel she has good intentions but sometimes feels like she is a child trying to take care of a child you know.
my aunt was the worse ,wanting always to be the center of attention and the sicker of all.everyone to take care of her and notice her.
at the end you get really sick and people do not believe you anymore or care about you ,that is what i felt everytime she said she was sick. i stopped caring.and i suppressed resentment for her
i think the only time you learn to care is when is mutual.both people care equally.
you know the story about when you lie and cry wolf all the time, when the real wolf eats you noone is going to come or believes you or care anymore
the most annoying is from parents or relatives or abuse because boyfriend or girlfriend you chose them. but family you didn't have a choice never.

I find it very hard to sympathise because I just feel horrible jealousy. Then I feel mad at myself for feeling this way.

I can relate to this yes.
My ex was ill and i cared for him like a nurse for weeks...i told him dont pass this to me ..im ill for months if i get anything...he messed around hugging me and breathing on me that i flipped out at him.

next day i was so ill i couldnt sit up, every noise irritated me every cough he made i wanted to smack him

I dont chose to be ill though coz i cant ask for help (im learning that) i dont like to have to rely on anyone ..i learnt to self soothe as a child coz of lack of nurturing, but loving my FP incapacitated me, i had never experienced that before. i did feel it wasnt me (im not usually a envious person) coz of my sympathy for others but dam i hated him so much that he found it funny to pass his germs to me.

Even now i look back and think $#%^ ...how must that lack of sympathy have looked for him
i hated myself too

No one took care of me when I was sick as a child so I got used to taking care of myself. I don't expect others to do anything for me, as a matter of fact, I am very uncomfortable when they do. But it does drive me nuts when someone else is sick. I feel responsible for them and I don't want to.

now that you say that
i want to be the child with relatives and my mom.my mom is caring very much ,but sometimes she seems like a child to me.like she is unable to be the adult and not on purpose.not always though.
with strangers friends i have the problem that i do not want to ask for help or anything at all ,i do not tell them that i need anything, but i do not want to give either. it makes me angry and pissed if i didn’t ask never ,why are you asking me? stop asking me how dare you.like i didn’t ask why do i have to give. i am more selfish with my mom than with friends, i want to take what i give usually i think with friends.the only one in the family i ever loved i can say or feel something important is only my mom.

but in general although i feel way more responsible person than my parents i do not like being the one who take cares of others at all.i do not want to take care of others .but i do not ask them either to take care of me is difficult to ask.

or when i go out with friends i do not want to be the most responsible one /adult like. i want to be the child.although i am responsible in general but i do not want to care about others.

one time a counselor said you need to say to friends more your problems because i told her i hide them.and then i realized wtf why do i hide these things i should tell more.
growing up i guess they taught me to hide stuff in the family .i do not know why exactly i didn’t tell to people.
this forum is part revenge lol to tell what they make me repress

i feel like i have the ability to be more caring and empathetic and responsible in comparison with some people i seem more mature but i really do not want to be.
also or maybe i can't because i am depressed. and emotionally not well

I have felt this too when I am having a hard time.

I think what the issue really is, at least for me, is that I am fighting EVERY day to be as "normal" as I can be. Anyone with mental illness invests a staggering amount of unseen work, time, and energy into performing like a "normal" person might.

When I am having a hard time, and I envy people who have cancer, for example, what I envy is that their illness is legitimate and visible. Mental illness is frequently brushed off at best, and hated and feared at worst. I don't really WANT to be sick, I want to have permission to rest because I have to work extra hard to be "normal", I want people to realize that my obstacles are legitimate, I don't want stigma, I'd like understanding.

I get horrible, horrible envy of the sympathy, understanding and ADMIRATION people show to others around me with PHYSICAL illnesses. It kind of makes me sick. It's completely demonstrative of the difference in treatment from physical versus mental illness. If you have a crippling physical illness, people show you f***ing outpourings of admiration and "wow so brave!", and they send you cards, balloons, presents, etc... it's almost like you've freaking saved the world or something. If you've got a MENTAL illness however, you're lacking the things you need MOST: care, compassion, understanding..

So yeah. As as result, I pretty much don't give a s**t about anyone's physical illness: they get more than enough support from those around them without needing mine also. I have issues with empathy when I see people show floods of sympathy for those with physical illnesses, and also if that person is an attractive woman, then I'm absolutely delighted that she's suffering and hope for it to worsen.

Plus, when I have a physical illness, my boyfriend actually TREATS ME LIKE I'M ILL, when to me, of course I'm always ill, but mentally ill instead of physically ill. I find it kind of hilariously backwards when I have a bad hangover or get the flu or some bs physical illness which isn't even that severe, (and certainly NO WHERE near as severe as my mental illness is on a daily basis!), and he's showing concern, sympathy, empathy, affection...

Yet when I get triggered or have just self-harmed, or am to ill that I'm unable to FUNCTION, he gets annoyed. Delightful.

Yeah I think I feel similar to the last two posters. I know I don't actually want to be ill, as when I am physically ill I hate it, other than the attention.

Although I would have the same issue if for example a friend was mentally ill and admitted to hospital for it.

Being very triggered by my friend this week. He had a heart attack and is in hospital. Of course I am sad for him and want him to get better. But a card is going around work to send to him and because I'm his best friend at work people keep coming to ask how he is and saying how sad it is and it's really getting to me as I have to just pretend like I'm fine and they're not triggering me.

Someone just came to ask about him and then told me about two of her friends who have cancer and how we should be thankful that we're healthy.

I just want to scream 'I'm ill! I have two serious mental illnesses! How sick do I have to be for people to take notice!' It makes me want to do something terrible so I will be taken to hospital and then maybe people would care more.

I think a big part of what feels like a complete lack of sympathy we usually get has to do with the fact that our illness manifests in a way that physical illness doesn't. - Rather than having a nice little submissive invalid tucked up in bed, needing an injection, or some food, or a drink, or whatever, those who love us instead are instead confronted with an angry, suicidal, self-harming, delusional, paranoid, accusatory invalid instead... Physical illness requires such a different approach to mental illness.

Bizarre really - people absolutely surround those suffering with physical illness with love, adoration, care, understanding, etc, when what that person ACTUALLY needs for their recovery are things like effective medication, getting something removed from them, surgery, etc, etc.
What people with mental illness need are BOTH care, love, and understanding, (especially when so many of us have literally NEVER been shown healthy love in our ######6 lives), and hardcore therapies which can be absolutely daunting and incredibly difficult. Us with mental health issues are sometimes mentally ill in the first place because we've never been shown healthy love, and so we go on to need that desperately as our mental illness forms, and then we go to therapies in which we literally have to HEAL OURSELVES: if we don't open up, learn, self-educate, read up, study, do homework, chances are we won't get better.

BPD especially manifests in ways which confront those we love with... basically torture at times.
There are times in my delusions in which I am 100% certain that my boyfriend is a paedophile.
I have NOTHING to base that on whatsoever, and yet, I am so certain that he's a paedophile, and that in fact, most men in general are paedophiles, that I would like to be alone forever.
There are times when I think my boyfriend saw an attractive woman, and as a result of him looking at her, I need to harm myself to calm down.. BPD is very aggravating to other people because usually people are triggering to us in one way or another.

I was badly triggered once and my boyfriend was just "eh". I said straight out, "I'd rather have cancer than mental illnesses". It's true. Even mental illnesses like anxiety and depression are still shat on by neurotypicals who'd probably much prefer (and be much more capable in caring for) someone with cancer.

I've annoyed myself thinking about these people so much now. I mean, what a load of crap.

Unfortunately with me there is an additional problem. When someone does give me that sympathy and attention, I become addicted to it and want more and more.

My FP shows me attention for my mental illnesses. I think in a roundabout way that has made me worse. Over the past year I've got sicker and sicker and part of that I think is because I wanted more and more attention. It ended up with me crying on her and her telling me I needed to go to a mental hospital. It turns out I didn't, but once I had someone that worried about me I subconsciously started to do things that would make me worse as I craved that attention.

-- Wed Jan 04, 2017 1:23 pm --

But yes- I hate the fact that physically ill people can get better without having to make an effort.