Category: psychology

Posted on

Doctors Recall the Biggest Fakers They’ve Ever Met

Oh, boy…

When you think of someone going into a doctor’s office and faking symptoms, or heading to the hospital with completely fabricated problems, it can be easy to judge. Do they want attention? Pain meds? Are they mentally ill?

Well, after reading all 16 of these stories, you’re still going to be judging…but if you’re like me, you’re also going to be fascinated by human psychology all over again.

16. I hope he told the truth in court.

Years ago I had a patient who had been rear-ended in an auto accident a few weeks before I saw her. She had a history of lupus.

She was decked out in the usual “I’m crippled” paraphernalia (crutches, neck brace, elbow braces, wrist braces, knee braces) and could barely walk.

I saw her a couple of times and she showed no improvement. One Saturday I was on call but had to take a ‘back streets’ route to the hospital because of an ‘event’ taking place on the main thoroughfare. I apparently drove through her neighborhood, because, wonders behold, there she was wearing old-lady spandex power walking down the sidewalk (holding weights in both hands). I did not call out to her.

Next week, she was back in clinic, with her “I’m crippled” getup on again. Hmmm. A few weeks later I got the subpoena for the deposition, and it all became clear.

15. Are they maybe just afraid they’re actually going blind?

Opthalmology technician.

People pretend to be blind all the time. Go to check their eye pressure with the tonopen (a device you poke them DIRECTLY into the eye with) and they go WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT THING!?!?!?!?!

14. YOU DON’T KNOW MY LIFE.

I’m a surgery resident.

When I was on my trauma rotation we had a patient come int after an MVC, with question that maybe the patient had seized and that had caused the accident.

So he’s in the trauma bay, and starts shaking. The trauma nurse goes “oh this isn’t a real seizure”.

And the patient stops shaking, sits up, turns to the nurse, and yells “you don’t know a fucking thing about me!”.

13. Guess he didn’t think too hard about that one.

Obligatory not a doctor …I’m a nurse.

We had a guy who had to come in every 3 months to get a medical certificate to say he couldn’t work at his retail job due to severe disabling back pain. He was receiving large amounts of insurance money for this condition. After the Dr had done his usual examination and questions and signed it off the guy asks the doctor to check his shoulder which doc does and asks how he injured it? Guy says playing rugby for a competitive team. Really says doc? How long have you been playing for them ?

Guy has been playing and training the whole time. Doc puts this info on insurance form . Doc loses his shit in staff room laughing.

Next week the patient loses his shit in reception because his insurance has been cancelled.

12. Some people are children forever.

Not a doctor but I was in the ER one night and there was a seeking drug addict who literally only acted in pain when there was staff around.

You ever see those videos where the little kid is fine and then they spot a parent and then bawl then immediately stop and be fine when the parent is out of view? Exactly like that. Sat fine, no movements or wincing or noises then wailing when a nurse was in the same vicinity, then back to fine when they left.

11. This is…really something.

Guy came to ER (I was a nurse at the time) for stomach ache when asking him about history he randomly mentions a fight with his girlfriend where she left in a tizzy and he fell asleep on the couch.

20 min later when we see the CT, he has a satellite cable remote wrapped in a condom lodged in his rectum. I suppose he intended to frame “her”. Didn’t get to hear the conversation he had with the doctor.

I was curious how he was going to explain why she was nice enough to wrap it in the condom.

10. My grandfather faked hearing loss whenever my grandmother was asking him to do something.

Audiologist (hearing specialist), have worked in private sector with legal claims, and with the V.A. handling veterans’ claims of hearing loss.

With those two populations, having people faking hearing loss is pretty common.

Now, as a professional, for me the hearing test starts when I call the person’s name from the waiting room. In a normal voice I call them, if they answer I already know that they’re normal/no worse than mild loss. This was the case with this guy. He answered and came in, we had a normal conversation. So, case history over, time to test, I give the instructions over the headphones at a reasonable 50 decibels (dB). “Raise you hand when you hear the tone.”

50dB tone, should be easy and clear, but he doesn’t raise his hand. I go up. And up, and up. Finally, I’m putting a 100dB tone in his ear, he’s flinching from pain it’s so loud, but he doesn’t raise his hand to indicate he’s heard the tone, even with re-instruction. I immediately know what I’m dealing with. I have taught entire classes on how to spot and try to get estimated true results from people trying to fake it. Long story short, I wrote a damning report outlining all his inconsistencies and faking behaviors. The thing that made this one so memorable, is that we had such a pleasant conversation before. He was a fire chief, I have firefighters in my family, it was one of those where you think “if it wasn’t for professional/patient appropriate distance, we could hang and be friends.” But then, this guy was determined to get a disability rating, and it just pissed me off.

I have other stories in case anyone is interested, but it’s likely this comment gets buried.

9. Yeah he draws the line at not being able to eat.

I am a nurse but not a doctor.

I had a patient who worked in a hospital (janitor) so he knew enough to fake a bit. He was seeking pain meds, complaining of chest pain, wanting morphine. He was worked up for everything cardiac and was fine. Then he tried to claim GI discomfort when he was being discharged.

Cleared again for everything. Faked chest pain again. Cleared again. Now he’s my patient. I’m a new face. He’s telling me he’s having abdominal pain. I call the doctor, knowing this guys history. He says he’ll be up to see him soon. This patient wants a ginger ale (some stomach ache). I decide to go to lunch. My coworker comes into the lunch room, disgusted. This guy had taken a dump in a basin and then dumped the ginger ale over it and tried to tell her he’d had fecal vomiting. He obviously needed dilaudid right now for the pain. I walked into his room and sure enough, a pile of shit in a puddle of ginger ale. I told him I’d have to take away his food and drinks and we’d have to put an NG down.

Suddenly he changed his tune. He admitted to faking it.

Why do these people do what they do??? (In the story, opioids).

8. Hahahaha she just couldn’t resist a peek.

4th year medical student

On my ER rotation and a trauma came in from a women that the had been arrested. During the drive the patient “banged” her head 4 times against the window of the police car and then went unresponsive.

She came to us with a bruise over her forehead and unresponsive. We all smelled bs but the patient was a great actor, didn’t even flinch during the digital rectal exam (which is standard for all patients that come in through the trauma bay). Though some of the nurses said that they caught her “peeking” at us when would leave the room.

We ended up getting a CT scan (which was normal) and was even considering intubating her to secure her airway when our attending finally walked over to her, opened her eye lids and held them open while telling her to wake up. Finally she started fighting to close her eyes and the jig was up. The doctor called her out and she proceeded to start screaming at us. She was much more pleasant when she was pretending to have a brain injury.

7. You never want to invite kidney stones from the universe. Fact.

ER nurse.

Bringing a patient back to a room who said he had kidney stones. I had him stop at the bathroom and get a urine sample. Dude comes out with with the specimen cup that literally has a piece of concrete in it. Looked him in the eye expecting some sort of joke.

He. Was. Serious.

I threw it away and walked his dumbass back to the waiting room to contemplate his stupidity.

6. They’ve gotta put something down in the chart.

Not a doctor but nurse. I once read a specialist’s consultation report and at the end of the report the actual diagnosis given was “fictitious ailment.”

5. This is a very powerful story about addiction. Because kidney stones are awful.

My next door neighbor would drink a 12 pack of Mountain Dew a day and keep kidney stones year round to get pills. He had a pretty sweet deal too, getting 90 loracets, 90 Xanax and 90 something else (i forget) every month from his doctor. He just couldn’t stop doing other drugs and pissing dirty.

I tell this story just because I was impressed with his determination to hurt himself and get surgery once a year just to get high. Like, the absolute determination that takes. My mother is a recovering addict and had been getting the same pills around that time and I don’t recall her intentionally hurting herself. She just went with already messed up issues before she got herself into a clinic to get clean.

4. Wait people do this?

I had a patient when I worked in a ICU that was sedated and on a vent.

A “family” member showed up out of nowhere and was staying day and night. I got pretty suspicious of them because they were clearly lying about knowing this person. Just talked to the fake family member about how it must have been sad since they just celebrated their birthday a week or so before getting ill. This person said it was a wonderful party and such, to which I replied their birthday hadn’t occurred yet and wouldn’t for months.

Turned out when security came it was a homeless person who snuck in and found a room with a sedated patient and decided to make it a place to stay. Needless to say security to enter the ICU was absolute shit.

3. Wow. My kids just get suckers.

When I was a medical student I worked in the pediatric side of the emergency room and we would give popsicles to all the kids. One afternoon an 8 year old came in with his father, and I asked what was wrong. The kid couldn’t remember what he complained about to his dad, and the dad couldn’t remember why he brought his kid in. The kid’s mom was a nurse, she was working at another hospital at the time, and she was the one that would keep track of these things. Anyway, after a few minutes trying to figure out what was going on the kid asked “so, can I have my popsicle now?” The kid was 100% healthy.

Unfortunately we reinforced bad behavior and both the kid AND the dad subsequently left with popsicles.

2. Kind of hard to blame him though, right?

Prisoner came in with signs and symptoms of a big stroke.

At that time the protocol was to get a non contrast head CT to rule out a bleed and then give tPA, a powerful clot busting drug that’s only worth the risk if the benefit is to mitigate a major stroke. So that’s what happened.

Later in the course he got a little carried away and started embellishing his story with symptoms that didn’t make sense with his stroke diagnosis, and that’s how we figured out he was faking it just to get some time away from jail.

1. What a smart little twerp.

My cousin got glasses. Her 7 year old little sister also wanted glasses because she thought it was so cool to wear them.

So she started telling her teachers she couldn’t read what was on the chalkboard. And she’d squint at home, and go incredibly close to the tv to watch things because she said she couldn’t see things clearly. Her parents got worried and took her to the doctor.

She read everything wrong on the vision test. Everyone seemed convinced that she needed glasses. But the doctor was a little concerned because the tests indicated she needed really thick glasses, and usually that wasn’t the case unless there was a family history of vision issues. Her parents both had 20/20 vision and her sister only had astigmatism. They all realized she was faking it.

So the doctor told her parents in front of her that she’d need some pretty intense eye surgery so she’d be able to see without glasses. They even wheeled in a machine to make it convincing to say they could do the surgery right then and there.

She freaked out, confessed to faking it all and started to cry. She got grounded for a while.

See what I mean? Human beings are so weird!

Do you have a story like this, from either the patient or doctor’s point of view? Tell us in the comments!

The post Doctors Recall the Biggest Fakers They’ve Ever Met appeared first on UberFacts.

Posted on

Doctors Share the Biggest Faker They Ever Encountered

If you’re a Seinfeld fan (and of course you are) you probably remember when George fakes an arm injury to the point of actually having to go to the doctor to get it checked out.

The doctor says “may I suggest the possibility that you’re faking” and basically takes no prisoners in the face of a lying liar.

I sincerely hope these 18 doctors had the chutzpah to tell their faking faker patients the same thing.

18. How inspiring! Ha!

Whenever we had kids (usually teenagers) playing up their symptoms to extend their hospital stay, we would order them into a healthy lifestyle.

Lights out at 9, no screen time for two hours before bed time, healthy diet chock full of fruits and vegetables, screen time limits, minimum number of laps around the unit per day to get in their exercise…. they got better so much faster with our healthy lifestyle tips!

17. This guy really knows how to paint a picture.

Taking trauma call during surgery residency, had a prisoner come in after a fight and claimed he couldn’t move or feel his legs. All the CT scans and MRIs were normal, but we would shield his legs so he couldn’t see them and poke them with needles and other sharp objects, with enough force to cause pain- he never flinched or moved his legs at all. He was diagnosed with SCIWORA (spinal cord injury without radiographic abnormality).

He stayed in the hospital for a week, no improvement. Always had one guard with him. One night they were down in the lobby watching some television but the guard needed to use the restroom. The patient said, “where could I possibly go? I’m paralyzed!” Guard left him alone for two minutes.

Patient last seen sprinting down the road, naked butt cheeks flapping in the breeze. Made it to a city four hours away by car before he was caught again. I have never seen anyone fake it so well. Truly playing the long con!

16. Some of these are just plain sad.

Sorta along the same idea. Working at a pharmacy we saw a guy come in to try and get a refill on some pain meds that had no refill. After pleading that his ear really hurt we told him again we couldn’t refill it. One of the other employees saw his step into a side hallway and take a pencil and JAM it forcefully into his ear repeatedly, drawing blood. He calmly left and went to the ER. He came back a few hours later with a prescription for pain meds.

15. This is completely flabbergasting.

Dermatologist here

Patient was convinced she had a melanoma and needed a biopsy and would need to be on workers comp

I told her it looked like ink from a marker

She demanded a biopsy

I wiped the area off with an alcohol swab and showed her the ink and that there was no spot on her skin anymore

She stormed out threatening to sue

I’m just glad I cured her melanoma

14. I hope the warning worked.

This patient comes in for back pain with “weakness” of the legs. Gets a full workup with MRI, standard blood work, and then some immunological things to look for stuff like myasthenia gravis. No neurological or immunological explanation for the “weakness.” Patient is seen by physical therapy and they are of the opinion that the patient is holding back intentionally.

Go to see the patient at the end of the day and prep them for discharge. Patient is infuriated that they’re being discharged. Yelling and screaming about how they aren’t better, how they’re disappointed in the institution, blah blah blah. They said one particular thing that still clearly stands out 3-4 years later. “I can’t believe you’re sending me home already. I haven’t even told my family I’m here, and now you’re going to send me home before they even have the chance to see me?”

My attending and I leave the room to arrange things with the nurses. We go back in and the patient is out of bed and standing up in the middle of the room. Miraculously the patient is able to walk with zero assistance when they had so much difficulty with any assistance over the previous two days. At that point, they were enraged was enraged we went in to the room without knocking. They were discharged home after a conversation regarding abuse of medical services.

13. It’s a miracle!

Had a patient come in for a fall who now couldn’t move their legs at all. Did a bunch of tests, didn’t find anything. The patient was not at all phased by suddenly being paralyzed which was the first red flag. Didn’t really believe anything was wrong but the patient was still not moving their legs. My options are to admit for a huge work up or get them to walk. So I update them saying everything is fine, tests are negative, you can go home. Patient gets up, gets dressed and walks out without a word.

12. And this was a grown adult.

Had a patient when I was an intern feigning blindness. She would constantly be playing on her smartphone, only furiously trying to hide it when someone from the care team came into her room. The best was when my attending one day strolled pst her room and threw his hand up in a highly exaggerated ‘hello’ wave. She started to throw her arm up to but caught herself half way through, then threw her hand back into her lap and pretended to be ‘staring’ off into nothing.

11. This might be one of the saddest stories I’ve ever read.

Not a doctor but worked in health care for nearly 20yrs. While taking a break from the ICU (due to it being emotionally draining) I worked in home health for a bit. I had a patient who clearly had munchausen syndrome. On a daily basis she would call her insurance to see what things would be covered if she was diagnosed with this or that. She called her Doctor’s office an average of 5x during my shift with her, she would report all kinds of non real symptoms. She pestered the doctors into do exploitive laparoscopic surgery, of course nothing was found. One day I walked in and she was rubbing her incisions with rotten cabbage trying to get it infected. She wasnt seeking pain meds (except to sell) really she was just as happy with antibiotics or stool softeners, anything, as long as they wrote her a prescription and she got to go to the pharmacy where she did a whole song and dance for them too, claiming allergies and reactions.

She always increased the exaggeration of her story too. One time she fluttered her eyes (after making sure I was looking) and said she lost consciousness in that half a second. She called the doctor and claimed she lost consciousness for 5mins, she called the insurance and claimed it was 10min, she called the pharmacy and claimed it was 30min, then she called 911 and told them she woke up on the floor after loosing consciousness for 4hrs.

The worst thing about her was she was a mom. Her son was 28 at the time and by all the stories of his childhood illnesses and all her saying how he is severely disabled I knew she basically fucked up his childhood with munchausen by proxy. She portrayed him as being severely disabled and that’s why he would never find a wife…I met him, he was healthy and of average intelligence. He wasnt looking for a wife, he was gay, but she refused to accept that.

Working with her was so miserable that I took a couple years off from any and all healthcare after that.

10. Another Festivus miracle!

Nurse for an ophthalmologist here. Had a 21 year old new patient claiming to be completely blind from a sudden and severe glaucoma diagnosis from a previous unknown doctor. Would feel around while walking, tried to keep eyes rolled back into his head. The whole 9 yards. He said he is a famous YouTube rapper that is now unable to make videos or earn a living. I exclaimed to have heard of him before and very excitedly asked him to search and show me his YouTube channel on my phone so that I could subscribe. He took my phone out of my hand and effortlessly found the YouTube app and typed away in the search bar. Oh, and of course his eyes were back to normal and focused.

9. Hahaha that’s one way to cure them.

We had a patient faking a seizure so my supervisor told one of us to get the “brain needle”.

The patient made a miraculous and swift recovery without intervention.

8. Soccer players, man. Wimps.

One time my roommate (who is an ICU nurse) came to see one of my indoor soccer games. During the game a player on the other team went down “hurt” and starting screaming in pain and swearing and rolling around while holding his ankle before he was eventually helped off the field. He then limped over to where the fans sat and watched the rest of the game brooding in silence before he left early. After the game my roommate told me he was going to go over and see if there was anything he could do to help, until he saw that the guy was limping on the wrong leg.

7. Talk about a crazy (life-saving) coincidence.

Young (18-20) Woman went running into small rural hospital ER pretending to have abdominal pain. Police officer had tagged her going 40+km over the limit which was ‘stunt driving’ as per the new law in Ontario (impound and license suspension automatic). Cop followed her into ER and apparently said he’d be waiting for her when she left.

Locum staff such as myself were housed at a small B&B about 15 mins away, and the ER had pre-printed order sets to be done before we arrived.

When I arrived she flat out admitted that she just came in because she freaked out and didn’t stop. I told her we’d give her 45 mins to call her parents/family before I booted her.

Except, bHCG came back positive, and subsequent ultrasound came back showing extremely early ectopic.

Officer figures out something is up when he hears air ambulance call come in over radio.

She was completely asymptomatic and just worked out that she dodged both charges and a life threatening issue by accident.

It was definitely a WTF moment.

6. I need to know why, though.

I once saw a patient who had been faking paralysis of the legs for years. Used a wheelchair, never walked, etc. Old records showed extensive imaging, neurology consults, and other tests that proved the patient had full function of all extremities. Family/friends were just going along with it. Not sure if it was really conversion disorder or if the patient had some secondary gain issue.

5. Was she trying to get out of work, or…?

Physical therapist here.

Working mom comes into the clinic with her infant in a stroller. She’s limping like she’s got a nail in her foot. Wincing in pain and tears in her eyes. She’s crying during her visit with the PT. None of us think she’s faking it…

She limped out of the clinic. I glanced out of the window and saw this woman BOUNDING down the sidewalk. Hips swaying, full stride, going places.

We were all fools.

4. Things they probably don’t prepare you for in medical school.

Was told this one by a fellow nurse I used to work with when we had a psych floor. It’s not unusual for psych patients to stash things in various orifices. This one woman was convinced she was impregnated by a ghost like figure but no one would believe her.

So one day she started complaining of massive pelvic and uterine pain. She called them contractions. So the doctor goes to do an exam. The doctor feels something larger in there so they prep a table to get the object out which was quite large.

So the wonderful third year helping with the procedure starts hearing this woman complain of contractions and yelling things like “ SHOULD I PUSH!!!! I’M GONNA START PUSHING!!!”. Doctor trying to work forceps around this woman’s parts as to not hurt her. Finally goes “got…” and as he starts saying “it” he pulls out a baby doll. Head only.

The poor med student did the wobble. Went all flush, had problems keeping balance and about took a dive. I was told he didn’t live that down the whole rotation.

3. Oh my god this is horrifying.

Pediatric neuropsychologist. Got a referral for more or less consolidation care. Patient was 13, wheelchair bound, required therapeutic oxygen, seizures, arthritis, musculoskeletal problems, suspected autism, completely nonverbal, severe behavior challenges, the list goes on. He was being followed by at least 8 different specialties, clearly none of whom were communicating with each other, and med list was ~18 prescriptions long including some incredibly heavy duty stuff (opioids, antipsychotics, antiepileptics, that sorta stuff). Got kicked to me after his umpteenth ER trip because the ER doc felt something was off and he needed someone to look at the whole picture.

Factitious disorder by caregiver, or Munchausen by proxy. All of the original symptoms were parent reported, going back to about a year old. It had possibly started with a febrile seizure (fever induced seizure) in infancy, but this was never witnessed by anyone but mom she it’s unclear. She had been telling docs different things. She was convinced her son had all these disorders, told him he was going to die any day. He got a Make-A-Wish trip, donations, etc.

He was removed from her custody and taken off most of his meds. Within a few weeks he was out of the wheelchair playing basketball, no oxygen, super talkative and friendly, no behavior problems. He did have a pretty significant intellectual disability, but there’s no way to say if that was organic or the result of the prescription cocktail he had been fed all his life. Hopefully with some good therapy and a stable home, he can continue to make progress.

2. I’ve been tired as a mom, but not THIS tired.

Not a doctor, but am a UK based midwife.

Had a patient who had been in and out of hospital throughout her pregnancy with episodes of heavy bleeding. This was her 6th baby so she was a fairly well known patient in our unit. The issue was no one had ever seen her actively bleeding, she’d call saying that she had bled down the toilet but flushed it, and all the examinations we did came back completely normal with mostly no evidence of any bleed whatsoever, on occasions during speculum examinations we’d see the smallest amount of blood.

I was caring for her during a shift where she yet again called to say she was bleeding, walked into her room and found her jabbing around her vagina with a sharp object to make herself bleed. She had been doing it the entire pregnancy, the reason she gave – because she had 5 noisy children at home, needed some rest and knew we wouldn’t admit her to hospital if it wasn’t for a good reason. She would do it any time her being discharged home was mentioned. We ended up having to complete a perinatal mental health referral and consult with the safeguarding midwives as she was putting herself and baby at risk of serious harm.

1. You’ve got to learn to have a little fun I guess.

My brother was an EMT for two years and he told me this:

People will try to use the ambulance as a means for transportation from Fulton to Oswego (because the hospital is in Oswego), by faking seizures. Sometimes when the head EMT guy was feeling fun and knew that the person was faking, he’d say something like “man it’s weird that he’s having seizures but not peeing himself”. Apparently the person would kind of snap out of it for a second, weigh up the repercussions, then either pee themselves or stop faking. I thought that was hilarious.

Why are people like this?? I think some of them might have needed a mental eval.

If you’re a doctor, has this happened to you? Tell us your story in the comments!

The post Doctors Share the Biggest Faker They Ever Encountered appeared first on UberFacts.

Posted on

People Admit Propaganda They Used to Buy Into, but Later Realized Was BS

These days, a lot of people live in complete echo chambers and they never hear any dissenting opinions or information AT ALL.

And sometimes those echo chambers are filled with misinformation, lies, fake news, and absolute BULLSHIT.

But that’s how propaganda works.

And that’s just the world we live in right now.

Let’s hear from some AskReddit users who talk about how they used to buy into certain propaganda only to later learn that it was total BS.

1. YOU’RE the idiot.

“When I was a teenager I thought that everyone over 30 is old and doesn’t understand me.

I was a fucking idiot.

It’s something in the brain chemistry but to the teenager, life experience is irrelevant because that life took place before I was born and therefore is now out of date and not in the slightest but applicable to me.”

2. Pretty rare, actually.

“That most people achieve success in their lives during their 20’s. This is bullshit in the grander scheme of things. Lots of super talented people end up becoming successful in their late 30’s, 40’s, and even 50’s.

The same goes for the concept of “If you want to get good at something, you have to start super young..” Which does SOMETIMES work. But a lot of people can actually get good at a skill in older ages.

You can learn the Piano in your 30’s, and get really good at it. But you’re not going to be doing concerts or anything. But it doesn’t mean that you’re not good/great/exceptional at it.”

3. Not true!

“That carrots give you exceptional night vision.

I later found out that that particular belief became widely accepted due to a British propaganda campaign from world war II designed to hide the invention of radar from the Germans. They claimed that the reason their air force pilots were so effective at night was due to them being fed carrots to increase their night vision. It was so effective that people still tout that particular benefit of carrots years after the war ended.

Edit, a couple corrections: While carrots are rich in vitamin a which helps prevent your eyesight from deteriorating, they still do not give superhuman vision like the propaganda claimed. The myth isn’t that they are good for your eyesight. It is an exaggeration of how effective they actually are.

Also I was incorrect when I said that the British were trying to cover up the invention of radar. They were in actuality trying to cover up an an advancement in radar technology that they didn’t want the Germans finding out about.”

4. Cult life.

“I was born into the cult of jehovahs witnesses. I left at 25 when I found out the leaders were covering up child abuse and then instead of changing their rules to protect victims they enforced their archaic rules and then told elders to burn and delete any evidence relating to past cases.

Sick bastards, but Ofc I get shunned and disowned and called a worker of Satan, an agent of the devil, a spiritual warrior committing acts of warfare against god sent to dissuade gods chosen people from the one true god….(who’s chosen peoples leaders cover up child abuse. ) when all I did was try to show my friends and family the multitude of court cases against them

Least I got a badass title.”

5. Accept it.

“Trivial but I bought into the lie that the more you cut hair, the more it grows. I’ve been shaving my beard for years hoping to get a nice thick bush to no avail.

I just have to accept that nature played me and deal with my patchy face hair.”

6. Imagine that! Reading!

“Anti-vax. At one point I was completely sold on the whole “how can you inject infants with dangerous chemicals” thing.

Then I read up on the actual science and realised how uninformed I was.”

7. GMOs.

“GMOs are dangerous for your health.

Not only is the idea that they’re bad bullshit, the global food supply would be more expensive, less plentiful, and poor parts of the world would experience more frequent, prolonged shortages of crucial items if it weren’t for GMOs.”

8. Not for everyone.

“That the only way to achieve success in life is to study hard, get top grades, and go to university and study something like law or medicine.

Plenty of people I know have achieved success and happiness without top university education. I also believed the idea that the career you study for is for life.”

9. Conspiracy theory.

“I totally bought into that ridiculous Denver airport conspiracy for a few months after a friend showed me it in high school.”

10. Going on a mission.

“Mission trips are for helping others…. really it’s just a huge ego boost for many people who want to exploit people’s needs to feel better about themselves.

Plus the whole part where it might actually be more harmful than helpful…”

11. Chiropractors.

“I had always thought chiropractors were bullshit, but what confirmed it for me was when one day after hurting my back a friend recommended I try it and I thought “meh I guess it’s worth checking out at least.”

So I called but forgot it was a Sunday and they were closed, but I left my name and number saying I was interested in making an appointment. While I was at work the next day and couldn’t answer, the chiropractor left me about 7 or 8 voicemails, each one sounding like one of those gym sales people trying to get you to join.

After that I was like yeah no legit healthcare place would be trying to sell me this hard on making an appointment offering this discount or the other just to get me in the door.”

12. Just say no!

“The anti drug campaigns we all had to listen to as a kid.

The cop that came to my school to give our anti drug talks ended up drinking himself to death at 51.

Guess no one told him alcohol was more dangerous than what he was telling us not to take.”

13. Total fiasco.

“Iraq had WMDs.

I believed it well before Bush came into office. I would read in the paper how even during the Clinton era that Saddam would block actively block weapon inspectors. To me, that sounded like he was hiding something. I still believed it months after the invasion.

Then the truth started coming out, ‘Curveball’ was some taxi driver that made shit up, Cheney outed a CIA agent because she found out that Iraq wasn’t going for nuclear material and it went against their narrative. It would be one thing if they have bad intel, but this was intentionally falsified intel to justify their war.”

14. Too bad a lot of people still believe this shit.

“I used to be big into conspiracy. Alex Jones was right, Clinton’s are actually alien lizard people, and all sorts of crazy stuff.

I even believed Obama was a secret agent Muslim going to install martial law and kill all non muslims. It got to the point I was even considering grabbing guns, I even thought about if I attacked a mosque that I could help stop the Muslim takeover.

It took so long to get my mind straight. It’s a slippery slope, and it’s not something I want anyone to go down on.”

15. Not getting laid.

“I bought into the abstinence-until-marriage crap in middle school, when they made you sign all the fancy pamphlets about why it’s the right thing to do. Really felt it would stop my fellow classmates from having sex until marriage.

My belief in that fell apart in high school. A teammate on my football team would tell stories in the pregame time for JV games about how he had banged some girl the other week. I can still remember 3 specific stories, one of which was how he had sex while wearing a ziplock baggie instead of a condom.”

16. Politics as usual.

“Everyone on my political spectrum are all good and everyone on the other side are terrible people who have absolutely nothing to offer in a discussion and no valid opinions”

In middle school, they made us take political party quizzes to see what we would vote. It became this whole us vs them atmosphere. This only became worse when my parents would be talking about the other side like they were all idiots.

I firmly believed growing up that anyone opposite to me on the political spectrum are evil, dumb people and any points that may align with them are bad. I believed you had to be all or nothing. I was very closed minded.”

Very interesting perspectives in there, that’s for sure.

How about you?

Did you previously believe wholeheartedly in things that you later realized were not true or even total BS?

If so, please share your stories with us in the comments.

We look forward to hearing from you!

The post People Admit Propaganda They Used to Buy Into, but Later Realized Was BS appeared first on UberFacts.

Posted on

These People Dated or Married Sociopaths and They Have Some Stories to Tell

Every relationship has issues and we can choose to either work through them or move on. Most people don’t expect to be confronted with the fact that their partner has antisocial personality disorder (ASPD), though – which means they basically don’t understand or experience human emotions the way the rest of us do.

These 15 people lived to tell their tales, though, and anyone who has even a passing interest in human psychology is going to want to tune in.

15. That would do a number on anyone.

He never once yelled. Never raised his voice. It made me feel like I was the insane one.

I was young and going through a very hard time (also had been badly abused by my father and stepmother for several years, so this kind of behavior was oddly comforting and familiar), and I had convinced myself that I loved him. I found out that he kept detailed notes on what I liked and didn’t like, who I spent time with, what I ate, everything. Every time I would get up the courage to leave, he’d find some way to weasel back into my life. Going so far as to get himself hired at my jobsite and pretending it was “fate”.

Edit: I’m just gonna copy the first sentence of another answer, because it hits home so perfectly:

I thought I was so special because he was so confident in himself. He could do no wrong, he always said everything with such confidence you felt stupid to question it. I was young and he was the first person to show interest in me that I thought was also really smart.
My first clue that something was wrong was when he told me that “men don’t ever feel love when they’re having sex”. When I informed him that I had had plenty of sexual encounters that involved feelings of love on both sides, he assured me that “those men were lying to you. No man has emotions when sexually aroused.”

He also had several “rules” that had to be followed in order to continue the relationship. However much money he spent on me, I must spend on him. A certain number of texts per day. A certain amount of time within which texts from him must be answered. Hair has to be a certain length. Makeup and perfume at all times, even sleeping. Eventually it got to the point where he was insisting that he should be allowed to have sex with other women, because his sex drive was higher than mine and it “wasn’t fair”. This last one is what caused the most fights. He cheated So. Many. Times. I once yelled at him “You’re only sorry you got caught!” and he said, clearly surprised, “Of course I’m sorry I got caught. If you never found out about it, who would it hurt?”

He had zero empathy. My grandmother died and he could not understand why I couldn’t “make myself” stop crying when I heard. He was annoyed that he had to drive home from the funeral because I was in no shape to do so. “The funeral’s over, nobody’s here but me, who are you crying for?”

After 9 years of psychological torture he finally left when I got the news that I had breast cancer. My parents took me on a 3-day beach vacation to clear my head before the first round of treatments began – he refused to come along, and on the day before we were supposed to return, he left a message on Facebook that said, “We’re done. I’m out.”

I called to ask why. “Because you have cancer.” Short and to the point.

I told him, “This is what’s going to happen. You’re going to keep fucking whoever it is that you found to fuck, and in a few weeks or a few months she’s going to realize you can’t love people, and she’s going to dump your ass. And that’s when you’ll start calling me again. I’m warning you now, don’t do it. This was the line. I don’t want to see your face again. I will finally let my brother beat the shit out of you.”

A few days later he “accidentally” sent me a text with a picture of him having sex, that said “Abby (not my name) that was the best night of my life and you seemed to have had fun too. ” I texted back “Nice try but we’re still done” then blocked him.

14. It could happen to you, too.

Clinical psych grad student here.. There are going to be a lot of sensationalized responses on here that paint a picture of “sociopaths” (Antisocial Personality Disorder or Narcissistic Personality Disorder, depending–this is how the DSM-IV and DSM-V characterize them) that is violent and demented. The reality is that “sociopaths”–just like mentally healthy people–come in all shapes and sizes. Violent tendencies can exist but aren’t necessarily advantageous for people. Many sociopaths end up becoming successful doctors, lawyers, and politicians, and most of them do not commit acts of violence or overt aggression. (One caveat is that Antisocial Personality Disorder is characterized by acts of criminal or otherwise delinquent behaviour. Narcissists not quite as much.)

And yes, I was romantically involved with a “sociopath”.

Ultimately, being with him felt like I had been thrown into rapids–I felt disoriented, confused, and betrayed after every serious conversation about his treatment of me. Somehow, it was my fault for “criticizing him too much”, he refused to apologize and claimed that wanted an apology for mistreatment was manipulation on my part. I told him once that being with him felt like he was holding me by the throat over a great precipice–I didn’t want to hold onto him, but if I let go, I feared that I would fall. He had constructed a world around me in which my reality was no longer real, in which I was never the victim but the ungrateful charity case, and in which he was constantly inventing new ways to torment me psychologically and intimidate me physically. The tumult–the rapids–were ultimately a script of rapidly oscillating states of being. He would apologize and promise he would change. He would cry and beg for me not to leave him. If I tried to make him leave, he would pivot to threats or demean me. Everything happened on his terms, even if it didn’t seem that way. Outwardly, he appeared to be a patient, kind, and charismatic partner. He was conventionally attractive, intellectually gifted, and socially adored. His views on life were reasonable and measured, and his style of rhetoric is, to this day, one of the most engaging and convincing of anyone I’d ever known. The acts of cruelty and humiliation were rare at first, growing to a crescendo during times in my life when I was the most vulnerable. I lost my best friend–the abuse escalated. I got a new job and it declined. I left my job and it escalated. I found a new job and there we were, back to celebrating again.

When he was good, he was so good. I would start to believe that I must have just been too hard on him–after all, things only got bad when I was already doing poorly, managing grief, loss, and depression. When I was succeeding, he was succeeding with me. So it seemed reasonable to me, for a while, that he was right when he said I was just “projecting my inner turmoil onto him”. I believed him, for a while. But that mask just can’t stay on. Eventually things are too good for too long, and he couldn’t have that. He always needed to be one step ahead of me. He always needed to have the upper hand. And he always needed to use it to drag me to the edge of the abyss and hold me over, while I desperately clutched and grabbed at the arm that held me, begging him not to let go.

I know now that this is typical of narcissistic abusers. I know now that his moves were calculated and methodical. I know that he hit me when I was already down because it was the easiest to manipulate my worldview during those times, and to create a dynamic in which I was so afraid to lose him amongst the other losses that I would forgive him for whatever he had done, even if what he had done was slowly bore a hole into me, removing pieces of myself that I had left defenseless to exploit.

I know now that the true trap is the poison in the sugar. I know that it’s the sweetness, the overtures when you are stronger that truly ensnare and contort. And I know that it was not my fault. It had never been my fault. The red flags I had seen from the start were warnings I should have heeded, not forgiven. And that in robbing me of myself, in repeatedly gaining and abusing my trust and affection, he was whittling me away from the inside out until I felt more like scattered debris of myself than an entire person capable of walking away when I first realized I had to.

I tried to leave him 10 times. It took me 9 months after the abuse first started to get out–6 after the first serious events started to unravel. I didn’t think that sort of thing could happen to me because, well, I had studied this sort of thing. I knew these signs academically. I was so certain I’d recognize them. I am a strong, outspoken, and almost aggressively independent person, someone you would think incapable of victimizing. But there I was. It happened to me. And in it having happened, I understand now how truly insidious abuse is. I understand why women can’t or don’t leave. I understand why I was so, so wrong to think they were weak for not fighting or running away. If an abuser is smart, like my partner, they don’t just break you down. It doesn’t happen all at once. Instead, you become eroded. You are contorted and compromised so slowly you don’t realize what is happening until you’ve already been ensnared. He never had to lay a single hand on me to be the single worst experience of my entire life. He didn’t have to hit me even once to make me afraid of him, alienated from my own body, and distanced from my true sense of self.

Beyond the obvious words of wisdom I am sure most people will impart in this thread, I’d just like to leave you with this, if you’re still with me:

“I give you bitter pills in sugar coating. The pills are harmless–the poison is in the sugar.”

13. The other side of the table.

I’m NPD and Bipolar I. I have a lot of symptoms in common with ASPD and have been described that way by various professionals in the past. I’m not really capable of empathy. I’ve never really understood the concept no matter how many times it’s been explained to me. I don’t really understand love as a feeling. To me love is simply a set of actions, attitudes and behaviors I can choose to show towards a person. It’s kind of like a job.

I’ve been married for 18 years and told my wife as soon as I knew exactly like you suggested. She’d probably say at times it’s been traumatic. For me life has been extremely traumatic as well but mostly from experiencing intolerable internal mental states rather than bad things having happened to me.

I’m not a bad person though. Sociopath does not equal evil. I have principles and I stick to them but I definitely don’t really understand people emotionally. Conversely I don’t believe that anyone who doesn’t have the exact same conditions as me could ever remotely understand what it’s like to be in my shoes either.

12. The gaslighting is real.

I was with a man who was never diagnosed, so I can’t say for certain, but even being with someone who had the potential to be was traumatizing. I also had a therapist who said he most likely had antisocial personality disorder, and I told her very little about him.

He had me under has control for almost ten years. I had no friends in college because he made me believe he was my entire world. He made me feel sexually inept so that there were things I was unable to do with later partners. He told me he loved me even though it was something he could not feel because he knew it was something that would make me even more easy to manipulate. He slept with countless women when we were together and then led me to honestly believe it was my fault. If I even spoke to other men we got in a fight.He got me to let him read my journals and then was mad that he made me so depressed. I got pregnant and he asked if he was really the father. My relationship with my fiancé ended because he made me believe I was still in love with him.

I felt bad about myself for a long time because I let him treat me so poorly and get away with so much. But the more I read and researched I knew it was not me. I grew as a person and worked on everything holding me down and now he means nothing to me. I don’t hate him, want him, or wish to go back in time. I feel nothing and it is the most liberating thing I have ever experienced.

11. It can take a while to heal.

I don’t know when he was officially diagnosed or how long he’s known he was a sociopath, but I learned of it during his court trial.

It’s been about 10 years and I’m still dealing with the PTSD he caused. I’ve learned how to live with it due to being in and out of therapy and having a supportive boyfriend.

I met him when I was fourteen and he was turning eighteen. He coerced and forced me to do sexual things with me and would get mad at me if I showed any sign of wanting to stop. He choked me when he raped me once. He would slap me, make sexist remarks, compare me to others, and veil it behind being jokes. He ripped my pants off, putting me in an embarrassing position. He made his friend rape me because his friend’s girlfriend broke up with him and he was lonely. He grabbed his friend’s sword and “jokingly” tried to pierce my stomach, got frustrated because I kept squirming, then grabbed his friend’s BB pistol, shot me with the barrel pressed against my skin, and shot me around the room with it. He would bite me, leaving marks and sometimes drawing blood, and bite down on my tongue. Sadly this only scratches the surface of what he did to me.

I’m unlucky it was my first experience with a romantic relationship. He’s the only person I’ve personally known who I hate with a passion. I probably would have accomplished the things I wanted if I hadn’t met him. He killed me. I wanted to kill myself. My life has gotten better but I’ve lost so much of my time dealing with my PTSD. It’s hard to accept.

One day, I’ll accomplish the things I’ve set out to do and be the best damn therapist I can be.

10. Isolation is a red flag.

I had the same kind of experience, though it only lasted a year. He made me give up on all my friends and family because he convinced me they did not love or care about me. And the list just goes on. But after a few years I also realized it wasn’t my fault. And I’m so happy for you coming to that realization after being with that kind of a person for so long, since it took me so long after just being with one for a year. I wish you all the luck and well being you deserve!

9. Like anything else, one day at a time.

I didn’t realize he was a sociopath until after it had all ended, but it made everything click into place & make sense. He treated everyone around him like NPCs whose lives are inconsequential. He led a double life, manipulating & gaslighting me the entire time. He drew from my well until I had nothing left to give, ultimately making me believe anything that went wrong was my fault. And when he was finally backed into a corner, played up a big fear/panic response to keep his job and his fiancee. She wouldn’t listen to me, and here we are. It’s been almost 4 years now, and I still can’t trust people. I thought I could, but it’s become clear to me recently that I’m not as “over it” as I thought I was. I find myself unshakably terrified of emotional closeness. And much to my dismay, no amount of “wanting to be over it” will actually force me into being “over it”. There are uncountably many ways that that experience changed who I am and how I approach the world.

The worst part? His hooks were still very much deep in me when I first forced the [figurative] door between him & myself shut. I had to do a LOT to distance myself from him: he kept trying to reach out to me (and my family!) long after I’d cut him off, and it was more difficult to resist than I’d like to admit. At one point I even sent an email to all relevant mutual connections to ask them to hold me accountable to never speaking to him again, and to not allow him to communicate to me through them. I faltered a couple of times. But I haven’t spoken to him in 3.5 years, and I’m pretty proud of that.

8. It takes a long time to get over.

Extremely.

Still haven’t recovered and I regularly have breakdowns over it. Thankfully I’m in a healthy relationship now, but feel it a shame the emotional pains and trust issues from my previous relationship can sometimes cause issues. Waiting to have therapy after lockdown. This happened about a year ago now, and I think it’ll always stay with me.

Honestly, his eyes were so soulless it was like glimpsing the gates of hell.

7. The gift that keeps on giving.

He was brilliant, handsome, and charming, and made good money at a globally recognized law firm despite being barely 30. He was attracted to me but it was a take-it-or-leave-it kind of attraction. He was more curious about me than anything else. He’d play mind games and was surprised when I started catching on (I’m from a very intelligent and slightly crazy family myself). He had no feelings for his family, who worried about him but he never responded to their calls or messages. I found that very off-putting until he told me his diagnosis. Honestly he could be a bit of a dick in general, but he didn’t treat me badly while I was with him (or so I thought). I tired of his lack of affection eventually and broke things off after a particularly pointless mind game of his. He then told me he’d been hooking up with girls in clubs the whole time. I was surprised but not disappointed, as my view of him was pretty low by then. He ended up giving me hpv. Thanks asshole.

6. When you feel hollow and empty inside.

I was with a boyfriend for a year. Someone I know who is a therapist and was acting as my therapist but knew me and my ex well told me that he was a sociopath. I don’t believe he was ever diagnosed but that was good enough for me.

I was 19, he was a year older than me. He has a way of talking in circles until I found myself agreeing to things I didn’t agree with but not really sure what had just happened. Gave me whiplash. He gaslighted me constantly and made me feel like I was crazy. I’d end up apologizing for things I never did.

The worst was when he tricked me into getting engaged to him. I’m not really sure how it happened, because the memory is kind of a blur. But at the end of the conversation he was like, “So, we’re engaged now.” And I was like, hang on, what? I had no desire to marry him. I was too young and I’d already begun to hate him at that point. But before I had the opportunity to figure out what was going on and how the hell we had just gotten engaged, he announced our engagement to 200 people. People were congratulating me and I just felt so hollow and broken inside.

He ended up moving and that’s the only way I got free of him. I’d tried breaking up with him a few times before then but somehow he always made it seem like I had to stay. The day he moved I blocked him on everything, and swore I’d never talk to him again. I still have trauma and am triggered surprisingly frequently, considering it’s been over 2 years.

But yeah. That’s what it’s like dating a sociopath.

5. So they’re making it work.

I’m married to a sociopath. It’s like if Jessica Jones had taken up with The Purple Man (in the tv show) only easier because my husband would’ve just sent the kids to the neighbors for being noisy instead of leaving them in a closet.

He has a moral code that was beaten into him as a kid, but I do have to frequently remind him that murdering people over slight annoyances is really way more trouble than it’s worth and he needs to chill before he gives himself a heart attack. He has a problem with seeing that my hurt feelings don’t go away if all he does is talk but no action. He is terrible at handling me when I’m sad. He has a hard time prioritizing his wants over responsibilities. His friendships are very much of a transactional nature to him(he likes to exchange knowledge and skills) and has said more than once that he married me exactly because I have the Paladin instincts that he lacks and is self-aware enough to know that he wouldn’t live long on the course he had been running until then.

However he treats me as a person first and while he lacks a certain level of empathy I could use, he does try most of the time to keep me happy.

4. None of that is remotely okay.

I found this out recently about someone I dated, from their ex. The relationship was abusive. He gaslighted me all the time, put me down, called me names, loved bringing in racially charged shit into bed, reveled in it. Whenever we had any kind of a tuffle, he’d shut me out and ignore me for days until I dropped it. In fact, that’s how he ended the relationship, by disappearing after two years. Just gone one day, never heard from him again. Presumably, it was because I hung out with a male friend. I was younger then, but it certainly did a number on me.

His ex contacted me later and revealed that he had mentioned to her before that he had ASPD. Though, from what I understand, they’re rarely that self-aware.

Anyway, turns out, he was also a white supremacist who believed in the “tiered value” of the races. Probably the scariest part was discovering this piece of fiction he had written a couple years ago about “owning” a thirteen year old girl, starving her, keeping her on a leash, just general terrifying disgusting bullshit. The premise was a story about a man and his dog, how he abuses and neglects the dog, but the dog still sits around to get fed. It gets quite graphic, and at the end of it, it’s revealed to readers via a cop character that the emaciated dog is actually a small child.

yep, need to work on my radar

3. It only matters that you finally left.

Not diagnosed sociopath but he was diagnosed bi polar and his therapist said “he didn’t know how to relate to people on an emotional level”.

In all honesty it was a terrible abusive relationship. He verbally and emotionally abused me. Was incredibly controlling and manipulative. He didn’t see me as a person but more of an object to have and control. My emotions were annoying to him except it may have brought him pleasure to see me in pain/crying. Everyday he had a different opinion about me. One day he loved me wanted to spoil me. I was the best thing that had ever happened to him. Next day I was worthless, a whore, the worst person ever. We dated just shy of two years.

I cant say why I stayed so long. He was just so irrational and slowly his reality slowly became my reality and I had no sense of self anymore. He would just get mad over the most mundane and ridiculous things and I’d try to bring him back down to reality. Never worked of course.

I did finally have the gaul to leave him and never look back. No idea what happened to him. Hope he burns in hell.

2. They can be very charming.

I had another ex who I truly think was aspd.

At one point he stated that he cannot bond with anyone. – He had impulsivity. -He was into brutal sex. -He was a kleptomaniac (he routinely shoplifted from thrift stores and the grocery store). -He was very interested in scamming people (a notable example would be when he purchased an item at a pawn shop, took it back claiming that it was broken so that they discounted the price, and then had another friend buy it at discount). -He expressed disgust towards various friends when they acted emotional. -He clearly thought that he was smarter than all of his friends -At one point he said “it’s fun to interact with kids and figure out ways you can get them to do what you want” (he was referring to getting kids to do chores, but in retrospect he was very interested in controlling and manipulating people in general). -He stated that he still hated his little brother for taking attention away from him during childhood (he was 26 and still upset over his brother being born when he was 6) – he would get extremely upset when anyone disagreed with him on things like planning out camping trips or the meaning of song lyrics – he broke the rules of his probation all day, every day – when I told him that I disliked certain extreme sex acts because they were painful, he stated ‘but I like them!”, as if he really thought that should make it ok to do them. – he had no respect for any of his friends and made fun of them all behind their backs – he was chronically lazy both at work and at home and couldn’t be depended on by anyone

It’s crazy because despite all this, he really made me feel happy and alive and sometimes I still miss him. So I guess he had sociopathic charm too.

1. Don’t believe a word they say.

I’m currently involved with a sociopath and feel very trapped in my situation.

He is literally twice my age and is a master of manipulation. He just finished serving 8 years in prison over a drug trafficking/murder thing and has had like 16 other charges in his life including shootings and other crazy shit. Worst temper on a person I’ve ever seen, even my own life has been threatened multiple times and I convince myself I’m going to do a midnight move and change my name but he always somehow emotionally manipulates me with his words the next day and I end up staying. I don’t even know how he does it, he can talk me into and out of pretty much anything and I always end up hating myself for it later.

He’s on trial right now and can even charm police officers and judges to get out of stuff, it’s crazy. 90% of the time he’s a dream boyfriend but in the back of my mind I always have a feeling it’s just some kind of plot. He’s almost convinced me that I’m the real sociopath for “playing victim” and that I’m delusional. I feel like I am losing my mind. Every day is a mental hell downward spiral.

0/10 WOULD NOT RECOMMEND

I’m fascinated and horrified in equal measure – the human brain is all of that and more, all at the same time.

If you have a similar story to share in the comments, we’re all ears!

The post These People Dated or Married Sociopaths and They Have Some Stories to Tell appeared first on UberFacts.

Posted on

Years of Negative Thoughts Could Increase Your Odds for Contracting Alzheimer’s Disease

Alzheimer’s Disease is one of the most awful illnesses that families go through – you’re often forced to mourn the loss of your loved one while they’re still alive, and to steel yourself to go into a room with a parent, aunt, grandparent, who no longer knows you from Adam or Eve.

The good news is that the disease has a decent amount of funding and research, and this most recent study things they may have a lead on what makes people more susceptible.

The research concludes that persistent worrying about the future, or an inability to let go of past regrets, can have a detrimental effect on cognition of all types later in life – including an increased risk for dementia and/or Alzheimer’s disease.

Image Credit: Pixabay

Scientists largely accept the idea that our thoughts can and do influence our physical health, even though there’s little understanding as to how and why. Still, the Cognitive Debt hypothesis, which states that certain negative thoughts and mental states somehow contribute to the risk of cognitive decline and dementia, exists for a reason.

Researchers conducting this most recent study spent two years analyzing the mental states of 360 people over the age of 55, mostly following their tendency to fall into repetitive negative thinking (RNT). They were also screened for depression and anxiety.

High levels of RNT were strongly associated with cognitive decline in a wide range of areas, including episodic memory and global cognition, which are two big predictors of a person’s likelihood to develop Alzheimer’s.

Image Credit: Pixabay

In the patients who consented to brain scans, a harmful buildup of protein plaques in the brain was also associated with high levels of RNT – more specifically, a protein called tau was increasing in the entorhinal cortex, which also is an early indicator of dementia.

Another protein, amyloid-beta, was found to present in higher amounts in the brains of people who tended to have negative thought patterns; it’s strongly associated with Alzheimer’s disease, especially.

Author Natalie Marchant clarified their findings in a statement.

“Chronic negative thinking patterns over a long period of time could increase the risk of dementia.

We do not think the evidence suggests that short-term setbacks would increase one’s risk of dementia.”

Image Credit: Pexels

There’s no concrete evidence as to how repetitive negative thought patterns can damage cognition so thoroughly, though they posit that high stress levels could be to blame. High blood pressure and the repetitive release of hormones like cortisol have been shown previously to stimulate creation of the harmful proteins.

Basically, maybe your hippie yoga friends are really onto something – some meditation and yoga might be just what the doctor ordered.

Therapy is also awesome, I’ve heard, or just a stiff drink now and then.

Pick your poison, as they say. But it looks like it’s in your best interest to choose one that helps you chill the eff out.

The post Years of Negative Thoughts Could Increase Your Odds for Contracting Alzheimer’s Disease appeared first on UberFacts.

Posted on

Behaviors That Seem Nice, But Are Toxic AF

Are you ready for some real talk? Let’s talk about the way we treat each other, and the way we disguise the bad as good and the good as bad. That’s the kind of conversation that got kicked off in a post from darkwulf1 on r/AskReddit:

What is a toxic behavior that is disguised as virtue? from AskReddit

The post quickly amassed thousands of comments – a few jokes here and there, but mostly honest feedback and frustration examining morality. Here are a few examples of some of the most interesting points.

1. Do you work to live or live to work?

The workaholic.

It’s fine to work hard at something you love, but not at the expense of everything else.

– kazu-sama

2. Don’t take autonomy.

People saying they did stuff that directly affects us without our permission for ‘looking after your best interests’

– dhavalaa123

3. “Chasing” can be pretty creepy.

Persistence in relationships.

It’s always sold in Rom-coms and in relationships.

But usually your persistence is a complete lack of respect for other people’s boundaries or holding onto things that aren’t working out.

– fishnugget1

4. Good action, bad motive.

People that do good deeds so they can brag about it or use it to their own advantage.

“Look at me, I’m such a good person! I do all these nice things, not because I wanted to be a good person or anything, nope!

Just so I could tell everyone about all the good things I do! Repeatedly. Like all the time. Because I’m a good person, remember?

Hey by the way, could you do me a fav-.”

– bayleaf0098

5. We’re not all on an even playing field.

That kind of Hustle Culture where successful people give “motivational” speeches (or more often Instagram captions) where they say stuff like “if you’re not succeeding you’re not working hard enough” or “we all have the same 24 hours.” We don’t all have the same 24 hours.

If you have kids, subtract a couple hours. If you have kids without a live in nanny subtract a bunch of hours. If you have to work a minimum wage job to make rent subtract hours. If you don’t have help to cook/clean/grocery shop/etc, subtract hours.

That’s part of why Kylie Jenner’s whole “self-made millionaire” think bugs me. Even IF she came up with her own ideas and did her portion of the work, she never had to worry about financial support to start her brand, or childcare while she was working, or who was going to cook meals for her and her kid or clean her house. Her lip fillers alone, which are a huge portion of her brand, can cost up to 2000 dollars a pop.

You’re not “self-made” if you couldn’t have done it without your parent’s money.

– tomis2003

6. This is called being an enabler.

Being the “supportive” friend/significant other who will never say no even if it’s a really bad idea.

– SoundedDoughnut

7. Nothing special about being mean.

People that say they’re always 100% honest and aren’t afraid to speak their mind.

It’s definitely useful when needed, but all the time just makes the person seem insufferable and rude.

– RackingRods

8. Don’t speak for me.

Being offended on behalf of another person without knowing or wanting to know their opinion.

– Dr-Sateen

9. Corporate morals are profit-driven.

Woke companies.

They are literally just trying to sell more sh^t by piggybacking onto whatever is the cause of the day.

– Trip_The_3rd

10. Back off a little.

Helicopter parenting, that sh^t scars you, makes you unable to function like a normal adult and struggle to make your own decisions when it comes to responsibility.

– bovineexcrement

11. Be real with yourself.

Constant self-diminishing and downplaying of your abilities as “humility”.

Just accept and recognize that you’re pretty skilled / have a lot of experience in something, instead of saying that it’s easy, that anyone could do the same and the list goes on.

– Chrysophren

12. Be vigilant around charisma.

Over-the-top kindness often masks agenda. Charisma goes a long way toward hiding darker traits.

– everysperm_is_sacred

13. Self-care vs selfishness.

Aggressive self-care — sometimes people use this as a hard stop to get out of things that they do not want to do because you can’t argue with someone saying that they need self-care.

But there’s a line between doing what you need to in order to bolster emotional and mental health and being lazy/taking advantage of people who want to support self-care more.

– BoundlessResonance

14. Your nihilism isn’t impressive.

The super ultra laid back mentality.

Not everything is ok. Not everything is a joke or is cool.

It’s good to have boundaries and to take things seriously.

– coldbloodedcreatures

15. This one’s called the “Golden Mean Fallacy.”

Accepting the objective truth in the form of a compromise.

IE If one person says the sky is blue, and another says the sky is yellow, the compromise would be that the sky is green (blue and yellow mixed), which is onviously not the objective truth.

– LondonDude123

I highly recommend scrolling through some of the other top comments on the original post, it’s a really fascinating bit of human self-reflection.

What else could go on this list?

Tell us in the comments.

The post Behaviors That Seem Nice, But Are Toxic AF appeared first on UberFacts.