Did anyone ever worry that there are posters on here that lie?

I wouldnt worry about it as in the case of catfishing, I think it is everyones choice to get involved or not get involved. I dont think on a site like this there is too much exaggerating as a lot of the things I have read (I have read for 9 mos but only joined tonite!) are about "normal" ...many times I read for hours and said to myself, "That sounds like my mom!"

No, I don't worry about it either. Each person has a different experience, also experiences vary from person to person

On a forum like this why play with people?? A lot of ccaregivers are going thru some trying times with family and they need supportive, sincere feedback. Please realize that because some caregivers have put their lives on hold to do this they may have no other support but this forum. And they need feedback and ideas that are positive and not fictional or manipulative.

If people are lying on this site, they have NO life. I can't imagine coming here if I didn't have this situation going on in my life. There are so many other amazing possibilities to spend time on.

When I found this site I was comforted, only responded to a blog when I felt my experience could comfort or help and much written here is helpful.
I did have the experience where someone replied with somewhat rude statements to one of my concerns ( Im learning something new everyday about caregiving, advocating and how family members act when a loved one is ill) if someone is a "catfish" they are being as insensitive as some of our family members are ...who haven't walked an inch in the caregivers shoes. It's great to have an opinion and we all are entitled to it, it's too bad that people prey on others when they are down. To all those who are caring for a loved one, at the end of the day you have made the differance in the quality of thier lives and they do appreciate us even though they may not always show it!

Don't wanna know. Feel quite sorry for them

I get up every day and hope I have the strength to put one foot in front of the other. I don't lie. I don't care enough to lie. And I am not one bit interested in meeting anyone on the net other than to find hope, encouragement and advice.

We all know there are folks on here who fabricate and stretch....it only takes me reading them a few times to read the contradictions, and unless they go after someone, I don't respond... and then depending on the circumstances, I still don't respond..... I have too much going on in my own life to read 'soap operas' and seek out the folks that are REAL, compassionate, but yet will love me enough to tell me the truth..... via email...... lol.......

I guess it adds to the caregiver doldrums sometimes to read some outlandish claims, or never ending victimhood.....but I am glad you started this thread Mish, the fact that it keeps coming back gives us a place to say how we feel about certain people without going into attack mode on another thread....
Ya'll weren't talking about ME were you????? LOLOLOL I'm laughing about this last comment I made, but will get the Kleenex ready in case others do not see the humor.....hugs to all who give a damn, who are here for the right reasons.... and may we all find what we need here, and give some back....

What Book said. :)

By the way, Mish, those of us who have grown to know your style of writing knows what you mean in the lighthearted way you have always been. I definitely get your sense of humor. I think you're doing a great job handling your mom and daughter.

Well I've been perusing profiles and activities, and I do believe we are all taking about the same poster. Now I have a stupid Sinatra/Sammy Davis Jr. song stuck in my head. ......been a pirate a pauper a paralegal a pilot, a nurse and a bitch....up and out and over a down, and I KNOW EVERYTHING! Sorry if my attempt at humor and my innate desire to clarify things upsets any one. If it does, just click the ignore button. :)

HUH?

so if your going to be an advocate for a helpless person, your going to have to stand your ground with jealous siblings and shoddy ' professionals ' . booklearned does not necessarily mean intelligent. again, just my opinion.
lose the guilt. the elder trusts you and has usually selected you years in advance . they are old, not stupid.
so if you are reading this nurse nancy, blomedogface..

MishkaM, I'm so glad you are on a date with Hubby tonight! But, please, please, do not have a drink for each of us ... that would trade one problem for another. But you could sure have a drink or two for all of us combined. :-)

ive been cutting and welding all day with a 25 mph breeze blowing up my asscrack. ( the miniskirt ) . you guys are the real deal. i dont plan to leave here because ive developed a helluva respect for people who give . personal care for societys most vulnerable is imo 95 % phsycological duress. im still shifting thru emotions that i have never experienced before. the ever present guilt is one that i let go of long ago tho. ( fortunately ) . i lost the guilt trip one day when a sharptongued hospiss nurse asked me if i thought i was doing a good job. i told her i certainly did and then let her stew on the silence which followed. she clearly noticed that i didnt ask her opinion of how i was doing as a carer because i didnt care what she thought. CHING, beotch !!

A catfish can be dangerous if they attack the poster asking for help. If the poster is at the end of their ropes, comes here asking for help, and gets attacked verbally.

I have never ever been on an online forum. This site was my first - and I was seriously suicidal - and needed help ASAP due to caring for 2 bedridden parents by myself and full-time job. I am just soooo glad that those who responded treated me nicely. ... A few months ago, I have seen posters be very rude and accusing to the poster asking for help, I stopped hopping around .... Only one time I responded - via the Wall for privacy in a nice way reminding the poster that this site is for encouragement and knowledge - not to be accused of what she said. That poster responded on my Wall very rudely and told me that she has the right to write whatever she wants "freedom of speech" and then had the nerve to tell Me NOT to write on her wall??? So, where is My "freedom of speech"?... Does it only apply to her and no one else? Anyway, since she didn't want me to write it on her wall, I went back to the thread she made those terrible comments and responded back to her ... Unfortunately, several people read what she said on my Wall and were so worried about me. I reassured them that I was fine. I Rarely Interfere in a thread when someone is being mean or hurtful. But this one time, I just could Not keep quiet.

Good advice Countrymouse! And I love your profile name.

jeannegibbs -HI! So glad to see you back!!! Hope you are well. ((( hugs))) I did not tell the admin. at the time I did not have as much info that I have now ( without going into detail there is a site that keeps track of people's posts and every once in awhile -- usually when I feel the need to be angry at someone 0.o --I look at it and read what she has been up to around the web. I really NEED to stop!!) and I have not seen her on here for a bit so.... And I do worry that a mental illness is involved and , actually, wish I had not even started this thread, but I did so.....


ANYHOO--I think that the majority of the peeps on this board are awesome! And we should just forget about this whole thread!!!!!!

And I got respite tonight for my girl and am going out with my husband!! YAY! Sooo, I will have a drink for you all-- even you catfish --- ( kidding!)

Not so crabby now.

Blessings!!!!

This forum is a breath of fresh air! Please don't change a thing, I've only just found it and for the first time people I want to share caring with. UK equivalents are miserable, apathetic, negative and whiney - or else so aggressive it's really quite a worry. Seriously, I'm thinking of emigrating once my caring days are done.

What's the worst a catfish can do? They just bump along the bottom and get fat. Sit easy.

Rule of thumb, though - if you don't want the world to know it, don't put it online. Given the times we live in, anything you put on the web is potentially public property. Stay safe!

I wish AC had the option to edit or delete my own posts.

I wish AC had an "ignore" option like other sites.

There sure are fibbers and confrontationlists. I actually enjoy those posts only because they are so outrageous that I end up laughing out loud. It helps me cope when I feel like crying, but end up laughing. What a stress reliever for me. These posts use to bother me until I decided to read them from a more humerous point of view. There are some whopper posters out there: judgementalists, the know it alls, warped senses of humor, extreme language utilizers and they all have one thing it common, making me laugh at their dubious expense. So take a cue from Bob Marley, "Don't worry be Happy!"

MishkaM, have you reported what you discovered to the administrators? I would.

There is a poster here that is nasty, confrontational, condescending, rude, and thinks she knows more than anyone else. Many have called her out on her attitude, including me. There is another one, male, who is similar, not as bad, but I think he is an asshole and I ignore him as much as I can. Two out of all you wonderful people, isn't a bad average.
I did post, a week or so ago, That lately there are MANY new posts, from people with no activity on their wall, that tell these elaborate stories. We, as caring people give them advise and sympathy and spend time to help them, and they NEVER post again. AC deleted that post. I check profiles now, before wasting my time on these trolls.
BTW...the male is NOT capt!!!! This male has made it quite clear that he is jealous of all the attention the wonderful, loving, supportive capt gets here.
Sorry, had to speak my mind. I always do! Love to the TRUE caregivers and supporters here!

Hi Eddie,
Wow, what an angry post. That doesn't really sound like you. Are you OK? I am so sorry for what you have been through but I do not believe we all have a hustle. I refuse to believe that. It is too depressing.
That said, I started this post , not to talk about someone, but to see if it would bother anyone that I found out a very hostile poster on here has, in fact, created an incredible web of lies and is not a caregiver. Again, very very easy to find on the world wide web. As vulnerable as we sometimes ( often) get I found it very disturbing that said poster would take someone's pain and life story and twist it to benefit their own warped need for attention-- but not even the need for attention as much as the need to make others feel bad and build up their own false achievements.

I dropped it awhile back but this thread has a way of resurfacing and I again feel the need to explain. I was not asking if anyone thinks there are posters on here pretending to be skinny when they are indeed overweight to get a date :/ I was concerned about the vitriol this one poster had and her lies. Most don't seem to care --so be it. I find it terrible but I also read many other posts by same poster on different forums that were just horribly mean and self righteous. I know I should not let it bother me but , you know what, I am human, and I am struggling and sometimes being able to be mad at a mean, lying poster is a vice I indulge in. Call it displaced anger.

Still crabby. Sorry.

I do think some stories are embellished and some opinions just plain wrong and often hurtful. However tempted as I am I don't engage. Why start a fight. You soon get to know the "real" people.
By the way I don't think the Capt is a 13 year old girl in a mini skirt tapping away on her princess bed - but I could be wrong?

I think we have catfishers here as well as internet trolls. Some of the discussions become way too confrontational and others completely unbelievable.these are the discussions I will usually leave alone. Stress level for caregivers is too high to get all riled up and involved in something that may or may not be true. When a user name is changed or someone is new to the site I tend to be more cautious as well.

No Sebring. ... To be totally honest, I haven't met any catfishers in this forum. Lots of highly emotional people in need of support; but no "players." I don't really caregive anymore, but even if I were that kind of game takes a lot more strength than we have. Talk to you later.

eddie, id agree that americans are rather ( pretentious ? ) but man, south of the american border in more desperate countries , deceipt is a tool of survival. i could be mistaken but i aint leaving central indiana to find out.

im sorry you got catfished. its hard to find decent people since most hide. i have no hustle. i moved back here because dad was scared. this is a job that is very stressfull, i dont see how people are confusing this site with a catfish one. you didnt meet anybody on this site to date did you?

Mish,

My father used to say "When you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything." As a young boy, I believed people would always do the right thing; and that the truth would set you free. Translation: I was a blind, idealistic idiot. When I moved to the US, I got "catfished" many times. Most of the time by my birth mother; a cokehead half-sister; an aunt on dope since the age of 13; a gay half-brother who "didn't have any place to go" and ran out with all the Xmas presents while I slept; an uncle who took me on a tour of Times Square, got some $ from some fat guy at a porn bookstore, and told me to get on his van for some kitchen repairs at the man's apartment. I ended up on an abandoned building in the South Bronx, he ripped my clothes off and beat me for not putting out. One punch after another, he kept screaming "I pay, you owe."

A little too gritty for your taste? Well, another thing that I learned here in hypocritical, puritanical America is that people demand honesty from you but when you give it to them they don't know what to do with it. ... This forum's moderators might not be comfortable with this post and sanitize it a little bit. Some members might say "It's not what you say Eddie, it's how you say it;" or "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all." ... Freedom of speech -- even when you're not crude, crass, and obscene, can be very expensive. Because truth is so strange, some people sugarcoat things, adopt a teflon-like political language & attitude to camouflage their real selves, lie & fabricate to color their drab lives or to signal they actually exist. Many times, in my experience, self-serving predators make up some kind of front to use me, abuse me, or hurt me in some way. To "catfish" me like the 38-27-42 bombshell from a website who 4 months ago turned out to be a 350+ lb., boozing, Bohemian woman on the 6th floor of a dumpy, Lower East Side tenement. ... In retrospect, she didn't play me. I played myself.

What I'm trying to say Mish is that EVERYONE has a hustle. Call it "catfish," attention-seeking boohoohoo stories, legends-in-their-own-minds playing the victim, condescending know-it-alls, and Ernest Hemingways of BS who've never "caregived" the scrawny chickens in their own backyards.

So keep your eyes and ears open; and find your niche between predators and prey so you don't get "catfished." ... Also, remember that the more you talk about others the more you say about yourself.