
This story was told to Shona Hendley. Names have been changes and some specific details have been omitted for anonymity. The feature image used is a stock image.
Like Belle Gibson, I too faked a cancer diagnosis.
I lied to my family and friends, and I even lied to myself.
It was over ten years ago now, but I still carry with me an enormous sense of guilt about what I did.
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I also feel sad for myself back then because I was sick, just in a different way. I was in such in a poor place mentally. I wasn’t me.
Looking back on it, and telling you, makes me feel nauseous. There’s a sinking feeling; my blood feels like it’s draining from my body. But more than anything I feel heartbroken that I felt this was my only option. The only way to make me feel loved.
I want to explicitly state that I am in no way trying to defend my choices; I know what I did was completely wrong. More than wrong. It was incomprehensible for so many reasons.
With the power and healing nature of time, therapy and maturing I can see that. But then, aged 22, I couldn’t.
I grew up in an unequivocally loving family. My parents were caring, devoted, present – really everything you could want in parents. My sister and I were always close. Rachel* was younger than me by two years, so we were similar in age and from this stemmed a beautiful relationship as sisters and as friends. For years we were inseparable. These are my favourite childhood memories, and I know they are for Rachel too.
But when Rachel was ten, she began to get sick – a lot. For years the doctors couldn’t work out what it was, until after two years of Rachel first experiencing symptoms, she was diagnosed with a chronic medical condition. The symptoms are treatable, but the illness itself is incurable.
When Rachel began experiencing symptoms and they started to impact her daily life, we went from being inseparable to slowly drifting apart from one another. It wasn’t a conscious decision; often it would just be the fact that I was at school while Rachel was at home or in the hospital and we found ourselves in different places physically – but due to this, also in different places mentally.
Top Comments
Does the author feel better now that she has told even more people about her lies to garner even more sympathy?
No time for an article that tries to garner sympathy for the likes of Belle Gibson. I don't care if she's mentally unwell - she's preyed on vulnerable people, taken their money and potentially killed them in the process. She's not a victim. Having a mental illness doesn't give you a pass for causing harm to others.
Particularly not in the malevolent calculated way she has
People who believed Belle Gibson only have themselves to blame.
Why would you listen to a silly woman with no medical credibility?
There are no cures for GBMs which is what she claimed she was terminally ill with.
Wake up!
I find the whole story hilarious actually it is that ridiculous!
Belle deserves an academy award for her acting and performances in public.
While I agree with your sentiments about spruikers, it has to be difficult to hear from every specialist "we've done everything we can, it's spread too far, the prognosis in these cases is 6 months".
These are vulnerable people clutching at straws (which makes spruikers even more abhorrent). Yes, the patient may be to blame, but I can understand why they do it.
I will never understand the stupidity of people.
My 17 year old daughter died from a Grade IV Glioblastoma and we were told from the outset that the prognosis was poor and we knew we did not have much time.
My daughter had surgery and radiation, but the chemo made her too sick.
This type of cancer is so aggressive and so fast and we just had to accept what is and treasure what little time we had left.
We had 15 months and had to watch our beautiful daughter suffer and die in front of us and there was nothing we could do about it,
I remember all of this going on with Belle Gibson at the time but I thought what a crock of shit ....this woman is insane!
I never for a minute believed such nonsense!
Use some common sense...we had the world’s best neurosurgeon telling us we did not have much time .......we believed him!
You can remain hopeful but clutching at straws is something I have never and will never do.