The truth

I am pretty new to this site and cannot believe that someone would come on here and pretend they have cancer WHY would someone do that. My dad has cancer and possibly my mum and every morning I wake up and remember that this terrible disease is in our lives. So I come on here as its full of lovely caring people so brave and inspirational, how low can someone be to take advantage of people's kindness and make up so many lies. Sick. Tempting fate comes to mind..........

To Everyone who's posted here,

The purpose of this Community is to provide a safe and supportive space to enable anyone affected by cancer to talk openly about their experiences. 

The member who has blogged above does not have cancer and has not been directly affected by cancer, but as John has pointed out, the fact that she has constructed and acted out this deception for so long clearly indicates there is a support need of another kind. We will be in touch with her to suggest where she might be able to find this support. 

For everyone who has spent time supporting and helping pjqueen -  this must be an incredibly difficult and upsetting time. However, I would like to thank you as well, because this Community relies on people like you to offer genuine warmth, support and comfort to people going through the most difficult times in their lives. 

An unfortunate truth about this Community - and it's one that many online communities face -  is that it's impossible for us to verify that each person has had the experiences they say they have had without putting up barriers that might prevent people receiving the support they need.  For this reason, we will continue to take the position that it's better to support everyone, rather than risk someone legitimate not getting the help they need.  

In terms of safeguarding yourselves against this kind of situation, please think very carefully before giving out any of your personal contact details. One of the reasons for this is that we can only investigate and take action against things which happen on this Community. As soon as connections are made outside of this site, it becomes impossible for us to keep track of or look into suspicious situations.

If you have any questions or concerns about this, please do get in touch - our email address is community@macmillan.org.uk. 

Laura

im absolutely shocked and hurt cant believe anyone could do such a thing as to pretend that they have cancer!There are so many loving genuine people here suffering and yet still supporting others through their troubles too, it make me sick to think that we could be fooled in this way because we are caring trusting people who just want to help.The pain i have felt over the last few months has been undescribable and i wouldnt wish it on anyone but still i was there for cadee just the same as i would have been for anyone.......i just cant believe what im hearing!

cadee.....hope you are feeling the loss in your heart right now like most of us here are,im disgusted thought you was a lovely person........how wrong was i!!

great pretender......i hope your feeling better for having your say as its obviously something you needed to get off your chest but solent can only be accused of being a genuine caring person who was fooled by a vey good actress just the same as many of us......none of us are bad people we just get sucked in at times cause we take others on our own values and want to see the good in everyone.

hope we the mac community can pull together and support each other......its unfortunate but at times these situations and fakes arise we just have to keep our gaurd up and help protect each other,i think this particular situation will have opened a lot of peoples eyes i know it has mine

lins xxx

No-one is accusing anyone to be fair. Neither of my posts accuse or castigate anyone for being trusting or caring. I have trusted and been let down several times on here but met so many lovely people that it's still worth it. Perhaps sometimes our Internet life takes over our real life and our judgemnet gets skewed. Something that everyone needs to be aware of. Yes, offer love and support but not at the expense of our own well-being. The story was so tragic and roller-coaster that many were drawn in. Oddly enough the things that made most people believe were the very things that red-flagged her for me.

The point we are making is that all though many people knew us, supported and received support from us they turned on us, mostly Claire, quite viciously. We weren't told they had a different opinion, fair enough, move on, Claire was publicly villified and made out to be a terrible person. Even though her doubts were voiced privately.

The top and bottom of it is that we are good people. Claire is one of the most loyal, caring and loving people I have ever come across and I'm happy to go forward with her in my life. She was treated very badly and deserved better from people who were supposed to be her friends.

So it's not haha you were fooled, stupid, sucked in - it's a remeber this in future and give everyone a fair chance/hearing which ever side of the story we/they are on.

I agree with JohnOconner - Cadee may not have cancer but she is just as ill in another way and does not deserve to be slagged off the way some have. mental illness is just awful - and it can cause a lot of distress; i speak as one who has cancer and has had clinical depression and still suffers from anxiety, and mood swings.

I was chatting with a member here last night who is a psychiatric nurse and this is a know condition - inventing a different life for yourself.

I know McMillan is not 'Mind' the charity for mental illness - but we should be as caring for people with mental issues as we have with cancer - indeed many cancer patients have mental problems too - so we should at least try to understand.

As for those that said she was fake earlier and we questioned them - they should have made their feelings known to mac Admin and a few other regulars here in a more comprehensive manner; if they had and we had been able to find out the truth - then many months of anguise for us and for cadee would have been prevented. I think MacMillan have an important role here and need to listen to our concerns more and act accordingly, as sometimes they have been told of suspicious characters - and have been slow to act, and eventually we have been proved right.

Two of the people closest to helping Cadee I would regard as good friends here, and i believe they did a wonderful job helping a soul in a very dark place. I have been in close contact with one of them for the last few days, and i greatly admire how she has handled this situation despite her own recent personal bereavement.  I met Cadee over a four day period on holiday with others here recently and she came across as a very nice if sad person - little did i realise why she was so sad.

I know  now that her parents know about this - and hope they will help her seek professional help and she can regain some normally.

I don't know how we can prevent this sort of thing happening on an open website - all are welcomed and helped and given support. Many of us are vigilant and have exposed many fakes fairly quickly - some of these cases have not been made public - and in some cases we have continued for a while to converse with the people concerned as some of us recognise they need as much help as cancer patients - albeit in a different way. But this and the Anna/charly case have been very different.

Let's have some forgiveness folks - there but for the grace of God go many of us.

God Bless

Mal