I’m probably the last person in existence who should feel skeptical of someone else claim. Health claims or what have you. But I am.

See, last week, I was in the hospital with strep. Common knowledge all the same. It was bad. I got strep twice last month, only finishing the medication for the second round yesterday. I suffered with rebounds, fevers, inability to swallow, and other things. I was hospitalized because of heart problems that I’ve had since 2000. Suddenly, one of my friends has the same ailments as I do. It was amazing! Over the years, I’ve been feed seeds of doubt about this person, lying to the general online world, that they have things so badly and they’re not well. But when it turns into a pretty much word-for-word copy of what I just went through, I get kind of angry.

When you mis-represent yourself once, intentionally, it’s hard to believe anything else that you say. Not only that, being in this situation many other times, I have to say that when people lie about their health problems, online, it makes those of us who are telling the truth about ourselves that much harder to believe. I can scan medicine bottles. I can scan doctor forms. I can go to my appointments and take video of my doctor and I. The thing is, I shouldn’t have to. I shouldn’t have to go that extra step to prove what I am posting is true because someone decides to lie about themselves or steal my story.

I don’t publish my story online for it to be stolen or reproduced by someone who wants to pull a fast one on others. I don’t publish it because I want sympathy and attention. I don’t want either of those things. I just want to release what is there. Knowing that my site is read by over 100 people per day is still not a reality to me. They’re just numbers on a hit counter. I love all my visitors (I’d love ya even more if I knew who you were!), but I can’t control what people do once they visit my site. If they steal my entries, if they copy my story, if they get ‘inspired’ to start a blog about a dying woman in the prime of her life, it’s ultimately their choice. However, when they get busted, I have to deal with people questioning me. People sharing the home cell phone number on message boards, thinking if they called me, they’d have that ‘edge’ to trick me into whatever they want to hear. I can’t give people what they want to hear. I can only give them the truth. It’s not my fault if they choose not to believe it, or if they choose to discard it.

Take it or leave it. Someone out there is not who they claim to be. And I couldn’t be more disappointed in them.