LOL

The basis of need here is the same as the attention-seekers above, only these people will only settle for the positive and sympathetic attention that comes with being sick or some other kind of distress. You know, without the whole "actually being sick" thing to bog them down.
In real life they can keep it up for years, because society doesn't make it easy to be skeptical in these situations. If you cast doubt on them and then later discover it was in fact true, suddenly you're the biggest douche on the planet.

"She may be out doing it right now. On the anonymous Internet, you can create a dozen different characters and when one of them starts to get boring the "parent" can just kill them off. This is clinically known as the LOST approach."

wtf? but here it is

no idea why i shared that.