I bet you heard the story of a woman who for about thirty years pretended to be blind so as not to communicate with people. And she really could have become the perfect illustration of the extreme form of sociopathy, if … it was not a fiction. We tell you how it all started, what was written about it in the world and who managed to find out the truth.
How it was
The fact that 57-year-old Carmen Jiménez from Madrid hid her ability to see not only from friends, but even from the closest people for many years, we learned thanks to the Spanish portal Hay Noticia. It was reported that a woman lost her sight many years ago due to a chronic illness. In any case, her friends and relatives thought so - because when the deception was finally revealed, it turned out that Carmen was simply tired of communicating with people to whom she, frankly, did not care.
Is it possible to make others believe in their blindness for 28 years? Carmen Jimenez obviously succeeded. On the other hand, it cannot be said that close people did not suspect anything. Jimenez's husband, for example, admitted to Hay Noticia reporters that he always noticed Carmen's ability to perfectly apply makeup or her attempts to look at the TV screen from around the corner. But the woman, nevertheless, did not admit that she saw perfectly.
“I'm tired of meeting people on the street and stopping to say hello to them. I was never a social person, and I pretended to be blind in order to avoid social responsibilities that drove me crazy,”commented Carmen Jimenez. In addition, thanks to membership in the Society of the Blind, the enterprising Spanish woman received financial assistance from the state.
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What is really
Above, we have presented a story that sounds amazing and, let's face it, implausible. However, faced with it for the first time, critical thinking turns out to be locked in a cycle of questions: "Seriously?", "How did she do it?", "Is this even possible?" and others with the same message.
That is why the media, which began to retell the life of Carmen Jimenez with reference to Hay Noticia, did not notice the obvious. The fact is that the portal that first published this news has an interesting slogan: “Don't believe everything on the internet”. That is, Hay Noticia is not a news, but a satirical portal that publishes fictional ones along with real stories. And, as we can see, some of them are becoming incredibly successful.
Versions of the story, in particular, were published on the viral "news" aggregators Viral Thread and Oddity Central, after which it was taken over by the media from different parts of the world (not to mention the "likes" and "shares" on social networks). BuzzFeed managed to get to the bottom of the truth. They also found out that the blonde with glasses in the photo is not Carmen Jimenez (which does not exist), but the model from one of the stock photos available for download on Pixabay.
Moral: Trust but verify. And always remember that mental disorders can certainly cause abnormal behavior, but definitely not on this scale.