Not trying to call you out but just want to know if it’s possible she did have hearing problems at school and you just didn’t know about it? My sister had grommets when she was in primary school and hardly anyone actually knew about it.
Or is it possible her mother convinced her that she was ill throughout school and she’s come to believe the lies?
The only reason I ask is because I think is such a bizarre thing to lie about! It’s so easy for people who went to school with her (like you) or friends and family to call her out for lying and maybe she doesn’t even realise that she’s lying!
At this point I’m thinking it’s either Munchausen's syndrome or Munchausen’s by proxy regarding her mother’s behaviour.
I am new to the thread so I am still catching up x
It's possible that she had some hearing problems, but not that was 'almost fully deaf until age 12' as she states. We knew each other well and I was sitting right next to her in class for about six months. She didn't have any problems responding to the teacher, didn't seem to be lip reading and didn't sign. We read lines together for the school play. I would have noticed it or at least someone would have mentioned it - I think it's really reaching to suggest, as some people have done on Twitter, that she could have been 'almost fully deaf' and no one noticed any signs or said anything about it, even her and her mother.
I think what has happened is that Jameela realised early on that embellishing things got her attention and concern (the 'substitute for love' I'm talking about). For some people, pushing it that bit further until it becomes outright lying is tempting, especially if no one ever admonished them or challenges their story. So something that had a grain of truth at one point is stretched and stretched to the point where it is simply a lie, but the person can still justify to themselves saying it, even though they deep down it's not true.
Check out my latest tweets & replies with Jameela's mother Shireen, under my Twitter
@obsessivelocust We actually managed to have a civil conversation and I so feel a degree of sympathy (more for her son), although I shall never trust her and I think she didn't anticipate that I would screenshot the hateful tweets that she later deleted. She can, like her daughter, be very charming when she wants to be, and knows how to elicit sympathy, but when you see the other side it's full of anger and vitriol. Notice how she can't go as far as to admit that either her or Jameela have been lying about anything and there are still lots of dramatisations and inconsistencies. She even told me the Jameela is apparently battling cervical cancer right at this very moment - I just can't believe it any more.
One thing I do agree with her is that both her and Jameela's behaviour comes from a place of trauma, even if that trauma is more mundane and less dramatic/elaborate than they both like to make out. But I did point out that we all experience trauma and at some point you have to take responsibility and break the cycle - not cause more harm by using the platform you are given to lie and co-opt causes.