Hello, I'm new here and I just need someone to talk to :)

Hi, I'm Kat and today is my 20th birthday.

I'm also a compulsive liar, although I've done quite a good job figuring out why I'm like this and I'm feeling good/confident in myself enough that I mostly don't do it anymore. I say "mostly" because there's this huge lie that I've told five years ago that I've been maintaining in order not to lose all of my friends. I don't want to do it and right now I'm at a place where I feel sick to my stomach every time I do. I plan on seeing a therapist on Monday and then figuring out what to do about it, but most likely I'm going to have to tell everyone and lose them all.

This is going to get long so if you get bored skip to the tl;dr version in the end, but I'd kind of appreciate if you didn't.

You see, I moved to my country's capital when I was fifteen in order to go to an academically prestigious high school there. After a short stint in a student residence, which I didn't like, I moved in with my grandpa who lives in what are basically the outskirts of the city. The thing is, my father told me that my parents might be getting jobs and moving there soon, too.

Here's the catch: he's a compulsive liar, too. He's also an alcoholic. It's like he lives in his head all the time to escape reality and talks about what he wishes would happen or what he thinks will make you like him. It's quite hard to get him out of it sometimes and he gets insulted or brushes it off when you do. So growing up with him has had quite a lot of negative consequences on my own relationship with the truth. Basically I had no relationship with it. I was used to him making loads of promises and then fulfilling basically none. I remember being surprised as a teen when people expected me to follow through on the plans that we'd made. When I talked to someone about something that was going to happen, or I saw hints of it happening, I talked as if it already had. I was basically doing the same thing my father was - escaping a reality where I was small and insignificant in order to feel better about myself.

My mother had lost her job then and was considering finding one in the capital and leaving my father. My mother is the sort of person who doesn't have the confidence or courage to do anything to improve her life, but she does spent hours talking and complaining about her problems to me as if I'm her therapist or something. She's been doing that for as far as I can remember.

Look, I'm not telling you all this too excuse myself. There is no excuse. I'm sure that there are plenty of people in situations like mine and they don't do what I did. It's my fault. I'm just trying to give you some context here so you can understand what happened next.

Most of the people at my new school lived in the capital city and came from seemingly normal families. There were a couple of people who lived in the student residences, too, but none of them had anything in common with me. They were the sort of quiet, studious and responsible people that I found annoying (note that I had been a valedictorian at my previous school and I'd won several nationwide competitions and basically I'm very, very clever and talented at pretty much everything I try doing. I'm not telling you this to brag and it's not a lie, I'm just trying to illustrate that God knows why I've been feeling like I'm not good enough for most of my life and also to say that whereas I had always been successful academically and very curious about the world, I don't have much of a mindset/personality of an intellectual); I fell in with the "cool" crowd. They all had seemingly normal homes and I felt embarrassed for living in the student residences/with grandpa. So I told them that my mother's moving here for sure for work, but my parents' marriage is in a bit of a rough spot so they may or may not divorce. See, I wanted this to happen and that's why I told it to them. I figured that it was inevitable that it would happen soon, anyway, now that Mum had lost the job and considering what both of them had been telling me.

So when I moved in with Grandpa I told them that I was moving in with my mother. I also felt embarrassed about living so far away (it's basically a village over here) so I moved the location of the flat about 20 minutes closer to the center of the city. I think I felt embarrassed about all this partly because my family moved to our small town because Dad got a job there and he had always loathed that part of the country and their mentality. For as far as I can remember he'd been insulting them and calling them our country's equivalent of "dumb hicks". When I was a kid my parents corrected me every time I started talking like the locals because they wanted me to speak correctly so I talked differently to them and to my friends at school. I never had the feeling that my small town was a home that I should be proud of, I never had the feeling that it had anything to do with me. It was just some place with dumb hicks in it that I felt embarrassed to be associated with. As for the flat's location, when I met my friends I quickly caught up to the fact that living there would face prejudice and pity for having to travel so far every day. I just didn't want people to pity me. I didn't want to feel like less than them.

Anyway, my mother never moved here. She just kept talking about it every time she came to visit. And I kept lying to people about where and with whom I lived in the delusional hopes that it would correct itself soon. I felt like $#%^ for being unable to invite people over or be really close to them. I had several really close friends that I really cared about but when they tried to get closer, I withdrew. I couldn't risk anyone finding out, I didn't have anyone else in this city.

When I was about seventeen I figured that it never would correct itself. Several things happened. The first one was finding out that my mum was having an affair with a colleague (she had found a new job in our town, though a much shittier one). I found their love letters accidentally on her computer. The second one was my grandpa, who is an odd person by himself and with whom I've never had much of a relationship because he gets angry over tiny things, flying into a rage over something small like leaving the water heater on and hitting me.

My father had my mother talk to grandpa and promised that he would rent me a flat on my own if things didn't get better. I was too used to not asking anything from him so I didn't push the issue much, even though I wanted him to. Soon after my Dad's own mother died. He was devastated. The issue was soon forgotten.

I figured that I ought to dig my way out of my lies on my own without anyone finding out. You know, lie until I come to the truth again. I decided that I would talk to my parents about getting a flat on my own and then make up a reason for why I was moving out. My mother's lover came in handy there - I told my friends that I found out about it, that she had been cheating on Dad with him and that they were still together. My disappointment and fury over her affair was genuine, so I didn't have to lie much. I figured I'd say that she wanted to move in with him and I didn't want to live with him so I was moving out.

So basically I was elaborating on my lies to get them to where I was really. In the meanwhile, I finished high school. In my senior year of high school, grandpa hit me again on New Year's Day for an equally small thing like the previous time. My parents made a lot of fuss about it and talked about it a lot but never did anything. My mother feels helpless, you see, she doesn't feel like she can make any difference. My father feels that way too, probably, behind his anger. I don't think this is an excuse for them, I'm just trying to make you understand.

I wanted to go to University abroad to escape my lies but I realized that I really didn't want to leave the city and my friends there. So I got into University here. Ironically enough, I picked psychology.

Anyway, I went back to my small town for the summer hols and told my Mum - like I had told both of them that winter - that I didn't want to live with grandpa anymore. Travelling for an hour back and forth every time I needed to go somewhere was exhausting me and eating up a lot of my time and he wasn't treating me well. Dad wanted me to go live in the student residences again (they're different, better, for university students) but how would I explain that to my friends? I was about to talk to him about renting a flat when, on my birthday last year, he started a big, pointless fight with Mum and said a lot of cruel things to both of us. After that, I didn't trust him with anything. I was furious. I decided that I would get money on my own and never talk to him again after that. That didn't pan out.

Right before I was to start Uni, grandpa bought another flat for me. It's in a bad location, but better off than the one I live in now. It's also very, very tiny, kind of unsafe and dark. When we bought it it consisted of a kitchenette with a door and a window and a room with no windows at all (and a bathroom). The front door is in the kitchenette and opens to a sort of back alley. We tore down a part of the wall between the kitchenette and the room so light could get in but it's still pretty terrible and dark.

Long story short, basically I eventually put my foot down and told Dad that I wouldn't live there and he said he'd rent me a flat and it's supposed to start happening in a couple of days. It's been nearly a year since we'd bought the flat but there were complications with the renovation and some paperwork.

Anyway, I kept lying to all my friends all this time. I met new people at Uni but I had to keep lying to them, too, because a lot of people knew some of my old friends. I was feeling rather self-destructive at the time. I was feeling like a bad person and felt the need to prove it. I promised myself that I would go abroad for my postgrad studies and start a new life where I didn't have to lie. I wanted to die.

That's when I met A. A. is basically what I had been looking for in a partner my whole life. I'm not a silly, delusional, lovestruck girl here, I'm being quite objective and you're going to have to trust me on this. I can't afford another long tangent about his personality and how he affects me, so if you want to know more (and you probably don't), ask and I'll elaborate on it. We could talk for hours. We share the same interests, beliefs, personality traits, everything. I fell in love.

A's got his own issues and he was in the process of overcoming them the whole time I had known him. He's really admirable that way. Most people I know just go through life doing the same stupid things again and again and never change. He's really intent on working through his issues and right now he's doing really well. He's an all-around great human being.

Anyway, when we met he was in an unhappy relationship that he wanted to end. And I was so scared of opening myself up to him. I kept sabotaging myself. I was bitchy, I was cold, I pretended I didn't care, then I was too passive because I was scared of doing anything wrong. Basically, I did every unattractive thing in the book. I didn't know how to be myself with him, having not been myself with anyone for a long, long time. I could see him for who he was and so I could see how great a couple we could be, but I never let him see me to the extent that he realized it himself. A lot of people on here say something like "I know that he/she wouldn't love me for myself" but, look, loving me for myself is the only way A /could/ love me. He's too developed a person for anything else.

Anyway, he didn't feel comfortable breaking off his relationship for someone who was behaving the way I did, though he could still see enough of me to be very attracted. So it dragged on for months (he never cheated, mind). At one point I gave up on my games and just started being myself and that's when he said that he was going to break it off with her and get together with me. He's very honest about his reactions to people and you can really tell the difference between when I'm being genuine and when I'm not. But after hearing that I panicked and withdrew again and he gave up and left.

I was devastated. This was the best thing that had ever happened to me and I'd messed it up because of my lies and my insecurity. So I started reading up on how to fix it. Eventually I found Mark Manson, he's some sort of a dating coach for men but he's got a lot of clever things to say about vulnerability and confidence and stuff. I also found Nathaniel Branden's book Six Pillars of Self-Esteem. This helped me understand a lot. Most self-help is shallow and helps you cover up and suppress the real you with superficial actions that imitate ones of a normal person, but these guys really go in deep.

So I started implementing it and my life started improving. However, I was kind of suppressing the fact that I was lying all the time, telling myself that I would circle back to the truth and never speak of it again and not thinking about the consequences to my self-worth and my mental health. I just preferred not thinking about it.

A came back and apologized for leaving. He'd broken it off with his gf. We got together. I told myself I'd get it right this time. He was opening myself up to me but I hardly told him anything about myself. I didn't even tell him how I felt about him leaving. Soon enough I freaked out and started sabotaging myself again. I became closed off and dull again. I was scared; it was my defense mechanism. Not being able to see me, he couldn't feel much for this passive shell of a girl so he broke it off after a month. When he broke it off, I realized my mistake. I called him and told him everything that I'd been going through in regards to our relationship, sans the big lie. He was very supportive and told me I should take some time to myself and figure out who I was. He had gone through a similar thing right before meeting me so he understood. He's great people, that guy.

I was so proud of what I had done. I had the feeling that I was getting my life back on track. I was finally happy with who I was, but I was still ignoring the fact that I was lying to everyone. I went to my parents' to clear my head.

Then my father got really drunk at a family reunion (the rest of the family wasn't better off, mind, as my uncle is pretty much as bad) and they all made fools of themselves arguing. He did some other things that I won't recount here in order to protect his dignity. I had a talk with him and was, for the first time, honest about how I felt about his problem. I kept my boundaries and was reasonable and mature. He heard me out, was impressed, promised he'd try to deal with his issues. People are so much more accommodating and reasonable when you're being genuine instead of closed off and manipulative. Though he may not stick with it.

I was so proud of myself. I promised myself that I would try to pick it up where we left off with A. I finally had it all figured out. I wanted to be genuine with people. I love my friends. There's so much love I want to share with everyone around me.

Then it struck me that I would never be able to do that, that I would never be able to form genuine close relationships, to give myself wholly to someone, if I kept on lying. I am finally proud of the real me but they can't see it because their opinion on me is based on the lies that I have been telling them for the past five years. Quite frankly, continuing with life this way, with everyone unable to see me, is a fate worse than death for me. I've grown to appreciate openness and vulnerability as the highest ideals in my life and I've messed it up from the start with everyone.

I don't want to keep on this way. I'm probably going to have to tell them. I'm going to see a therapist and talk about it first, to figure out the best way to do it. I'm going to hurt them all so much, I want to figure out the least painful way to do it. I feel so, so bad for it, but I feel like they deserve to know, even though it will likely result in me losing them. I can't strip them of their choice to decide whether to be friends with someone as bad as myself. That's manipulative. Lots of people on here keep telling "I swear I'm a good person" and maybe you are, but speaking for myself if I were a good person I wouldn't have done it in the first place. I was a selfish and scared and delusional person above all. But I want to be a good one even though I'm basically destroying all my chances of a normal social life with what I'm probably about to do.

I'm actually quite proud of myself right now for having come this far but I doubt it that my friends/victims would appreciate it much.

I was reading some sort of horoscope recently and apparently Jupiter has entered Leo and is giving me a chance for a fresh start and having all of my dreams come true. That's totally irrelevant (and likely completely false) but there was a sentence there that stayed with me, something along the lines of "If your phone were to ring right now, who would you most want it be and what would they tell you?"

If my phone were to ring right now it would be A and he would promise to be there for me through it all. If it weren't for him I would still be out there destroying my life. I have never believed in anything in my entire life the way I believe that we would have been perfect if I hadn't been a wreck.

But it probably won't happen.

Tl;dr: I have been lying to everyone about my family situation, where and with whom I live for the past five years. I am very close to having my lies circle back to the truth but I have improved enough psychologically that I feel good about myself and want people to see me for who I am. However, that means admitting to lying to them all along and after that they're probably going to never want to see me in any way. My father is a compulsive liar too and I think that's a part of the reason why I'm so messed up, so if you are one and have children please, please think of how it affects them. I have destroyed the best thing that has ever happened to me because of my lies. Learn from it if you can.

Anyway, if you want to talk about your own issues, I'm here. I'd really like to help other people like myself if I possibly can. Huh, I'm thinking that I might be a good person right now, even though I wasn't before. It's irrelevant, really, just don't do what I did.

'lily-

Quite a story. I have very little experience with this, so am probably not a good person for you to bounce off of. But I do not believe you are a compulsive liar (not saying you're lying about it, though, lol). For one thing, you seem too aware of the import of your actions- my sense is compulsive liars are lying to themselves, most of the time rather successfully, and you don't seem to me to fit that description.

Anyway, welcome to your 20's, it's sure to be an interesting decade. Happy b-day!

Well, I was like that. I was like that - living my own lies - for most of the time that I've talked about, actually, but I got better. See, I worked on myself until I got better and now I get it all. You could say that I've recovered from it quite a while ago, it's just that I'm not sure how to go about fixing what I've done. I had figured that, once I round it back to the truth, no one needs to know and I'll never do anything like it again but then I figured that I'm not sure if I could live with myself afterwards. That's why I need to see a professional, to figure out how to go about it.