I need serious advice (years of lying and delusions)

I need help...well, I guess I should first start by saying hello, and thank you to whoever will read through all of this.

I've been pretending to be someone else for years now, online. It had gotten the worst it's ever been almost two years ago. I was stealing photos of people from the internet and..it was just completely out of hand.

What made me temporarily stop this was also the most traumatic event of my life. And I feel torn between wanting to go back to escaping reality and just feeling undescribable guilt.

I've done research regarding similar stories and what could be 'wrong' with me, and I think I may have Dissociative Identity Disorder but on a level not quite as severe as others. I'm in no way one of those people who claim to have a mental disorder to appear interesting or cool. I want to be diagnosed so that I know the proper way to combat this.

What's holding me back though is that I don't want to admit what I've done to too many people. After all these years I've only recently told one of my friends, because I knew (since she herself has a mental disorder) she would be the most understanding. I know this is vague but, do you have any idea what might be the issue? Or if this is at least one symptom of DID? I just need a clue to base off of what this is.

Thank you for your time <3

I wouldn't say pretending to be someone else online is a symptom of DID. But there must be other things that have made you enquire about DID - what other "symptoms" are you feeling?

Bourbon

hi~ viiiljhviii~

How are you now? I understand what you meant, but i don't really think what you face is DID's symptoms. Individuals with DID don't have a complete memory and they would lose time easily. Some of them, the ones who with minor degree of DID symptoms, may also have the switching time--switching to be another personality/alter. I haven't heard any patients with DID could catch on what they have done or felt like you. Maybe, you are getting some problems and I agree you need help.

Best wishes to you! If you still feel upset, you are recommended to find some professional helps.

Welcome to back~!

I have DID and am very active online. I have never, to my knowledge, taken pictures of someone else and claimed they were me (with the exception of posting a picture of a very large man in a fairy costume and saying it was me as a joke).

The odd things I noticed over the years, prior to my knowledge of DID, was looking thru my internet history and seeing it have websites I don't remember at times I was sleeping. I participate in various forums and there were posts I didn't make at times I can't remember what I was doing. I've made claims of being different ages but now realize that those were the ages of those alters.

Since finding out I have DID, those odd things make sense. People that I talk to on those other sites think I have a drinking/drug problem and I just kinda go with that despite I rarely drink or do drugs. It is a nice coverup.

One of my alters writes short stories, one likes /b/, others like gaming forums, some like just general forums for discussing various subjects.

Before I found out about my DID, I found a post I made on a forum where I responded to someone and they wrote back "that's not the reply I thought you would make. What have you done with (my screen name)?" Someone, one of my others, had written "you didn't specify which one you wanted. I'm ____, so did you want ____ or ____?"

When I found that I was shocked. I left that website for a while.

So there can be weird online things and everyone is different. Just from my limited experience, what you described isn't very DID-like. I think it is more like that country song "I'm so much better online."

Like you don't like yourself in real life so you get behind a keyboard and pretend to be someone else as an escape. Nothing wrong with it as long as no one is getting hurt. Yet you wouldn't be here looking for help if no one was getting hurt.

Best to seek answers within and get the help of a therapist if you can't resolve this on your own.

viiiljhviii wrote:And I feel torn between wanting to go back to escaping reality and just feeling undescribable guilt.

I've done research regarding similar stories and what could be 'wrong' with me, and I think I may have Dissociative Identity Disorder but on a level not quite as severe as others. I'm in no way one of those people who claim to have a mental disorder to appear interesting or cool. I want to be diagnosed so that I know the proper way to combat this.

What's holding me back though is that I don't want to admit what I've done to too many people. After all these years I've only recently told one of my friends, because I knew (since she herself has a mental disorder) she would be the most understanding. I know this is vague but, do you have any idea what might be the issue? Or if this is at least one symptom of DID? I just need a clue to base off of what this is.

Actually, this all sounds uncomfortably familiar. My alter Quato has been a prolific liar through much of our lives. Now often this would get us out of preposterous jams. Like I once worked for IBM and had my wages garnished suddenly for past unpaid bills. I was up for a huge long-desired promotion and it should have been disastrous! But he had a long, involved, entirely believable story that just flowed out my mouth about why that happened (to save my family) and suddenly I looked like a real hero to my bosses. It kind of made me sick and I had no idea it was him but I couldn't deny I had somehow turned that around in the blink of an eye. These whoppers came out of nowhere again and again and always got me out of trouble I should never have gotten into. So I was thankful for "my" ability.

Quato has lied many times, in many places. Sometimes I believe he took over briefly and lied, sometimes just fed me the lies, I don't remember. I got incompletes one semester at college and ended up just leaving before finals. Absolutely no frickin idea why at the time, but I was sure I was dying and went to southern Florida. I sent some insane letter to my fraternity claiming I was dying of some horrible unnamed disease. I was convinced I was dying from a sexually transmitted disease, although it turned out it was just seasonal affective disorder and a day or two after I arrived in Miami (more sunshine) the depression was gone. The whole thing was outrageous and totally unlike me or anything I'd ever done. It was out of character for me, but not for Quato. I returned to school a couple weeks later to a freaked-out fraternity, he somehow explained our way out of it, and I was shortly elected president. He at least has been successful at the lies. I've had to work hard to "stop doing that" over the years, basically curtailing his influence I never knew about because I didn't know about him.

Now this may not be an alter for you, it might be something you yourself did to fulfill an unknown need. If you or an alter tend to lie profusely, and constructing some major bogus online identity sounds like a whopper, I would suggest that you look at what you got out of it. How it made you feel. Nobody does things, certainly nothing as elaborate as you make it sound for no reason at all. Quato lied so profusely, he manipulated other people, or sometimes had me do it, because he was lied to and manipulated by our father in my place so I didn't have to have that happen to me. It made him slightly mad (insane-type mad) and certainly not trusting of anyone, let alone me. We've moved beyond that now and he's doing much better. He's still bitter but one thing he no longer does is lie, though he still retains the skill in case we need it.

I would suggest that you not divulge everything that happened unless or until you have to. I think you probably have enough internal stuff to deal with without having to bare your soul or all its guilt and shame on top of that. Forgive yourself, even if you hurt people. Look into why you did it, resolve not to repeat it, and certainly get some professional assistance. Not just to help you with what you did, but to help you in general.

Ah yes, the way Quato chose to announce himself to me was by going onto my Facebook account while I slept and changing my own photo for one clearly suggesting DID.

Johnny-Jack wrote:Ah yes, the way Quato chose to announce himself to me was by going onto my Facebook account while I slept and changing my own photo for one clearly suggesting DID.

I like Quato. That's ###$ up but lulz.

As for the original poster of the thread- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histrionic ... y_disorder duh

Sighs..well I have the same problem...somewhat o_o
Like I don't have a illness of somesort but I've been on the internet for well since I was 8
& I'm a young teen now. & I've been lying about my identity since I was 12 or 11.. I sticked to the same Name
& Identity ofcours.. I just thought lying about it would make people like me better.. because all my school years I was never really popular or favored...& I had friends on the internet from playing online games like (Redbana, Audition. League of Legends.) & other sites I was on (DeviantART). & I just thought I'd be more easily accepted if I was someone diffrent. & Ofcours it was good for awhile but one of my close friends questioned me and I was devistated for awhile & I was able to fix it at times but I'm in a situation right now where he wants to me to do something..(I wont say, but it's nothing bad.) & I can't do it...because well I lied about everything..& It makes me just wanna forget everything on the internet and go on with life, but the connections I've made ....I mean I don't wanna forget everything I worked so hard for&my friends on the internet became pretty close people...and taught me a lot ... like a lot.& I can trust these people...trust me I'm not meeting random strangers on the internet..I've skyped with them. But I don't know what to do now...I aswell, don't wanna admit it because I'm to afraid of the consequences... and okay I'm sorry if this is long.. I just really needed to type this out because I was crying earlier about what I'm supposed to do to make my friend believe me...& we're basically on the same boat here. But meh..I hope this makes you feel a little better.

i know someone online who does this. after a year of talking to him he finally told me the truth and let me get to know him for him. At first like anyone else would of been, i was shocked. i often asked questions about it. he had told me he doesnt like doing it, he doesnt know why, and he doesnt know how to stop. Pretending to be someone else isnt d.i.d but i did google it awhile back to try and figure out why he might be doing this and it turns out its a big question mark? Alot of people do this and simply dont know why or how to stop. It is by far uncommon. It ranges from pretending.. to actually believe some of their own lies, so i think its probably worth going to talk to someone about it as it could get worse over time.
From what i could tell from other people talking about this problem is, its addicting and an escape mechanism but the end result is guilt etc.
The guy i was talking about above, even though he told me the truth about himself from time to time i still caught him in a lie.I believe a big part for him is compulsion. Regardless, i think its worth finding a therapist and talking to them about this. As hard as it might be coming face to face with someone about your problem it would be better to get some help now then realizing 10 years down the road your still doing it. Lots of people do this so your not alone.