u/Large_Tourist2383

I've lied about nearly every major fact of my life to the people around me. Not small lies. A full false identity.

I told people I was a post-bac, nearly a clinician. The truth is I struggled so badly with sciences that I got dropped from community college even after receiving bursaries. I don't have a bachelor's degree. I wanted to belong so bad I had to make fictions about my timeline too.

I told people I run a profitable company. It's a nonprofit that makes no money. No revenue, no real structure. Just an idea floating around.

I lied about my religion. I know exactly where I come from, but I was scared of being associated with beliefs assigned to me at birth that don't reflect my values. So I claimed to belong to a different group entirely.

I stole clothes from thrift stores. I've stopped, but I did it.

I gambled five figures into risky investments and lost most of it. I told no one. I don’t do the gambling anymore.

I got certified in tech. I lied about my test results. I barely remember how to do any of it.

I told people I had a frontline job. I didn't. I volunteered. I did save people’s lives. About 10 of them from medical emergencies.

I've been withdrawn from academic upgrading two or three times. I told this only to my sibling and my partner eventually.

Every single lie was built on the same thing, shame. Shame from my childhood, shame from my timeline not looking like everyone else's. I thought if I constructed a version of myself that looked successful, I could outrun what happened to me. Instead it ate me alive. The lies compounded. They got heavier. They attracted people that weren't good for me.

I am a liar. That is my confession.

EDIT: I signed up for group therapy, journal everyday to reflect on how I live authentically, staying away from gambling for a few yrs now, still working on the upgrading, forgiving my abusers in my childhood and learn that forgiveness doesn’t mean permission..

Just curious. I have seen quite a lot of you are not in your 20s anymore but some of us are still in early and mid 20s and we need to get educated by those older than us.

They know what they’re doing, they know they can be terrible and they just refuse to change.

You grow tired and depressed from explaining simple basic boundaries

They hate you as much as they hate themselves

Nothing is stable including how they see themselves. You will never win nobody wins not even they can win themselves.

Split every few months IS NOT normal.

You’re not happy they’re not happy. Nobody is happy.

When someone says “I don’t deserve your love” “please don’t love me”, listen. Act according to that. It’s not like they hide this truth from you.

Let’s not lose ourselves trying to barely hold the peace which will not last anyways.

Leaving them is painful but it's more painful to be with them.

This kindness will cost you

My adoptive mom had BPD. I am too familiar with it. They would lock me out for a week. Fast forward, I got myself a pwBPD as a partner who did exactly the same. Tantrums, chronically very low self esteem, name calling, devaluations, silent treatments, all my childhood replayed in my head. Manipulation is almost like a natural language and unavoidable to both of them. They are so so alike. None of them can hold down a relationship. None of them can go a week without exploding in massive, dramatic angry tantrums. No marriages last for more than a few months. My worth was tied so closely to being with this level of chaos and I’m learning so hard to build a self worth that has nothing to do with them. I had to do NC for both of them.

I see in both that I love both pwBPD that came to my life.. but I can’t be with them. You can only have this sort of compassion far away.

It took me therapies, meds and a wall full of stickies to remind myself I’m worthy enough of this world. I was 19 when I moved out of my adoptive parents’ place. I made 800 per month juggling college and part time work, paid over 400 in rent. That was worth it. It was so painful to leave people that you depended on for so long as a child, but it had to be done.. I nearly lost my life. I learned from the relationship that it’s possible for me to go back into that spiral if I proceed with it.. so I cut it off.

Raised by a pwBPD made me feel so bad about the condition. Makes me understand it, got so familiar to the point I attracted one of them. It felt safe it felt like home…

I’m learning to want something I’m not familiar with: stability, mutual growth, accountability and responsibility, putting up boundaries. Now I should focus on being responsible of my own identity outside of chaos. Leaving them is painful but necessary before I completely lost my sense of self.

Context: When I was a kid I was abused so badly for studying because I made mistakes and my adoptive parents didn’t like mistakes. Every mistake would turn into bruises on my body the next day. I was starved as a kid when I studied. Everything below an A is a guaranteed abuse: my adoptive parent would not talk to me for a week, I’d get yelled at and called names and pinched and thrown objects. I grew fear of making mistakes and studying. This happened for about 14 yrs of my life.

People only know about my achievements and I’m a high achiever. I got scholarships, I won awards, I got fellowships and published in academic journals which is miraculous considering the grades I got in community colleges. I feel isolated in this academic related trauma.

I’m in my mid twenties and I haven’t even done bachelor’s yet. I did upgrading and doing the coursework gave me so much anxiety and panic I avoided them altogether, got withdrawn, signed up again, panicked again and withdrawn again. This cycle repeated 2x. I feel broken.. Why am I like this? I’m otherwise “good” for my age. I don’t party, I don’t drink, I pursue athletics, I lead community projects.

I have gotten furthest that I have been before. I am studying. With ice cream. I feel like I’m so incompetent and useless and a broken thing.

STEM itself is no issue for me, it’s the intense panic I get when I do it not because the topic is intimidating I actually find sciences to make sense, but because the memories I got doing it.

I’m too stubborn to not do STEM. I know I gravitate to the subjects. I am naturally analytical. I just need to work around my trauma. I don’t want to “give in” to my trauma. Good advices would be something that helps me cope with my trauma than avoiding it altogether. My abuser will not win.

It makes me depressed I know they were horrible to me, none of my exes were that bad by the way. But the depression is there and I still have work and school that I need to juggle with. I’m so used to their chaos now my nervous system is adjusting with that absence of chaos. They broke up with me more than I can count.

My grades were plummeting because of all the stress I got from this relationship. I am fixing that and I feel empty I feel like idk myself without their chaos anymore. Will I ever get my life back? I’m in my 20s. Will I ever be somebody? Why did I let this happen to my life? Why did I let someone step on me for so long? Why did I let myself getting abused?

Anyone else has been in this boat? How do you cope with the depression and mending yourself back together. I’m proud to say I do NC. This felt like leaving my abusive adoptive parent all over again :(