strykkerr

I feel embarrassed by the term “compulsive liar,” because part of me feels like what I do is more interesting than that, but what it all boils down to is, yeah, I’m a compulsive liar.

For me, though, my problem is the compulsive need to create a new self. As a result I go through friends and relationships very quickly. I don’t get bored with the people around me, but rather, I get bored with the person I am around those people. So I have this compulsion to go out and find new people. New people means I get to pretend to be someone else. And the lies just follow.

I think I’d make a really good con artist. It comes so naturally to me. Does anyone else have this same problem?

It doesn’t matter what I do. I am going to be alone. I keep having these grand epiphanies where I finally realize how much I’ve been lying, to myself and to others, and how I never let anyone in and I close off to everyone and push people away before they get too close. Then I try to change, after they’ve called me out on it. I pray to God, and I tell everyone, “It’s for real this time. I’ve changed this time for good.” Then I am naked. Just plain me with nowhere to hide. And somehow I’m always shocked to realize how terrified I am of being known.

Apparently, I fear the same thing that I yearn for. I long to be known, understood, and loved. But as soon as it happens I am scared. Not consciously scared. There is no sense of fear. There’s really no time to fear, I guess. Because I stop it before it gets the chance to happen. Even now, when I want to let it happen, when I want to become vulnerable to the man I love, there are so many parts of me that I can’t give to him. He gets a certain version of me, and he gets walls. Behind the walls are many different things. One wall hides pain and tears and sensitivity. The next wall hides embarrassment. The next hides creativity and singing. And the last wall ultimately hides the selfish, vice-ridden person I really am. It hides a lot of evil. It hides the intangible things, the experiences I’ve stolen from people over the years. It hides guiltlessness. It is the innermost layer, the one that no one will ever see except for the small glimpses that the few who have been hurt by me have gotten.

Some come close…or so I let them believe. I let them think they’ve figured me out and if the acting wasn’t good enough before that, it gets phenomenal afterward. This is the part where they think I’ve changed. But it doesn’t take long for me to retreat back inside myself where I can go to the inner layer and be alone with me, where I and only I can understand and be understood.

And that is why I am going to end up alone.

It’s going to be hard to do this because the reason I need to get help is because I am afraid of getting close to anyone or having anyone know anything about me. I’m extremely secretive and all anyone ever gets is walls, and whatever version of me I want them to see.

I tried getting help when I was younger but at that point I was less aware of these fears. They were there, but I couldn’t pinpoint them and therefore therapy was useless. I’d walk into her office and be friendly and polite and just pretend everything was okay. And this sort of lying and acting comes so naturally to me that not even a trained psychologist could see it. She ended up calling my parents and telling them to stop sending me there; I was perfectly fine.

A family friend recently offered to provide me counseling at a low cost. So I’m going to take it. And I’ll tell her exactly what I just said here. And maybe she can break me. And once I’ve been broken, maybe someone can finally fix me.