[madworld42]

I live in a mad world of fictitious people and personalities. What I need to know is if this makes me a horrible person.

My earliest actions will go back to the days of AOL with screen names and email addresses. I had many. I had multiple accounts, some male, some female, some “people” to sit in rooms with me and fill up my buddy list.

Time went on and blogging became popular, especially on live journal. It seemed more female oriented, but I enjoyed being on the website anyway. However, I didn’t have a popular blog. I wanted the attention that other bloggers were receiving. I made multiple email addresses and multiple live journal accounts. I left myself comments. When real people saw that my blog was attracting attention, they gave me attention too.

Acceptance of other people has always been important. I was born in 1979 and grew up in a relatively safe period, but this period also required more interaction in person. When I didn’t fit in at school, I turned a lot to the internet world, and built up these profiles to show people in school that I could be accepted and that I was popular.

A few fake accounts turned into over 100, and spread across different websites as the internet and social networking grew. All these livejournal accounts then needed Myspace accounts, then facebook. I would post on my own profiles and leave myself comments. I would write back on their pages as if they were all conversations with people knew.

This became difficult when real people I knew wanted to add “mutual friends” and they started talking to these accounts. I talked back, sometimes for a few years and it spun out of control. I don’t know what to do because my real friends think these people are real. I guess the easiest thing would be to never use the fake accounts to talk to my real friends, or maybe to delete all the fake accounts, right?

Do you think I need to go out of my way and come clean? Do I tell my friends that the “people” they’ve been talking to are really me? How horrible would that be to find out? I think it would be easier and more polite to just try to stop. What do you think? My real friends have no personal attachments to these fake accounts, but I do imagine they would be very angry and confused to find out that they aren’t real people. I can’t even fathom how I would feel if an online friend turned out to be the fake creation of someone else and that the pictures, conversations and everything were not real. It’s been years. How would that feel?

This was never meant to be a mean joke against anyone else. I was never mean or rude to anyone else under the accounts. Everything started out to make myself feel better, to give me the attention I thought I deserved. What I realize is that I am more alone than ever. I spend hours every day talking to myself with these accounts, and I’ve isolated myself from real people.

I cant keep using my blogs to talk to myself. At times, to increase my popularity, I even copied and pasted other people’s entries as if they were my own. I then used the fake accounts to copy their replies and add the replies to my page.

I’ve given these accounts pictures, personalities, friends, desires, email addresses and now some have twitter accounts. Pretty much every site I joined, I wanted to be popular on. I wanted love, attention, and the higher my friend count grew, the more accepted I felt. I try to never bring up the internet in real life, because I don’t want to lie to my friends to their face.

I don’t know if what I’ve done is wrong. It was never meant to hurt or affect anyone else. Now I’m stuck. Do you think I need to come clean? Do you think I should just delete everything and pretend like it never happened? I can delete the Facebooks, Twitters, and Blog Accounts. Myspace, I’m not worried about. I haven’t logged in, in years.

Does this make my untrustworthy? Crazy? Is this a specific disorder?

I am now posting this on the biggest forums I can find. Invisionfree, Proboards, Healthboards, LiveJournal Boards, PsychBoards, and hope some of you out there can advise.

CAN ANYONE HELP ME?

[glok]

Welcome to the Community, madworld42. Your issues may require professional help.

I wish you well.

[gma45]

Welcome to PC! Wow what a tangled web we weave! Yes, I believe you need to stop this before someone really gets hurt. I think I would look into getting some counseling and see what they think you should do. I wish you the best.

[madworld42]

Right now, no one is hurt so to say. I just created a mess of my own lies and I'm sick of the deception. Would you two support me in just deleting everything? I don't know if there's a reason to tell my friends/family if they have no attachment to the false profiles. Do you agree? If the accounts disappeared forever, it would be as severe as me never posting here again You dont have strong attachments to me, and my friends dont have strong attachments to these false accounts. Would it be better to delete it all and take my secret to the grave? Or come clean?

I agree with Glok. The issue you have is a deep one. I have no doubt, however, that you can be helped by seeing a professional therapist or psychiatrist and I believe that's what you need to do.

[madworld42]

The answer isn't to see a doctor. They'll give me meds for the depression and send me home.

I just want your opinions on what to do with the accounts. I need to work through this personally too and I'm asking how you would feel if you were one of my friends. Would you forgive me ? Would you prefer if I never told you?

I do have enough self control to not log in again. I did that with myspace and another website so far. I think I just need to pick one site at a time, and delete all of it.

Then I can work on creating real friendships.

I dont have $200 / session to spend on a doctor. So any advice that will help me do this on my own or with real people is appreciated.

[IceColdSpear]

Originally Posted by madworld42

The answer isn't to see a doctor. They'll give me meds for the depression and send me home.

I just want your opinions on what to do with the accounts. I need to work through this personally too and I'm asking how you would feel if you were one of my friends. Would you forgive me ? Would you prefer if I never told you?

I do have enough self control to not log in again. I did that with myspace and another website so far. I think I just need to pick one site at a time, and delete all of it.

Then I can work on creating real friendships.

I dont have $200 / session to spend on a doctor. So any advice that will help me do this on my own or with real people is appreciated.

I know all about purging accounts, and deleting things on the Internet. I am a master at it. To make it look natural, I would recommend you delete only a few of the accounts, then don't log into the rest. If you delete them all, it might look suspicious. The Internet is fast moving and changing; people will eventually shrug off the situation and move on. Maybe even immediately.

If you truly feel like this could be a step forward to "creating real friendships" as you said, I would recommend you go through with it in a calculated way. You seem ready. Besides, didn't you say those accounts were years old anyway? Try looking at an old myspace account, or a Youtube comment that was made 8 years ago. Eventually, that stuff loses it's 'energy' or value, and no longer becomes relevant at all. It may be that your accounts and alternate personas are already irrelevant.... maybe.

I would also recommend for now not telling anybody. You have anonymity on your side, and like I said, the nature of the beast (the beast being the Internet), works in your advantage.

[Notoriousglo]

This seems to be a self-esteem issue for sure. No, I do not advise coming clean... they won't understand most likely. If you could clean up the mess without revealing yourself... that is the best idea. I think you need professional help...at least a confidante. This doesn't mean you have to take meds. Well, good luck.

[madworld42]

BTW, wasn't trying to sound rude. I do thank you all for your replies.

Yes, the accounts are very old. I haven't used any of the myspace ones since 2007, not even my own. I like the suggestion for the other accounts, especially for Twitter and FB. I can remove a few, or make them inactive, just a few at a time and gradually do this until I'm left with none.

I think I am ready to start a REAL blog and try to aquire real friends and replies. I really am sick of all the make believe.

[IceColdSpear]

Originally Posted by madworld42

BTW, wasn't trying to sound rude. I do thank you all for your replies.

Yes, the accounts are very old. I haven't used any of the myspace ones since 2007, not even my own. I like the suggestion for the other accounts, especially for Twitter and FB. I can remove a few, or make them inactive, just a few at a time and gradually do this until I'm left with none.

I think I am ready to start a REAL blog and try to aquire real friends and replies. I really am sick of all the make believe.

With all due respect, I want to say something here. I am going to do my best to sound polite and not blow what you just said out of proportion.

I can't tell you what to feel, but you seem to be worrying about a non-existent issue here my friend. Take everything I said in my previous post and think about what you said. I would be willing to bet that nobody even remembers those myspace accounts from 2007. Or the other accounts. If they do, it's probably ancient history in their minds anyway.

I think this issue is not bad at all. Take the advice that was given to you, and everything will be fine. People come and go on the Internet all the time; it is ever-changing, transient and always in a state of movement. I really don't think you have anything to worry about here. Take the advice, and that's it really!!

Besides, it could even be said that you aren't that person anymore. You yourself said those accounts were old; you expressed regret; you also expressed a willingness to fix the situation. I think everything is good here.

[madworld42]

The issue is that some accounts on other sites are still used IE FB and Twitter. Not used to interact with people. I used them recently to like my own posts, or retweet myself. Sounds pathetic, but I like how it makes my profile look.

The blogging I thought was more severe, since I was copying/pasting and having false conversations.

Either way, I think I will delete the accounts that I remember passwords to and just get rid of all temptation.

TY

[IceColdSpear]

Originally Posted by madworld42

The issue is that some accounts on other sites are still used IE FB and Twitter. Not used to interact with people. I used them recently to like my own posts, or retweet myself. Sounds pathetic, but I like how it makes my profile look.

The blogging I thought was more severe, since I was copying/pasting and having false conversations.

Either way, I think I will delete the accounts that I remember passwords to and just get rid of all temptation.

TY

Yeah, just delete a few and leave the rest to sit there. Play it right. The very fact that you denounce your previous activities and ask for help to move forward means that you are on the right path.

You can always start new, fresh accounts and then use them in the "proper" way, if you want.

[fluffbuster]

i agree w/ ICS 110% - look at even this forum - something said like 2wks ago is already gone and new topics are at hand every day. sure - if you want to go through archive and archive - but why? - rarely does anyone else.
the problem (along w/ self-esteem issues) - is your guilt is making you believe that people actually care about blogs or twitter or FB or myspace (geez - i haven't gone on my acct. since who knows when) - - - FYI - unless you are like the POTUS or a kardasian (sp) - no one remembers nothing from that time ago. unless you were publishing data/evidence that was backed by actual hard copy that was false and that data/evidence was cited by others - then everyone knows (or i hope everyone knows) that what's put on the internet should all be taken w/ a huge dose of salt and then some.
if you actually have online friends you want to keep - then keep those and the related personalities if necessary. but the rest of them - just ignore them, in time they'll all go away - or if you want to spend your time actually going about and 'deleting' them take the time - but that is sort of a non-sequiter since nothing can actually be 'deleted' from the internet.
it also sounds like you may have a OCD problem, which you may face or not, your call. i'm sure most of your real life friends actually know this, whether you know that or not. - - - of course the most obvious solution is to turn off your phone and your internet connection for a year - and you'd be surprised - nothing happened!