Hey everyone,

I hope everyone is doing alright in these wild times we are living in.

So I just wanted to share something that has been on my mind a lot lately:

On paper, I have a good life and a bright future. I am a 25-year-old male, athletic, funny, caring and friendly. I have a job that pays well, I get my bills payed on-time, drive a nice car, have food in my fridge, have a good range of hobbies (especially sports), have a small but loyal group of friends and acquaintances. I have an excellent relationship to all of my family members and visit/contact them regularly. I am someone who always helps people whenever I can, no matter my relationship to them and even if there is nothing in it for me.

People seek my advice and help, in my job but also in my personal life. I have excellent references from all my past employers. I am known in my family and colleagues as someone who keeps their promise and is very reliable. Many people tell me I am a good person and I have received gifts from people to thank me for when I helped them. This ranged from helping with job applications to picking people up from places at strange hours to helping people move/renovate and simply being someone to talk to whenever someone wasn’t feeling well.

I have never been arrested for anything (or even come close to it) and have a clean criminal record (my current job requires an extensive background check). I have also never intentionally physically or emotionally hurt anybody.

However, I have had one big problem in the past. When I was younger, it started around the age of 14-15, I was very insecure about myself and did not have much confidence. I moved around a lot as a kid due to my parents work and therefore always had to adjust to new people and new surroundings. For this reason, I told lies about myself and fabricated stories about myself and what I had experienced to sound cooler. This continued till after high school into my early 20s. Many of these stories were not far from the truth but I do feel very ashamed and guilty about some of the things I said/lied about. I look back and wish I had never said them. After high school, I travelled around a bit and pretended to be someone else on many of these trips, simply because I had low self esteem and didn’t know what I wanted in life. Often, I simply lied to avoid further questions because I was unsure about myself and my goals. Many of these moments are 5,6,7,8 or even more years ago. One day, I simply decided to stop telling lies as I realized it was a habit and I found it quite easy to stop, mainly because the people I had lied to I do not interact with on a daily basis as I am not in contact with them and/or don’t even live in the same country. None of these lies could also considered to be legally fraud or any other criminal offense.

I do not have contact to many of these people anymore, although still connected through social media. For those I am still in contact with, they know the truth about my present life and what I do but I have not come clean about (at least not all) of the past lies. My fear sometimes is that the people of my past that I have lied to will meet the people of my present and it will all come crashing down. I am scared that my current good reputation within my „circle“ and career will be ruined as I often read about how quick peoples reputations can be ruined.

It gets to the point that I have anxiety that someone from my past will, either by chance or through social media, interact with a person of my present and that the inconsistencies will come up.

I have talked to some close people of mine about this. I did not go into any details about my lies but did say that I used misrepresent myself in the past sometimes. Often, they said that I should not worry too much and that the past is that past and that we all have secrets. Furthermore, they say that nothing bad has happened yet and nobody is out to get me.

However, I still lay awake sometimes I night thinking about what could happen. I imagine the worst case scenarios about my future and that I am doomed.

Am I worried too much and overthinking this? Should I come clean to people from the past about my lies to avoid possible exposure in the future or simply let the past be the past?

Thanks :)