TLDR: I lied about myself and lost all my friends when I told the truth.   


I have always hated myself and found comfort in pretending to be someone else. Anonymity is also really comforting. Around the beginning of 2021 I was freshly home from a long visit to the hospital and wanted a new start. I met some friends on a game and made the awful decision to lie about myself. Almost everything about myself, even things that didn't matter. I wanted to be a completely different person. And I was. It was, without a doubt, the happiest time of my life.  


I never spoke, not once, and I never showed my face. But I alluded to myself being tall and not a minor, when in reality I am pathetically short and only 16. The reason I lied about my age was that I was afraid of being treated like a child. The rest of my friends in the friend group were adults and I fit right in, nobody treated me differently, when some minors joined the friend group I saw how differently they were treated, nobody spoke about mature topics around them and it became awkward whenever any of them joined a call. That only cemented it further in my mind that there was no going back.  
But eventually, the guilt ate away at me. I told everything to my closest friend there, and for a little while things were ok. That one close friend knew the truth and I didn't feel as guilty. Eventually, due to such a good first reaction I gained the courage to tell my other friends. I told the leader of the friend group the main truth that mattered, my age, as it was the only lie that could have gotten others in trouble, and it was not a good nor bad reaction. It was mostly cold and distant. However, after this, my worst fear came true. The leader of the friend group told someone else about it without my permission. That person she told ended up hating me ruthlessly, and it broke me down until they ended up leaving the friend group.   


After that, I was incredibly afraid of telling anyone else. The leader of the friend group became condescending and dismissive toward me over time, because she wanted me to tell everyone else. My close friend sympathized with me and was the only reason I was okay around this time.   
After a while, though, my relationship with the close friend became rockier. It felt like I had nobody to turn to other than the people who still treated me like a human being, but it was only because they did not know the truth.  


What I feared eventually happened and the leader of the friend group told more people. My close friend even told my secrets. The only person I ever fully trusted had turned on me. With more people knowing my age, I was looked down upon and treated like a child. They would kick me out of normal calls because they didn't feel comfortable with me there. Eventually, I was kicked out of the server itself. That's when I knew it was my time to leave. Nobody wanted me around anymore. I left every game and server and social media they knew me on. I changed all of my names and deleted accounts. I had a fresh start again.   


That all happened around february this year. It's been downhill since then. When the times were good, they were the best days of my life. I had a reason to get out of bed every day - my friends would miss me if I didn't. I had a reason to stay alive, my friends would miss me if I died. Now, I am less online and have only my few IRL friends from high school and my family. Which is a good thing, but it means they know me as the pathetic, disappointing mess that I am.   


Sorry for the life story. I still haven't really gotten over it. I don't know if I ever will. My therapist thinks it very well may have caused me trauma and it was especially devastating to my social anxiety. Making friends will never be the same. Anyone can and will turn on me at any second, even if I love them with all my heart and trust them all the same. Living with that experience has changed me for good and I have trouble trusting people who I used to trust with my life. But I certainly will not tell any more big lies, and have not with this fresh start. But life is certainly a lot more dull now. Just had to get all that off my chest. If you're still reading, sorry for the long post and thank you.