Dear Aria,

The situation in which you told the lie was from a position of insecurity for you.

If it is something that doesn’t come up in conversation and you are able to easily forget about it, it doesn’t seem that significant. However the fact that you keep thinking about it is a source of suffering for you where the guilt is eating you up.

If your friends are true and you feel that they will understand that your reasons behind lying were not of any malicious nature then maybe you can venture in to telling them about it.

How are you currently dealing with your initial difficulties of feeling completely alone and nervousness?

Dear Aria,

Good to read about the increase in your confidence level and your involvement in volunteer opportunities.

Therapy seems like a good option as it will help you in resolving the underlying issues behind your depression which are often deep seated and have a nasty habit of recurring in different circumstances.

What are the other things that give you a sense of purpose? From your first post it looks like you value honesty and friendships.

Hope you are able to completely resolve both current and past issues.

Take care.

Dear Aria:

A bit of a summary of what you shared: when you were 13, while you were in middle school, you started cutting yourself, stopped once entering high school, then again when living with a roommate whose boyfriend lived there rent free. You didn’t cut yourself in the last five years, “but like before the idea of self harm sits in the back of my mind”.

You’ve been thinking about self harm more lately because of past mistakes and not being “where I wanted to be in live at this age”. One of those past mistakes is you telling a lie during an audition four years ago. You want to tell your friends that you lied but so much time has passed and you are afraid to lose them, to disappoint them.

My understanding: long before you were 13 life at home led you to believe that you are a terrible person (“I know I’m a terrible person”). There is intense emotional pain in believing such a thing about oneself. When you experienced escalating distress in middle school, you started cutting. The cutting creates “real pain”, a physical pain, undeniable. When that happens, the emotional pain becomes real, not hidden anymore, not vague. There is a relief when pain becomes visible, coming up from underneath the surface where it is vague, t the surface, where it is concrete. The relief is temporary at best, and then more pain is added knowing you are doing something.. weird, or unacceptable.

During times of escalating distress, you seek that relief.

The way to move forward, I believe, is in the following:

1. Continue to abstain from cutting and congratulations for your five years abstinence. This part is about not practicing a temporary relief that adds to your pain.

2. The pain needs to come up from underneath the surface, from where it is vague, to the surface, becoming clear, concrete. This will involve not one act hat takes a minute or less,  but an ongoing process that will take months.

You can tell your friends about the lie of four years ago, but it will not do what #2 will. Nothing will except for what I suggested.

Psychotherapy with a capable, empathetic, honest therapist is a place to do what I suggested. If you , if you want, if you feel comfortable doing so you can share more about that pain, bring it up to the surface,  exposing the pain here, using words. If you do, I will attentively read and my reply to you will be empathetic and gentle.

anita