Dear caroline1234:

You are welcome.

“I think my main problem right now are the obsessive-compulsive thoughts“: your recurring thoughts are the Obsessive part of what may be your OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder), while the forced activity,  Compulsive part of your possible OCD may be this: “I can’t stop to google, and to write in my notes“.

“I think about everything I’ve ever done wrong and try to learn from it and change my behavior“- it is good and helpful to think about what we’ve done wrong so to learn and change our behavior, but to obsessively think about anything is not helpful and it is distressing and harmful.

“I.. start to think again ‘But my boyfriend deserves better, If he would knew aaaall of my thoughts and further actions I’m sure he wouldn’t want to be with me anymore‘”-

– (1) He doesn’t have the time to know all of your thousands of thoughts per day because he has his own thousands of thoughts per day, and he can’t think your thoughts and his own all in the same day, (2) I am sure that he wouldn’t want you to know all of his thoughts. No one would like his/ her thoughts exposed to another person: to live exposed like that would be a torture! We all have the right to privacy in regard to what is going on in between our ears.

“all I can think about is that I am / was a bad person“- would you like to elaborate on this as well as the very low self esteem you mentioned in your original post (“during my entire youth..  My self-esteem was very low“)?

anita

Dear caroline1234:

“My boyfriend now knows the real me. And we are so happy together. But right now I just can’t enjoy it“-

– because you believe that the real you is a bad person (“all I can think about is that I am / was a bad person”), and a bad person does not deserve to be happy.

“They are just mistakes and there’s no excuse for them“- do you feel that when you were a child, growing up, you made terrible mistakes that hurt your mother, or father?

anita

Dear caroline1234:

“do you think it is possible to change, and that if I really want to be the best for my boyfriend now, it’s alright to stay with him?“- yes, I do think that it’s possible for you to change: you already proved that! And I think it’s alright for you to stay with him, for as long as the two of you are good to each other. (Not perfectly good, because perfect behavior is not possible!)

“my mother knows about it.. said that she’s very proud of me and isn’t mad at all about things that happened when I was a teenager.. So she is very supportive..“- then accept her support, take in what she told you, that she is proud of you: close your eyes and with a smile, slowly can calmly breathe in her words, say to yourself: my mother is proud of me, and so am I.

anita

Dear caroline1234:

You are very welcome

“But somehow one fear replaces another“- it is fear that is behind obsessions, and if one obsession replaces another, maybe you suffer from OCD and (if you haven’t so far) seeing a medical doctor is a good idea..? I was diagnosed myself with OCD many years ago, but no longer suffer from the symptoms (obsessions and compulsions)

“Now I’m so afraid, that someday I’m having children and that they are just like me. That they have to struggle with lying as well“- lying is not genetic, it’s not passed on from parent to child. It is a learned behavior, not a hereditary/ innate behavior.

“I hope so much that I can prevent that by helping them to build a healthy self-confidence“- that is always a good idea, to help your children build a healthy self-confidence, (and to not destroy much of the  confidence they naturally have as young children, as many parents do, unfortunately).

“but than I think about that my parents are SUCH AMAZING people and still I turned out that way“- reads to me that you turned out to be a good person who cares about helping her future children to build a healthy self-confidence, a good person who cares about not lying to people, a good person who wants to be good to her boyfriend.. all good things.

If you do want to figure out what about your earlier childhood brought about the lying, we can talk about it, look for how it happened- if you want to do so, let me know.

anita

Dear caroline1234:

You are welcome! I hope seeing a therapist next Tuesday will bring about a positive change for you!

Regarding your older sister having been chronically ill and the center of attention, it is perhaps possible for you to further understand how it affected you without blaming your parents… or yourself, or your sister. Some things just happen and no one in the family is guilty for it, such as your sister’s chronic illness. Your parents, understandably paid her more attention than to the daughter who was not sick. And understandably, you felt unattended to, or less attended to, hurt and maybe angry.

As a result, you used to lie so to get the attention you craved (“I was a compulsive liar during my entire youth I think.. I used to make up boyfriends and dramatic stories to make my life seem more interesting and to (get) attention“, original post).

There is a website, kids health. org, whose aim is “to give families the tools and confidence to make the best health choices”. Under the title Caring for a Seriously Ill Child and the sub-title Dealing With Siblings, it reads:  “Family dynamics can be severely tested when a child is sick. Clinic visits, surgical procedures, and frequent checkups can throw big kinks into everyone’s schedules and take an emotional toll on the entire family…

“It’s common for siblings of a chronically ill child to become angry, sullen, resentful, fearful, or withdrawn. They may pick fights or fall behind in schoolwork. In all cases, parents should pay close attention, so that their other kids don’t feel pushed aside by the demands of their sick brother or sister…”-

– there is lots of advice given to parents by medical health professionals in this website, on a variety of issues. I imagine it could have helped your parents a bit, if they had access to it.

I think that it will help you to explore further, in therapy, how you felt growing up without the attention that you needed, how you developed therefore a kind of craving for attention and that craving led you to lie. Somewhere along the way of exploring this, you will forgive yourself for having lied in the past, removing your shame and guilt from those memories.

I hope to read from you again, anytime you want to post, and I would  like to read how the Tuesday meeting with the therapist goes.

anita

Dear caroline1234:

Good to read your update!

“I love him so much“- then don’t hurt him by telling him about that one long-ago kiss. Why cause him hurt.. (just so that you will feel less guilt for just a moment)?

“How do I cope with feeling guilty..?“- is the question in the title of your thread. My answer: not by hurting another person, particularly a person you say you love so much.

Keep talking about your guilty feelings with your therapist, and don’t use your boyfriend as a way to feel temporarily better.. (at his expense). If you are afraid that you will kiss another again, or otherwise cheat on your boyfriend- talk about it to your therapist (and here with me, if you want). If the situation is or becomes such that you are not in control of yourself-  then your boyfriend should know.

anita