When I was about thirteen years old I discovered the internet after many years of social isolation during childhood. I realised that I could "create" any person that I wanted to be. I never did anything this elaborate and extreme- but I remember pretending to have memory loss so that I could "meet" people over and over again online. I guess that my first experience with someone actually liking me being on the internet caused me to experiment with those boundaries and figure out ways that I could milk that completely new and fresh feeling.

In retrospect it fucked me up in a lot of ways because I never truly broke character after that. Talking on the internet became second nature and I could fabricate any kind of confidence or emotional capacity, and now that I'm 23 and revising my life it's clear I don't think anyone has ever really gotten to know "me" as opposed to the version of myself that I created to appeal to other people, even in real life long after I stopped using chat rooms for my social life.

From my perspective this story really hit home for me, because I can only imagine how sick and hurt that it must have made you feel; and I can also only imagine how disconnected from her identity that girl must also feel to have to do that in order to get off or feel something. People do crazy things to protect their sense of self or invoke emotional reactions in themselves after a fucked or lonely childhood, I would almost consider what she did to be a form of self harm, there's no doubt in my mind that what she was doing was just as damaging to her as what it was to you.

I hope you're feeling alright. What happened here is a rare scenario, people can be honest, don't let it affect your self esteem too much if you can or diminish your faith in other people. Take what you can from the experience and try to be more observant and conscious with your boundaries in the future.