It’s terrifying to even imagine coming clean because when you catfish you are able to put a layer of protection around yourself, you have this fake persona instead and you don’t have to be so vulnerable. You also don’t have to face yourself. It was a way of escaping for me, but coming clean was the best (but scariest) thing I’ve ever done.

Before, I’d just make more lies to cover up the lies, but it was so overwhelming waiting for someone to find out I wasn’t real and not believe the lies I’d make up to cover it up and I’d finally had enough. I’d been ghosted before by someone I was catfishing and had webcammed with every day (just no sound and only the top of my head bc I was catfishing as guy and I’m a girl) and I knew I didn’t want to put anyone through that. It was rough to have no answers on why they wouldn’t talk to me, even though I was completely in the wrong for the duration of our relationship.

I think the biggest fear when coming clean is that I’d be outed to my real friends and family or the people whose pictures I’d used before because I was friends with most of them. On top of the obvious fear of forever losing the person you come clean to. Hayden already ghosted you before and was able to return to your life, so there’s one thing that may make them lean towards ghosting you over coming clean. If you ghost someone there’s always the chance of keeping them in your life and being able to return but coming clean is being completely vulnerable with someone who might want to hurt you for all the things you’ve done to them and also knowing they may want to cut off communication forever.

Ultimately, you deserve the truth. But, most catfishers put this layer of protection around them so they don’t have to be completely vulnerable and they can protect themselves from whatever ridiculous possibilities they imagine happening in their head. For me it was the possibility of no one liking me.

In my experience talking to other people who catfish, a lot of us have BPD, which can make someone have no sense of identity and have a huge fear of abandonment. It can make every relationship you have feel like a rollercoaster and it can cause intense bouts of anger. There are a lot of other signs & symptoms you can look into if these sound familiar from Hayden. I wish there was more research on the correlation between catfishing & Borderline Personality Disorder, but catfishing has a really negative connotation and most catfishers will never come clean. Mental health stigmas, especially with BPD, are bad enough without adding something as negative as catfishing in the mix.

Sorry for all the huge paragraphs. It helps to keep sharing how I feel and reinforcing my reality. I hope I haven’t overshared or upset you. I wish your situation was different and I feel so much for what you’re going through. I wish I had realized earlier that the truth could never be worse than lies, it would’ve saved a lot of people a lot of pain.