rant of sorts and also need some advice?? very long! sorry!!

[cheoisawesome]

Alot of my friends are around the age of 18-27 and the ones who are in their late teen years especially are all kind of a mutual group of friends (not shocking because most of them have been in high school together) but anyways, there is a friend of the group actually more then one but this one person who I am speaking of is in first year high which in our schooling systems high school starts at 9th grade and goes up through 12th so this person entered the 9th grade this year. Well, I've seen this person on multiple occasions when they were with my friends and we would be going to a movie or other places to shop around or just have fun. This person who I speak of started to look up to me as a family member (like a brother even though we are NOT by any way shape or form related)
This in itself wouldn't have been a big deal to me at all being my youngest sibling is 14 years old but this is where it becomes kind of a worry to me.

This person after meeting me I guess had looked up to me much more then i had ever realized. Of course if this person was in the presence of my friends and I, I would always try to set a good example for them even if my friends were goofing off and not so well mannered at times. Well here's where it gets complicated and rather bothersome to me. This person upon meeting them they were perfectly happy the way they were, happy being their own person or what I had assumed was (not so sure now) well now, they have started to almost take on the stories of my life, starting to clame things that happened to me almost in the closest detail they can while still making it as believable as possible are now the stories of their own life. Suddenly everything I do, who I am in terms of being ftm, as far as taking hormones, having asthma, things that I went through in my childhood, all these things are suddenly their life story. It makes me rather worried.

I will state i do not go into detail about alot of things because i didn't have alot of things to really be "proud of" in my past. My friends talk openly about things, not that i purposely hide things but from someone who is so overly impressionable it scares me to think if the topic ever came up would they try to do the things i did because they thought it might be cool or appealing to their peers. They do not live near me anymore but we all still are in touch one way or another. They even had admitted to me at one point they had a very bad time with not telling the truth to their friends and that it ruined alot of friendships but they found they couldn't stop the cycle of lying at every given opportunity. So although the person who i had assumed upon meeting them.. I can't be sure if anything was ever real.

Anyways my point is, their habbits are getting worse because now they can't seem to even keep the stories straight unless they have it documented or written down somewhere because the stories constantly change and its always something different. I guess im just worried about this person but to me i think there must be an underlying cause for them to feel they have to take on the lives of the people around them? Im certainly not the only one though as they have now taken on my and their other friends life stories too. I dont want to call them out, that would make me worry that they would do something that would harm them especially if there is something already happening in their REAL life, their own life that is making them feel they can't tell the truth. But i want them to know as well that its not good to take on other people's stories and life, this person clames they are doing alot of things that could already cause a huge problem if that is true. How do you explain to someone that its better to be yourself or to help them at least tell someone the real story, the real and absoult truth to their own life without confrontation? Does any have any advice to offer? So sorry this is so very very long.

I want to help this person or at least lend an ear but i dont know how to be of any help when the stories change constantly and i now have no idea if anything has ever been true at all :/

[Edge]

I wish I had some advice, but all I can say is that there isn't much you can do other than what you are already doing. These kinds of things are something that they have to face themselves and they need to find the courage in themselves. A therapist can help, but that would depend on if this person is willing.

[cheoisawesome]

Yes, I do agree and about therapy I top think they would benefit from it but again it probably wouldnt be something they would be too willing to do in fear things would unravel even further from when they can't keep the stories consistent. They tend to get very angry if a family member or anyone who knows about what's real says something that indicates the story they are claming real is no where near true. They will get defensive towards said person but not use any detail that would give away everything they have told people, when getting defensive they try to be vague but still show anger so the story they told the friend can still seem real :/ it's so it's hard to reach out when you dont know if anything is true

[Sephirah]

Do these friends know that this other person looks up to you and admires you?

If so, it may be something as simple as wanting to be accepted. They take the things that happened to those people who seem to be accepted by others and adapt it to fit themselves in order that their own lives appear interesting enough, or possessing the same qualities that will allow that to happen for them. Rather like chameleons supposedly changing the colour of their skin to fit into their environment.

If this is the case, I would guess the problem stems from low self esteem, low feelings of self-worth, and that they don't feel their own lives are memorable enough to warrant attention, so they take the abridged highlights from others' lives and project it as a sort of resume so that they get the 'job' of friend.

Perhaps if you can do things together that boost their self esteem, and make them feel like they're worth something as individuals, then they may not feel the need so much to live someone else's life in order to paper over their own? Things that allow them to express their individuality and allow their own personalities to shine through. Maybe if they can get to a place where they value themselves, they will start to see that their own lives have just as much merit as anyone else's.

[Nero]

Hi. I'm not sure I understand. You say that you did not share your past with them. But now they are pretending to be you?

[cheoisawesome]

Sorry because I have to combine my reply's and actually type them in an office program then copy and paste because everytime I go to reply the whole forum will freeze and I can't type and it will start to erase parts that im not trying to instead of the spelling error so I may be slow.  O_O anyways in regards to both replies.. I personally didn't give out hardly any detail while conversation was just between us two, but sometimes things came up while said person was with my friends and I so on so forth but the main source of information about almost every aspect of my life is because I do have not only a blogger account where I write poems, stories many things about my life but also social networking sites which I never had felt I had to hide these from my friends on there before because alot of people found my blogs and poems, anything to either inspirational or of educational use so I never took them down but after meeting this person they added me on a social site which I thought nothing of it at first because they seemed content and that they were actually being their true self or what I had believed to be but the more I saw they started to take on not only all my life life details but everyone else's too which honestly worries me. If it is for attention or to gain self esteem because they feel they aren't good enough as who they are, I have tried to tell them they are every bit as good as anyone else is and I know as well as that it could be lack of attention at home but they are suddenly with a crowd of people who are using drugs and drinking alot of stuff (which one again not sure about) but what they are claming they are doing on almost a daily basis they wouldnt have survived even whole day at the rate they claimed they were doing things and how much they were using but here's what scares me. People who saw their posts or what ever would say how sorry they were and that they loved them, they needed them to not harm themselves and it seemed that it became a game that when they hurt themself they would say to everyone now you will all hate me and then when no one got mad but instead said omg why would you do that it made them seem to want to do more to get people to give them attention and would go from so sad to two seconds later after someone said they weren't mad but concerned to so happy and laughing and like they never had a bad feeling before it was suddenly oh my god thats so crazy I expected them to hate me and then laughing at everything :/ I don't know it just makes me nervous that if they feed of the attention for just about anything and usually they have a negative outlook on about so many parts of life im scared if they get attention for it they will take it further if they really are doing even some of the things they claim and to a much lesser extent I want to reach out and let them know they are a great person that not everything they do needs to be the same as everyone that they are unique as their own self but I dont know how to go about it

Ps im only able to access the internet from my phone is there a mobile setting for the forums??