Testify brother, you are preaching to the converted.
Not only do I cringe at some of the things I said, I find it completely incomprehensible why I lied in the first place.
I do wonder sometimes why the Monty Python 16 ton weight had to come crashing down on me the instant, the very instant I told a lie and others seem to get away with BSing all the time. But on the whole I'd rather be honest.
Ag.
(Deep breath). Not pleasant to write this as it involves confronting my dark side and past events that were truly horrendous for all involved. A brush with mental illness might go partway to explaining it but doesn't entirely excuse the way I behaved in one dark phase of my life, and I do express heartfelt contrition to others involved, and a wish they might find it in themselves to be forgiving. (Being circumspect, as one person who was affected by my behaviour at that time is a member of these forums and I suspect still contributes. I know she would not welcome any further involvement with me and I am trying to respect her clearly expressed wishes. I don't know her FT forum identity and have no wish to find out or dig around to see what she posts - but if she reads this and suspects who it is - well, please try to understand and forgive, if you can.There may be more than one person. Apologies, heartfelt, to them too.) And yes - also came across somebody else on this forum who was also at UEA at the time - but nothing more than very marginally involved with me - and if he remembers who I was (which I doubt) will be personally aware of what a train-wreck I became and the reputation I got. It was certainly, at the time, a small "villagey" sort of university with a little less than 4,000 undergrads - in a village everybody knows everybody else, or at least the gossip and second-hand accounts. AND it was in semi-rural Norfolk which is one enormous village! Make a reputation for the wrong reasons and it becomes part of village common knowledge.
I think. My horror story and egregious bad behaviour was born out of a sense of inadequacy and insecurity and being well out of my depth and boringly uninteresting to people around me. University intensified this. Choosing the sort of uni where it was estimated getting on for 50% had been to private schools and just about everybody was from a vastly higher socioeconomic grouping than I was and had secure familiy lives and a degree of financial comfort behind them....since then, I've met other people who went to that university who came from disadvantaged and deprived backgrounds and this feeling of still being marginalised and having nothing in common with your peers and feeling "lesser" next to them - it's a common thread. I really don't think UEA realised this very much; it was geared up to the needs and social mores of the majority (let's say "middle and upper-middle undergrads from nice areas and good schools, largely drawn from SE England") and outsiders would have a harder time, I think. Neglect, rather than intention. We certainly didn't - we each thought
"it's just me. I don't fit. I don't really belong in here." I went really bad. Compensating by inventing a different origin story for myself in the hope I could make the grim reality of the upbringing and early life I had go away (not actively abused, much, more a sense of being neglected and marginalised) and replacing it with a better fiction. Then it snowballed. Trying to get other people to believe it too was a mistake. Life doesn't work that way. But that crushing sense of inadequacy and a need to compensate... horrible.
What can I say? I screwed up. Big time. Alienated a lot of people. Did myself no favours. Crashed the train. Went thorugh mental and psychological disorder and out the other side. now looking back. Wincing a lot and feeling guilt.
But you learn from your errors. I hope.
There. Confession over. I'd have gone into it in more excruciating detail save for the fact I'm about 80% sure one other person - at least one - who was closely involved at the time is somebody who posts here and I have no desire at all to cause her any bad memories (or any more than are strictly necessary). After tripping over her on a Fortean site on Facebook where she uses her own name, and things happened, I now know her wishes concerning me. Quite emphatically so. I wish her well, anyway. Story over. And - no specifics. That was a general outline.