As you might know by now, I'm a story faker on Reddit, or I was. I haven't even opened Reddit in days and I'm detoxing.
However, I wonder what are your opinions on fake Reddit stories. Some people seem to take them very seriously, but I don't know what a bigger amount of people think about it. Do you care? You don't care? You find them entertaining? Or it makes you upset when you discover a story is fake?
What if you realized a story that deals in heavy topics turns out to be fake? Something that real people might have real trauma about?
I'm kinda beating myself for making so many fake stories and I'm overthinking a lot about what people really think about it, maybe I'm making it a bigger deal in my head than what it really is.
So the interesting thing about this is that I personally don't think just because you haven't had those experiences doesn't mean you can't write about it (for the most part, I think there are likely exceptions I would draw the line at). However, as someone who hasn't experienced those things, my reasoning goes, it's part of your duty to ensure it's not going to cause harm, and that takes a lot of research into the topic (ideally with people who have experienced what you want to write about) along with a healthy dose of empathy.
I think you've made some mistakes in the past that you're currently feeling growing pains from. Don't feel like you're a bad person just from your past actions, you seem to be growing. You'd be a worse person than you are if you were continuing to do it on purpose despite realizing all of this.