I said to myself that I wouldn't post an entire topic about this and I'll probably delete it in the future so that I'm not reminded of it. Just doing this as a way of ripping the band aid off and clearing the air once and for all. A great deal of you already know what this is about while this will be a surprise to others. I've been sharing this information through private messages for the past few weeks now whenever I have bursts of confidence. I feel really positive about myself for random periods of time and then I come crashing down and want to recluse into my shell again so apologies if you have not been directly approached by me about this beforehand. I feel like you all deserve to know the information I'm about to tell you all. For those of you who already know, I've basically copied and pasted sections of messages I've sent out to you guys as it's hard to relive it all and type it out from scratch so forgive me for not being original here.

This account was created way back in February 2011 by Carmel. Just going to be straight up now and tell you that I am not her. She is one of my friends in real life. She created the account and the group Brown Sugar with me sort of hanging around in the background and also toying with the idea of joining. She only hung around for literally 3 or 4 posts before I took over. The following part of the message is hardest for me to type. You know that I'm not Carmel now and you may have already made your mind up as to whether you can like and trust me again so this next part is a real killer. My real name is Sean...yeah, male. As you can probably tell with the amount of LGBTQ characters I have, I'm not entirely straight. Like Joshua Grimmie, I don't like to label myself but I'm far from the societal norm. I know that it may ruffle a few feathers now that you know the person you've been speaking to is rather different to how you envisioned. There are still many truths to my life though: I'm still Scottish, I'm still One Direction crazy, I still fucking despise Taylor Swift, I still hold the exact same feelings and beliefs I've shown the forums OOC. The only other thing that isn't true is my age. I'm just 20 but share the exact same birthday (July 11th) as my friend, minus two years, so it was super easy to just slip in and take over without having to worry about remembering a faked birthday on top of all that.

I don't know if you're still reading this or have made your mind up and exited already. I understand that this is not news you were expecting to read. Can I just say that the reason I did this was due to the fact that I hated myself for who I was and it's only recently that I'm slowly starting to accept it. I was like 14/15 when I took over. A kid. I was confused, wanted a new identity and this was the perfect place. It was fun, allowed me to be me without really revealing the bombshell that turns a lot of people away and I could come here to forget. I had no idea I'd make such good friends and be here like half a decade later. Every single day I've been feeling guilty, laughing and interacting with you all and you not having a clue who I really am. I don't do this for kicks though. I'm not some catfish with a made up life and you may find it hard to believe a word I say now but it's true. The gender, name and age are pretty big things to lie about, I know, but that was my mask. Everything else is me. I know it's 2017 and you are not a judgemental bunch of people but back in 2011, I was really young, scared and just wanted to be accepted. As each day went by and I formed close friendships, it became harder to tell the truth. On one hand, you all deserved to hear it even more because we were getting closer but on the other, I couldn't risk the good thing I had going for me. I hope you can understand that. It wasn't a game for me. I was not laughing and taking you all for a ride. I've cried many times over this, thinking about how the one place where I can truly be myself...well, I wasn't even being myself there. It was one hell of a vicious circle. None of the users on here deserve to be lied to and I hope you don't feel betrayed.

I'd love to take on 2017 both on here and in real life just being myself. It's tiring putting up a facade and really not good for my mental and emotional health. Although I'm still not entirely happy with myself, I believe that I have made sufficient progress in accepting who I am and it's time to ditch the cover ups. I can understand that it will anger people though and that my presence may not be welcome around here any more.

Thank you for taking the time out to read this. This message has been about 6 years in the making and 6 years overdue.

To all who I have informed beforehand, thank you for being so fucking cool and understanding about all of this. I know you may think I'm being all extra and dramatic about it but this has been an enormous hurdle for me - one that once seemed impossible to overcome. Now...here I am, actually about to hit "post" on this message.

Hanging up my Carmel wig