Tanyas last blog post..Люди и тени

Have been using writing as therapy for awhile now. I know it’s helped me. My fear is that it has no value to anyone else and I’ll just embarrass myself. Hence, little of it has seen the light of day.

I too have a pain problem. Have several 3 inch screws and various hinges in my back. I take great inspiration from you working through your pain in your arms.

I’m realizing that this is an old post and there is little hope that you’ll see it. Anyway, it’s in the ether.

Lars

I know this is an old post but I have been traveling most of December and I’m just catching up.

Reading this, as is the case with so much of your writing, just gave me another lightning bolt moment. I just can’t believe how you are able to say things in such a way, it seriously gives me chills. Thank you so much for your incredible openness and honesty.

It’s funny, I can re-trace the exact events that this post set off in my brain:

1) read about your “twisted fantasy” world, which holy crap is a lot like mine

2) instantly think, “well if those people from her past don’t GET what Havi is doing now, then screw ‘em, that’s their problem not hers!”

3)

4)

5) Oh! Wait! If I can feel that way about Havi, why can’t I feel that way about myself?

It was like an alignment exercise, but in reverse. And it sneaked up on me.

4 Tips:

Use the DRAFT BUTTON – write it up in draft – and the PREVIEW BUTTON – look at it all nice in the preview screen, maybe print it out, but leave it in draft; it may not require publishing right this minute.

Use the spam blocker/delete comment tools. Don’t like what your ex writers? Delete it. Your blog, your rules.

Use the IP Banning tool. You may still have an email from someone you don’t want leaving comments, so look up the IP address in the email headers, enter it into your dashboard’s banning field, and nothing they ever write from that computer will get into your comments. They may read, but they can’t write on YOUR blog.

Buy a “EASY” button from Staples that they sell for a few bucks. Put it beside your keyboard and hit it whenever you need reassurance that you can do this. It may look hard going in, but after you publish, pushing the “Easy” buttom can release the hard, and reward you for getting though it, toward easier.

Now go read a new blog and comment with support and spread this great good will that Havi stirs up in us — this is what it’s all about. (Thanks Havi.)

I love Rachael’s point that examining the scenarios doesn’t necessarily make them seem less reasonable. Maybe some of these things are things you need to Take Steps to avoid. Or to be able to respond to.

For example, as I said before, comment moderation. Or having a strategy in place. Like waiting until you have enough loving readers to cheer for you.

Some of you might remember when Naomi’s dad showed up at the Itty Biz blog in the comments saying the meanest, cruelest, most hurtful things ever. We were all there to give her love and encouragement.

If someone walks into your birthday party and has a temper tantrum, they’re the one who looks like an idiot. When it’s just you there, it’s harder to remember that though, yes.

@Shannon – your story: so great. Wow. I am in complete admiration. I would have cried and thrown things, for sure.

There’s a lot more I could say about this but I think ultimately it comes down to how you frame it. In Diana’s example … if you’re imparting something useful and of interest through working through your own patterns, that could be something your kids could appreciate.

If you just want to complain with some friends, then if you know your kids read your blog, that’s probably *not* the place to do it.

In my case, I don’t plan on ever having an employer ever again. It’s definitely possible that a company might consider hiring me as a consultant and then change their mind over something I wrote. But then I get to make fun of them for it on my blog. So it’s a win either way.

With regard to parents and exes and such … will cross those bridges if/when necessary. I’m ready to explain that everything I do and say here is intended to be Useful to the people reading it. And that I appreciate people worrying about me, but what I really need is strength and support and that’s what I want from them. If they can’t give it, then they shouldn’t be reading.

You know, I ignored the people who told me that no one would take me seriously or ever hire me if there was a duck on my website, and that worked out okay too. :)

If I blog about personal stuff, my kids’ll find out things about me they don’t want to know!?

Is there a time for mom (or dad) when it is safe to come clean?

Scenario 1: That people I (currently or in the future) work with (and for) will read of my struggles with issues that have impacted my performance. The blog is used as proof that I am unprofessional, unintelligent, self-absorbed, and then I am fired. (This applies also to anyone in the department in which I have hopes of pursuing a 2nd M.A. in; instead of firing me they laugh at and reject my application).

Scenario 2: Someone I don’t know uses info from my blog to get to violate my trust, get to know me under false pretenses, etc.

Scenario 3: I come to have kids who grow up, discover my blog, and are embarrassed, ashamed, and lose respect for me.

Scenario 5: I switch careers and become a therapist, and clients find my blog. Then they either stalk me or are negatively impacted by exposure to added, unintended self-disclosures.

Scenario 6: Before even going public with my blog, people read about my blogging fears in a comment and think to themselves that these fears are too realistic and based in the present to not be taken seriously. Or, that I’m paranoid.

It’s true – I thought that once I typed up my own blogging “twisted fantasy” that I would see how silly they are, but they don’t, entirely. In part, they seem like legitimate considerations. Not as reasons to *not* blog, but as considerations to weave into my decision-making process about what to blog about, what not to, and how widely to share it. Definite food for thought… and in a way, harder than simply choosing to either blog or not blog. Yet worth it, I’m sure :)

Scenario #1: My parents (who are pretty Internet savvy, and frequently talk to me on Skype) find and read my blog, and give it the well-isn’t-that-nice-dear treatment. Meaning they’re sort of nonspecifically encouraging, but behind the scenes they disapprove of all my beliefs (which of course permeate the blog). Also, I can’t bear the shame when they discover that I occasionally use naughty words online (which is just like SWEARING in PUBLIC). Not to mention the whole healing from childhood drama thing. Oh man, they could be reading this comment RIGHT NOW. Shit.

Scenario #2: My ex-colleagues (from the Big Important Internet Job I was laid off from when the bubble burst in 2001) swing by to laugh at how pathetic I am after devoting 6 years of my life to my kids. I mean, how could I possibly know anything about the Internet or business, and shouldn’t I stick to wiping noses and finding the best bargains in Dora the Explorer sheet sets?

Scenario #3: Everything that James the Dancing Geek said. Exactly so. Meep.

Wendy Cholbis last blog post..Climbing to the Top of Your Small-Business Tree

#1 I write a hugely vulnerable post, and everyone I thought was a friend doesn’t get it, hates it, mocks me, and I’m all so very alone… (meep) Everyone in Twitter suddenly unfollows me but still @replies just to let me know how I’m weird and freaky and talk posh and am gross because I’m smart. Everyone unsubscribes from my blogs. No-one replies to my emails. I become ostracised, despised and the only attention I get is to tell me how I suck. The school bell rings and I’m sat eating my lunch on my own. Hang on, I may be having a flashback.

If there’s another one in here, it’s hidden behind that one.

James | Dancing Geeks last blog post..Identification, Self expression, Conformity and a rant

Bob Steins last blog post..The Most Important Government Job