I hear about you. the things that you do. the hurt that it brings
For those of you who follow me on twitter or speak to me via email, you’ll know that recently i’ve been rather frustrated, angry, down, pissed off. My life has been like a rollercoaster, full of friendships broken and mended.
Arguments, big or small, tend to overwhelm me. I hate arguing with a passion; I’m incredibly shy, i’m often unable to get my feelings across to the point that i’m sometimes left in physical pain as I can’t get the emotions out.
Anger that is not let out festers and boils over into bitterness and feeling that I’ve been somehow been belittled and bullied.
It’s a vicious circle that knocks my confidence further – however much I try to improve things. Doing one thing for one person hurts another. It’s a situation which I can’t, well, win. But it’s not about winning; it’s about being happy, with friends that are happy with me. Some days I feel like giving up on everything and starting from scratch, changing the whole ‘me’ along the way.
But what’s really frustrating me is that I started this blogging thing as an outlet for my more depressive side, my angry rants, and the things I didn’t want to talk to the ‘real’ world about. Often this means that the things I talk about are more extreme, less happy-happy-joy-joy than my real life. But it meant that I could get things out in the open to myself, get advice from people not connected to the situation and quickly get over it, move on.
But obviously, as I’m not exactly anonymous, over the last 4 years, people in the ‘real world’ have started to read this blog. I know they are there and who they are.
It’s made me censor my writing, my need for headspace, the things that made me blog in the first place.
Its time to do something about this, I can’t go on with this blog not being the real me, juicy, painful, hurtful, sad as it may be.
So, to options. Do I just close this blog and write for no one but myself, buy a diary? Do I go private? Do I move and don’t tell anyone the address, start from scratch? Do I move and let you readers know, but hide from everyone else? Or do I say fuck the consequences, name no names, be myself, and tell folk not to read?
I’m not sure the solution, but right now I need to get things out and I don’t need anymore arguments in my life.
Advice please.
Kx
I understand exactly how you are feeling. i had another blog which, after a member of my family found it, i closed down. i moved from blogger to wordpress as well (in case anyone was looking) and completely changed the name of my blog. i did move all my posts over with me so i hadn’t lost anything and it did take a bit of time, especially letting readers know, but i felt it was worth it to have that peace of mind. knowing i can say whatever i want and no-one will judge me personally and certainly won’t judge me in real life is a big part of what blogging is about for me.
So i suggest if you feel you have to censor yourself move. going for 2 blogs one for public one for rants isn’t going to work long term x
Years ago I had the same problem. One of my university friends found an old online diary and I wasn’t comfortable with it. So I moved. And moved again. And moved again. Now I use my blog less to rant about things than I used to so I don’t particularly mind if people I know read it. I know the boy does and a couple of my friends. I still have a locked livejournal so if I ever need to rant I’d probably write in there.
In short, I’d move if I were you… x
You started blogging for exactly the same reasons as me. I have a huge problem with letting people get close to me (mainly due to the work I do and did) Hence my Vulcan character who I use to surpress feelings of anger, frustration, love etc.
My approach was a gentle one, I kept asking the guys in Twitter should I do this or do that. Most said put what you feel on your blog and thus I have. One of the pieces should have an adult rating as the violence is graphic.
But to give you advice, maybe you should move your blog and change, the name so that those close to you do not see it.
There would be nothing worse than cutting your outlet.
I am around if you ever need a shoulder :)
http://twitter.com/ernmander
It does sound like a move would free you up. I think that anyone who has been writing a blog for a decent amount of time starts to ge outed slightly and the nature of the blog changes – I know mine has.
Being fairly open it’s doesn’t bother me that much that people read it though it has caused one sticky conversation in the past with a friend being very sensitive after the event, though it sounds like a bit of anonymity is vital to your peace of mind.
Moving and starting from scratch might be a bit demoralising so I’d take your anon readers with you but keep it quiet from friends and family – though I am slightly biased due to being a fairly new reader and really enjoying your writing.
It’s a tough one, but what it comes to is that you have to do what you have to do, and you must do it without concern for anyone’s feelings but your own. This is your space, not ours or your friends. You do what YOU need.
I’ve been there too. I now have a public and an anonymous one. It’s surprisingly easy to manage the distinction (and output).
While I have every sympathy, it’s a situation that I’ve already had to deal with, When I first started blogging I kept a no-holds-barred, public Diaryland account that was eventually read by friends, family and who knows who else. After letting slip a pretty dreadful family secret, I had to move the whole thing to a locked LiveJournal while swearing blind to my mum on an almost weekly basis that no, I didn’t keep a diary on the internet anymore.
So you’ll have noticed that my blog rarely goes into specifics about how much I hate my job, or my difficult relationship with my mother, or things like that. Of course some of it still slips through because I’m not some linking automaton, but the general rule of thumb I use is that I will never, ever post something on the internet if there is a possibility, no matter how unlikely, that someone I don’t want to will read it. I do still have an emergency locked LJ account for those times, although I don’t really have the time to keep it updated.
It still freaks me out I’m the top Google hit for “my real name” + blog though :)
While I have every sympathy, it’s a situation that I’ve already had to deal with, When I first started blogging I kept a no-holds-barred, public Diaryland account that was eventually read by friends, family and who knows who else. After letting slip a pretty dreadful family secret, I had to move the whole thing to a locked LiveJournal while swearing blind to my mum on an almost weekly basis that no, I didn’t keep a diary on the internet anymore.
So you’ll have noticed that my blog rarely goes into specifics about how much I hate my job, or my difficult relationship with my mother, or things like that. Of course some of it still slips through because I’m not some linking automaton, but the general rule of thumb I use is that I will never, ever post something on the internet if there is a possibility, no matter how unlikely, that someone I don’t want to will read it. I do still have an emergency locked LJ account for those times, although I don’t really have the time to keep it updated.
It still freaks me out I’m the top Google hit for “my real name” + blog though :)
I have also had to deal with this problem in the past, and while I can’t tell you what to do, I can only give you insight to each of your options.
First of all, you can argue that if the person who is close to you, really knew you at all, then none of this would surprise them. As far as I can see, you haven’t said anything directly hurtful, or intended to hurt.
I get around this by not saying anything that would purposely hurt anyone I know, even if my blog is found. I also try to make it a policy to not write down what I wouldn’t feel comfortable saying to someone’s face.
The other thing to take into consideration is your readership. You seem to have quite a healthy foundation of readers, and the risk is that you’ll lose some of them. You’ll be especially at risk of losing some of your lurkers, who may be shy about contacting you for the new address.
What would I do? Well, I certainly wouldn’t censor myself, except to make sure I was printing what I wouldn’t be afraid to say out loud.
I know that may defeat the purpose of your blog, and that changing one’s blog focus is a difficult decision. However, you know we’ll all stand by you no matter what you decide to do.
Has it ever occurred to you that people who are ‘voyeurs’ of your blog may read it on the account of the fact that you are a very prolific writer and are addicted to the ‘writing’ rather than the ‘person’…
Ugh. Quite the dilemma.
I don’t think you should let your experience of writing be ruined by others– this whole thing is for you, and if you aren’t able to express yourself due to these worries, you aren’t getting what you need from this blog.
I would move, if I were you… to a completely different url, and just take stock of all your regular readers beforehand so you can get in contact with them and let them know. It is hardly ideal, I know, but it seems a shame to not feel free in your writing!!
Sounds like you should start another blog hon, and just invite those people you want to read it (or none at all – depending on how you feel). Its sad that you feel you can’t write what you want :0(
If you do start one and tell people about your new blog then be sure to ask them not to link to you, otherwise it’ll be obvious for anyone who reads the 2 :) x
Thanks for all your (very) detailed comments on this; I guess it’s actually an issue for all bloggers.
I suppose the question is how much is too much for people who actually know us (real life friends and family) to cope with us talking about on the internet.
In particular, Anonymous thanks for your comment and your continued reading (and possible addiction!) the question I pose to you is, that if you were in the same situation where you knew ‘friends’ (or friends that aren’t so close anymore) were reading wouldn’t you feel worried that you’d be judged or get into a situation where what you wrote got passed around as “look what wee-h said about this”…?
I think the most telling comment was this one from Miss America “First of all, you can argue that if the person who is close to you, really knew you at all, then none of this would surprise them. As far as I can see, you haven’t said anything directly hurtful, or intended to hurt”. This is something I never set out to do or want to do.
I’m going to think about this a bit more, whether moving, or whether carrying on exactly how I am is actually the right thing to do. I guess even discussing this has got it out in the open.
Thanks all
Kx
Tough call and one I am familiar with, I feel in exactly the same position with my blog. I never quite come to a conclusion, my gut says ‘fuck the consequences’ but my head say’s ‘keep ya gob shut girl’. I try to tread a fine line between the two…but fail mostly. I wish blogger offered ‘protected post’ like W/P…that would probably be the answer for me.
hey Gemmak – exactly, it’s a very fine line. WP is looking better all the time, i just dont like how they make you pay to change your layout!
Do you not have hosting? I’m just a hit whore and I keep putting off moving because I have to move so much other stuff to keep the ‘spiders’ at me! should get it done really and damn the hits for a while! ;o)
I’d underline gemmak’s point; buy a domain name (.co.uk is around £3/pa) and host your own in a range of wordpress templates of your choice with all the WP plugins you need. There are a zillion hosting deals available and a couple of them are really good. I’m hosting some for folk I know for zero (zero bandwidth limit, zero space limit, zero fee), but that’s just ‘cos I’ve got the space to burn.
Thanks, a nice tweeter is setting something up on a WP host for me, ill see if it works for just now before i head off and buy a domain :)