Venerable
I woke up this morning at 3:15, feeling very sad. I know it’ll pass… (I’m sorry though, Vern, I’m not relishing the pain — I can’t.)
While awake (and, it doesn’t look like I’ll be getting any more sleep tonight/this morning) I was wondering if I should be so open on my blog about my innermost fears, and emotions. Maybe my Dad was right — Maybe I should keep things to myself, and not share them here.
I don’t know right now what to think. Do you think I share too much here?
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One other thought: I *have* been on the verge of suicide, and written about it. And it’s scary, but it’s still cathartic and for me, necessary.
I wrote about the two suicide attempts I did have a few years ago, which is invaluable to me now.
I have, essentially, an interactive recording of some of the worst times of my life. I’d like to think that this is pretty valuable.
And even if I look back at some of the things I was thinking and cringe… it’s still worth it to see how and what has changed.
I have strong concerns about blogs…. and worry about just who might be reading it. I think people tend to show their cards too frequently… and that things can be far too easily read out of context.
I mean, from my blog, it would totally seem like I am a nasty, girl crazed, out of control party demon… and i’m not really all that nasty.
I don’t think you do, but this is coming from someone who has been accused of being depressed and “on the edge of suicide” due to the feelings i’ve expressed on my blog
things that are posted on the blog have a date and timestamp for a reason. it’s what you think and feel at that moment.
Ah, yes — I, too, have a completely anonymous blog as well. I say completely, because I was outed about a year ago on my previous one — I got careless, and someone recognized me from what I posted.
I think censoring is important, but to what end. I was talking with Andrea last night while rowing, and she was quite worried about my posts (as were others) because I was in such pain and despair that morning, when I wrote the things I did. She knew, however, that although I was in a lot of pain, I wasn’t going to ‘do anything stupid’ — She’s right. No man is worth me getting *that* upset over. Life goes on. There will be better times.
Maybe I need to put a disclaimer in front of words that could be alarming to those that don’t know who I am. Or perhaps, I need to share less. I’m still juggling this issue.
And, Col, I remember. Uh, if you don’t have a place to vent freely without people jumping to serious conclusions about your mental state, where do you ‘download’? (and get the support/commiseration you seek)
Oh, and people often tell me to censor myself. No, really? That’s the amusing thing. Of course what goes on my site is the censored version. If it wasn’t, it would be FAR worse than it is.
(I also have an alternate, semi-anonymous blog that I use for the really “whoa, Mom doesn’t need to read that” stuff. It is also censored.) 
Nobody can tell you what to be comfortable posting about. My mother sounds like your dad — recommends that I “hold my cards closer to my chest”. That, however, is not who I am. For me, it was theraputic. Especially when going through the worst of my depression. And even now, I’m glad that I can go back and look on what was going on in my head… and what the response was to it.
It’s gotten me into trouble. I really annoyed a dear friend (who, incidently, is no longer a friend — partially because of my website, partially because when I’m depressed I turn into a host beast) by mentioning him. I couldn’t find a balance between writing about what was important to me, and not including him in that. Hurting him is basically the biggest regret I have when it comes to my website — I don’t regret sharing anything, even when it came to bite me in the ass later,