I’ve been a little up and down mood wise for the past week. I wrote a little while back about how well I’ve been doing with the black cloud of depression that seems to enjoy following me wherever I go. While that’s still true, I have found myself struggling a little over the last few days. It’s a setback, and with some extra effort I hope I can turn it away.
I have been inactive on my blog here for a long time now. That’s partially down to having other things to worry about, and partially down to depression. I have lots that I could write about but can’t for fear of upsetting those close to me (my husband does occasionally read here as do one or two other family members). It’s a dilemma, because on the one hand I’m sure it would do me good to write all these thoughts that I have down, but on the other, I worry that some things will be taken personally when they shouldn’t. For that reason I’ve decided to set myself up with a blog elsewhere, under an unkown name. Of course should certain people happen to come across it they may still guess who is behind the writing, but it’s unlikely. And I doubt it will gain any popularity because it’s mostly for personal reference and therapy. It’ll likely be extremely boring to anyone else.
I wonder how many other bloggers do this. Quite a number I’d imagine, it must be quite liberating. I’m looking forward to the sense of freedom.
I know we spoke yesterday a bit about this, just to add that using a hosted service like blogger.com or wordpress.com is probably the best destination for something like this as there are no whois records to give you away.
Also, dont tell ANYONE about it, unless you eventually want everyone to know :)
I was thinking about that a while ago actually, during a particularly rough patch… But I sortof decided against it. Mostly because i’d just be trading one set of restraints for another. Maintaining an anonymous blog while doing your best not to disclose any information that might identify you is hard enough, and then there is the chance that the aggregate of all the blog posts together might give you away to someone who knows you. Maybe I’m just being paranoid heh.
So I sortof canned the project. I agree with Dave though, if you go ahead with it use Blogger or some other free hosted service.
Yes, I am just as paranoid. :) I’ll be as careful as I can not to give anything away, but if it happens, it happens. It’s not like I’d die as a result, there may just be some awkward conversations. :)
It can be very relieving to tell your story and just let it all out…
In a way, the most important is to get it out, and I suspect that only the fewest of us are secure (and ruthless) enough to confront them with what we really think about them. I hope the anonymous blog will have the desired effect for you, hon.
And I guess the fact that I meant – to confront our families – escaped me in all of this heat.
I couldn’t keep up with it any more, Zenith.
First I disaabled comments because of a stalker.
Then I tried putting a disclaimer that what was being read on my site was fiction. But that didn’t really do it. I still got the emails:
Are you okay?
Is that post about me?
When can we talk about all this?
It’s a fact for writers / blawgers. People take what is written personally.
Jim Knipfel wrote that if you ever write about anyone, they will read it. This was back before the internet. Jim was speaking about in the newspaper or in a book or magazine. He went to a job interview and they said that they had read what he had written about their company. Nice.
So, as embarrasing as it is, I just continue to write. I write about me, about my experiences, about those who make an impression on me. It’s the writer’s bane, and you are not alone.
Chin up…
Love,
Father Luke
Pfft, nonsense
The whole point of a blog is to be read, otherwise you might as well just write it on notepad and save to your hard drive.
Hiding away thigns doesn’t make them go away I’m afraid, and can make them worse
Example
“my husband does occasionally read here as do one or two other family members).”
So your Husband reads here, and now he is thinking and worrying that your writing about your life and he can’t read it, thats going to kick the paranoia in for certain
No, you’re wrong Ozle. :)
My husband knows me well enough by now (he should do, we’ve been together for 10 years!), and he knows there are things I find hard to talk about. I’m not going to go into details here about what those things are, but he’s fully aware of how my mind works. It’s usually me with the paranoia. ;)
As for hiding things away, I’m not hiding anything as such, anyone that matters to me knows exactly how my life has gone, I just find it hard to talk about when I know that people close to me are listening. The anonymous blog is just like having a therapist really, only there’s nobody sat oposite me as I speak (and I’ve had therapy too, which hasn’t been entirely successful). Trust me, when you’ve lived with extreme depression for well over 5 years, anything’s worth a shot!
Nice to (fleetingly) chat to you anyways, not spoken to you in aaaaaages! :)
Father Luke – it’s a shame things have worked out that way for you, but I’m glad it hasn’t deterred you from keeping on with your writing, despite the odds being stacked against you!
And thank you all for your comments. :)
See, thats why Blogs suck, i’ve come here, read about 5 minutes of stuff, and made a snap decision based on that. (Of course you know me, never wrong unless theres a good excuse! This time its blogs)
Even though I actually have a blog now I still hate them.
But as you lot don’t talk to me any more *sniffles* I have to come here and make comments just so your reminded I exist!
This thing you can’t talk about? Is it your age
*grins*
You don’t get any less cheeky either do you! ;)
I saw you had a blogspot thingy….eeeeew…but then that’s my fault for not fixing up your proper one I suppose. Not enough hours in the day lately.
Hope all is well over at f4g, I miss that place sometimes…
I only had one because I was writing my penguin uprising story and everybody kept hassling me to put it online instead of sending emails round, seemed the simplist way.
Don’t use F4g nearly as much as I used too of course, too busy with stuff nowadays, plus half the cool people have left.
Don’t really miss it either to tell the truth.
And whats wrong with my bog standard default template layout *grins* I am trying to work out how to change it though so i can get some pictures of penguins and igloo’s in it.
Cheeky?
Me?!
Never!
It’s not the layout, it’s the fact that it’s blogspot – place for spammers, scammers, and oodles of teenage angst. wordpress.com is a much better platform for free blogs. For now at least.