I’m Grateful for Being Suspended

What doesn’t kill us makes us wiser! ☝

The morning of March 5th, when I saw the ill-fated message on the screen of my phone, was hard to call “good”. It was a nightmare!

After the shock and sea of tears, fortunately, I remembered that my friends — John Ang and Wesley Van Peer — had found themselves in a similar situation before.

And just recently I’ve read their posts about it.

I remembered they were considered guilty by mistake and were reinstated a few hours later. I re-read these stories and calmed down. I began to wait for an apology message from the Medium.

How naive I was! 😂

In total, I spent 4 days waiting. Eating ice cream and watching stupid TV shows for the first two days. Well, just like a teenage girl after a breakup with a boyfriend.

I am a housewife and thanks to my husband, I can afford such weakness.

Then, naturally, I pulled myself together and made myself useful again.

I also constantly read your articles, my dear friends! Thanks God I had this opportunity. The only thing I couldn’t do was commenting and liking your posts.

So, I wandered through your accounts like a ghost, putting invisible (for you) likes. 👻 I saw everyone, but no one could see me. Mentioning my name in your articles and comments brought tears of gratitude to me! Your support eased my pain! Thanks a lot, guys!

Now about the possible reasons of my suspension.

On the eve of this misfortune, I chatted with one woman. She was nice and left a heartfelt comment under my post. She also left claps under 3 of my old articles.

When a certain time passed, I discovered that she had not read any of them. Of course I blocked her.

Now the question is: could she be offended and report me? Can this incident be regarded as aggressive behavior on my part? To be honest, I was a little tormented by my own selfishness.

The second possible reason — I was too obsessed with Read Ratio. When it went down, I tried to overtake it by interacting with more people, hoping that they would help me raise it at least a little…

Sometimes I scrolled Medium until 2 am, trying to return it back on its place, to cherished 70%.

Now I realize — this is not a conduct of professional!

A true writer is confident in himself. He writes what he wants to say. He doesn’t care whether his texts be popular or not. And he reads only what really interests him! Not for the read, of course. Not stealing time from his loved ones…

Do you know who helped me understand it?

Viam (“The writer’s path”). This person became my guiding star and the first author I followed. He does not participate in publications, does not chase money and rarely comments. But when he read my article one day and left his comment, I was so happy!

Viam, as he admits himself, wrote for free for a very long time. Now he has 35000 followers!

He writes like a God because he hones his craft every day.

And now this is my new goal. I want to develop my skills and become more confident. After all, I know that my words, thoughts and ideas are useful to you!

So, on the last night before release from the virtual prison, I read Viam’s articles.

I enjoyed them wholeheartedly and before going to bed I said to myself: “If only they give me a chance to continue, I will put my craft on the first place.”

And early in the morning I saw branded Medium notification points and congratulations from friends on my return! A coincidence? More like a sign that I learned my lesson…

Happy to be back! Thanks a lot! 🌺