Sometimes I Feel like I’m Sharing with My Pants Down

Should I stop baring it all?

“Holy crap, what have I done?” were my exact thoughts when I awoke from a horrendous nightmare last week. I had just published a personal essay, and although it wasn’t my first, it touched on a particularly shameful part of my history.

While sound asleep, my fears overcame me and took my mind on a journey through regret. In my dream, I was fired from my job because they “were not aware of my history.” The major blow came from the imagined scene where the whole office is whispering and giggling as I packed my things. Of course, I had to ride my bicycle home while balancing all of my belongings. This is slightly humorous because I do not even own a bike.

I do not remember all of the details, but what I do remember has me overthinking some of my published pieces.

I am an alcoholic. I often feel like the worst mom on the planet. I struggle with my weight. I am insecure about my professional success. I am a mess, yet I continue to share all of that in my writing.

I really enjoy writing about these colorful parts of my life. There is something so therapeutic about sitting behind my monitor and bearing it all. It is also much easier for me to write about these areas of my life than less personal areas. Perhaps it is my ego, but my passion soars when it comes to topics like recovery and parenting.

I don’t like and even resist, being broken wide-open. But, when the contents of my unconscious self spill out of me and i sift through all the disowned parts of who i am… it’s an uncomfortably enlightening and eye-opening experience. — Jaeda DeWalt

I often write the same as I journal: with no filter. When I am writing about some of the disasters I created while still drinking, I am honest. I am reminding myself not only of many disgusting and shameful moments in my past but of the fact that I am not that person anymore. Being able to accept the mess I made, and still want to move forward, has been a big part of my healing process.

I am not the same person I was ten years ago, one year ago, or even six months ago. I am able to distinguish between the monster I share on paper and who I am trying to be today. We are different beings. Writing about my alcoholism allows me to distance myself from that girl, and serves as a reminder that I never want to go back.

When I am alone with my laptop, it is an intimate experience. I am free to be my true self. I feel that so many times in life, there is no room for this amount of openness and raw emotion. The world I live in often prefers a composed, polished version of the hot mess I illustrate on paper. Writing is something I do for myself, I love it.

But now, I have been publishing many of these intimate moments.

I have been putting my insecurities out into the world. I am not sure I thought this through until now. I publish my writing because I am proud of it. I feel like I have something to say and there must be someone out there that wants to hear it. I haven’t really thought about the fact that I have put some of the darkest days of my life onto the internet, for anyone to read at any time.

Will I regret publishing pieces that address my darkest days? I don’t think my essays will ever reach a large number of readers, but what if they do? Am I prepared for owning all of the skeletons in my closet? Will these articles haunt me professionally or worse, haunt my loved ones?

I do not know the answers to my own questions. I know sharing my writing feels terrifyingly wrong, yet so incredibly right at the same time. I guess time will tell for me.

Do you ever feel like you’re sharing with your pants down?

The last personal essay I published before my triggering dream:

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