How Much Should you Reveal?

This is probably the #1 question that I need to answer right now. It's key to my personal healing and yet, nobody has a firm answer. Many people have told me that to move on, I have to be able to talk about what I went through without feeling defensive, like I need to state my case and justify myself to the world. Trust me, I've come a LONG way. While I am generally a very open and extroverted person, I have also spent a good part of my life holding back. I've kept my entire history and those insane deep dark secrets all to myself. I'm told that I need to shake that and talk. I actually feel that I've said more in this blog than I have in my whole life, and then again, I really haven't said that much at all. Part of me thinks I'm better off writing a book, dumping the whole story at once, and then deciding what to do with it. The other part thinks maybe an online journal (which is basically what this is for me), is better because I get to say it in pieces, little by little.

At what point have you said too much? At what point will people judge you for what you think, feel, or for what you have allowed yourself to experience? That's the big question. It's basically this...Once you've told your story, you can't un-tell it. It's out there. And what if you can no longer show your face with dignity afterwards? What if people judge you for it, or lose respect for you? What if people look at me and say "wow- we always thought she was a strong, independent woman, but really- she's incredibly pathetic". WHAT IF?

I mean, this can go either way, right? So I wait. I wait to see what I should do. Shut down this blog, or write a book (given, I'm not the most fabulous writer in the world, but I'm sure there are editors for that sort of thing). And then, what happens if I write the book? Then it's an even BIGGER audience...Then what?

A colleague that I worked with a while back wrote a book. Her story was similar to mine, but very different at the same time. I could actually relate to her book, because I've been through some of it, and then again, none of it at all. My other colleagues that know her and talk of her story talk of her courage to move on, and what she went through. I actually admire her for her courage as well. And her example would have led me to do the same, except this one day when this one person came up to me, pointed to this colleague and said, "Man, have you heard what she went through? That is so MESSED UP".

Messed up. Wow. The woman went through hell in a handbasket and sacrificed everything for her children, yet because of her nutty husband and the crap she went through, SHE was messed up. It just doesn't make any sense to me. But that is exactly what scares me. At the end of the day, the judgment fell on her, not on her husband or anything else, on her. And since it came from a co-worker, it would probably carry through and impact everything- undermine her opinions, her presentations at work, anything, because after all, SHE was messed up.

And that ladies and gentlemen, is my biggest fear. That in the process of trying to heal and move on, I might unknowingly undermine the one stability I've actually had for years....My career. So what to do, what to do? The dilemma continues...