A number of people have emailed me privately to ask "what happened?!" and I have to admit I'm feeling a bit embarrassed and silly because nothing "bad" happened. I received a perfectly pleasant comment on my photo blog from someone (a first time commenter who left a link to her own lovely blog) who innocently mentioned that she recognised a building I had photographed because she drives by it everyday on her way to work.
It unnerved me ... not because anything about the comment was disturbing, not because I was being stalked or threatened, but because it brought home to me the fact that everyone (even Joe and Jane from next door) can read my blog. And while Joe and Jane may be very nice people, I don't know them from a bar of soap and I don't necessarily want them knowing all my "stuff". (I know that this is not logical given that I am publishing this blog for everyone to see.)
Why was my reaction so over the top? I think because I am sick (the nasty head cold has turned into an all out sinus infection), because I'm chronically sleep deprived (I haven't slept well in weeks), because lately I've been feeling generally anxious, depressed and vulnerable. I worked myself up into a state - a mixture of anxiety and panic - and went overboard in wanting to protect myself and my children. I did NOT feel the need to protect them from the person who made the comment (who I have invited to keep viewing my photo blog), but from the internet in general.
As I said to the person who wrote the comment (who has been very sweet and apologetic when she didn't need to apologise at all), I'm glad this happened in a NICE way because obviously the comment tapped into something deep within me that had been brewing for some time. I've often had concerns about privacy and I'd always tried to brush them aside. Now I've faced them and found a way to deal with them. I'm happy with the changes I've made to my blog and I'm happy to continue and put this all behind me.
***
And now for some happy news! I have dates! I have appointments! Things are moving ahead with the egg donation and by mid-May things will be well underway. I'm excited!
Friday, 30 March 2007
Tailspin
Posted by Em at 9:17 AM
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13 comments:
Thanks for sharing your train of thought here.
I really must do more thinking about privacy issues in general, and you've given me a starting point.
Congratulations on the upcoming donation!
Em,
I just sent you an email and I now read there's no reason to panic, in any case it is very understanding. I display names and photos in my blog but mine is in spanish (very little chances of anyone close to me can read it).
All the best, em. You're a wonderful person. Take care,
Silvia
so excited the egg donation is moving ahead swiftly. I am so in awe of you Em!
This is something I focused on a while back - I am a "scambaiter" and it's actually not the safest of hobbies. However neither is being on the internet in general. There's all kinds of weirdos out there, and the best thing you can do is try to remain as anonymous as possible on the internet. I'll put together a blog post tomorrow on some of the stuff I've learnt about how to keep myself safe, if you like. ;)
I understand how you feel. While I do continue to put up pictures, I try to be very vague about location. At one point, I had my husband's website for his music linked on my sidebar and then I realized that our last name was on it and I took it down. You have to be comfortable with your choices online.
And wow! about those appointments. Things are really moving along.
I think about similar privacy issues quite a bit too and I'm not yet sure how I'm going to resolve them. I can certainly appreciate the decision you've made. Hope you feel more relaxed and secure with your writing now. Its a great blog.
I think about the privacy issues, too. I am acutely aware of them when I receive an anonymous comment or see a sitemeter hit close to home. I udnerstand I'm putting it out there, but I still am not comfortable with people I'm close to reading my thoughts.
I suspect we don't really want someone who's in a position to make decisions concerning us (even if it's just the 'decision' to gossip about us with another neighbour) to see the kind of things we write, even if most of what we say is innocent anyway. Perhaps that is why we like to speak but not have someone we 'know' know what we're saying. When nobody knows us enough to put a face to us, it's just like reading a column in a paper, and that's all we want to be to the rest of the Blogosphere. In general, that is.
I don't even give the real names of my teddy bears - they could be used as an identifying mark. :-). I let my family know what I'm writing about, though - if they told anybody about my blog, they have never said. Probably they're a bit cautious about it too.
Snoskred: If you could do a post on blogging safety it would be brilliant.... I'd link to it so that we could all benefit from your advice.
I am very happy to read that your "new" blog has you feeling comfortable about keeping on going with it. I all to well understand the sleep deprivation thing and how it casts a dark pall over one's thinking processes and ultimate thoughts - been there done/doing that!
Also glad to hear that the egg donation process is underway :-)
That can happen, and I understand.
Stomper and lazy Cow can attest to the fact I thought they were going to slip me a date-rap drug and murder me !!!
It pays to be careful, but then, some trust is good too ( and that's what we've got with your continuation to blog ).
xx
This is such a big topic I am actually going to do more than one blog about it. Part one is up now -
http://snoskred.blogspot.com/2007/04/internet-safety-part-one.html
I don't mean to scare anyone and hopefully I won't, but this is quite a serious topic. I mean, there's a lot of nutty people out there. Some of them are good nuts, the kind of nuts you can bring home and everything turns out fine (yeah I met my other half on the internet) and some of them are not good nuts and not only do you not want to bring them home, you do not want them to find out what suburb your home is in.
Hopefully it'll be useful and helpful info. ;)
I'm glad you're still here and feeling more comfortable now that you've made some blog changes.
And congrats on the egg donation front... sounds like things are moving right along!
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