This post is part of my series on authenticity, identity, and the cost of visibility. If you’re new here, start with “Two Months Quiet” to understand why I disappeared—and what brought me back louder than before.
Next in the series: [Coming soon—the psychology class that called my identity an “issue”]
Here’s what happens after you show people your scars:
Your brain spends 72 hours cataloging every reason why that was a spectacularly bad idea.
It’s a sadistic asshole like that.
It loops every sentence, every shaky comma, whispering “Congratulations, dumbass, you just ruined everything.”
You replay every line, every pause, every maybe I should’ve kept my mouth shut.
And suddenly the internet feels like a stage you just stripped naked on, mid-monsoon, while everyone politely pretends not to look.
I hit publish on the most vulnerable thing I’ve ever written, and my first thought wasn’t pride. It was, ‘Oh, shit, what have I done?‘
I wrote about my immune system attacking my nerves.
About ten days of suicidal ideation.
About my pulse ox dropping into the 70s while I slept.
About being so fucking broken that finally getting diagnosed felt like relief.
And then I hit publish.
And immediately wanted to crawl out of my skin.
Because now it’s out there. The darkness. The bruises. The exhaustion.
The side that doesn’t smile for the camera or say “I’m fine.”
And I know what happens when people see that side.
They stop knowing what to do with you.
Some disappear quietly, like ghosts.
Some send a quick “you’re so brave” and vanish into the digital cornfield.
Others just… stop showing up.
The friend who used to text every morning suddenly doesn’t.
The relative who “likes everything” skips this one.
One person even said, “Wow. That’s… a lot,” and then evaporated like a vampire in sunlight.
That’s the thing about being authentic: it’s not all soft lighting and healing crystals.
Sometimes it’s being the uncomfortable mirror in someone else’s highlight reel.
And it’s lonely as fuck.
I want to be seen — but only by people who won’t flinch.
I want to be loud — but I’m terrified of the silence that follows.
I want to exist fully — but I’m still checking who left.
It’s a hell of a paradox: wanting to be witnessed, but praying nobody makes eye contact.
It’s like standing naked in a crowded room yelling, “This is me!” and realizing everyone’s quietly edging toward the door.
And the worst part? I get it.
I used to be one of them — the people who couldn’t hold someone else’s darkness without trying to fix it or flee from it.
Now I’m the one holding my own, and it’s heavy as hell.
Meanwhile, my brain — that sadistic bastard — keeps whispering,
“Maybe you went too far. Maybe you should’ve kept it tidy. Maybe you should’ve written something more inspirational — ‘finding hope in hard times’ or whatever sanitized garbage the internet eats up.”
Because that’s the thing: the algorithm doesn’t give a fuck about truth.
It wants polish. It wants palatable pain.
It wants bite-sized healing — pretty fonts over trauma quotes, clean grief, marketable resilience.
Not the kind of mess that smells like sweat and hospital rooms and the long, ugly middle of trying to survive.
The algorithm rewards the performance of vulnerability — not the real thing.
It wants the crying selfie, not the snot and the shaking hands behind it.
It wants the before-and-after, not the during.
It wants a story that resolves neatly, preferably with a discount code at the end.
But life doesn’t give you that.
It gives you the in-between — the part where you’re clawing at the walls, begging for a break that doesn’t come.
The part where the people who look the strongest are usually the ones hanging by a thread.
The ones who keep everyone else upright while quietly bleeding out behind the scenes.
And god, if you’re one of those people — the ones who seem “fine” because you’ve learned how to fake it — I fucking see you.
Because being the strong one doesn’t mean you’re okay. It means you’ve mastered disappearing behind a smile.
Some days, I think maybe the people who stay small are smarter than me.
Maybe they know something I don’t.
Maybe they’ve figured out that vulnerability is basically setting yourself on fire and hoping someone else finds it “relatable.”
Maybe I’m just stubborn and self-destructive, and calling it bravery.
But then I remember: staying quiet almost killed me.
Silence isn’t safety. It’s slow rot.
It’s dying politely so nobody has to watch.
That’s the price no one talks about — the cost of refusing to die quietly.
Because that’s what silence becomes after a while.
Not peace. Not privacy.
Just decay. Just disappearing a little more each day until you’re nothing but a placeholder in your own damn life.
I survived the quiet.
I survived the pretending.
I survived the kind of invisibility that gnaws at your bones.
So no, I can’t go back.
Not even if it’s safer.
Not even if it’s easier.
And the wild thing? The moment I realized I couldn’t go back wasn’t some big dramatic scene.
No hate comment, no betrayal.
Just me, staring at my phone after I hit publish, waiting for a message that never came — and realizing I didn’t need one.
That was the shift.
I wasn’t writing for applause anymore.
I was writing because breathing hurt less when I did.
So yeah. It’s terrifying. It’s exposing. It’s too much.
And I’m doing it anyway.
Because I’m done asking permission to exist.
Authenticity isn’t a brand. It’s a bloodletting.
It’s not an aesthetic. It’s a goddamn exorcism.
If you’ve ever hit publish and immediately wanted to crawl out of your skin —
If you’ve ever been too much, too loud, too real — I see you.
Maybe it’s not bravery. Maybe it’s just stubborn survival.
But it’s still fucking holy.
And if my honesty makes you uncomfortable — good.
That means you’re still alive, too.
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This piece originally appeared on Jordan’s Creative Works.