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March 26, 2008
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about censoring oneself. What I write about here are topics many would find offensive, sinful, perverted, disgusting, pornographic…how many more adjectives can I come up with? Basically, I’m very open about my life experiences. I’ve been part of a subculture, ok several subcultures, that could mark me as a subversive, transgressive, non-conforming, dangerous female. There are several reasons I write about such topics:
1. Honesty. I am who I am and I want to portray my full experience of life.
2. Visibility. People like me are not rare. There are more of us that our society is willing to admit. We just generally don’t make our subversive lives a matter of public discourse. I want to change that.
3. Connection. Finding others of shared experience is satisfying. Since I keep most of this under wraps in my everyday life, the internet is a way to connect to others for my own personal growth and fulfillment.
4. Venting. I need to release pent up steam, frustration from keeping this all in.
5. Mentoring. If I can help someone else that is going through similar struggles then my willingness to be open is worth any fears I have.
Problems arise for me when friends in my real life want to read my blog. I’m not quiet about the fact that I blog. I just don’t give out my url to certain people. If I know they have similar life experience or if I know they can handle it, then maybe. If I want someone to know more about me, then maybe. Mostly, no.
I keep my academic writing and my personal writing very separate. This creates certain problems.
1. Repression. I have to keep repressing certain aspects about who I am. It’s stifling. Sometimes I just want to say, “You’re wrong about people like that. I know. I am one.” But I just can’t do this in most cases.
2. Dishonesty. I hate lying to friends. Repressing large parts of myself means I fell like a liar and that’s the last thing I want to be.
3. Fracturing. I’m cut into several large chunks. I can be this me here…and that me there…but not all of me anywhere.
4. Distance. Because of the previous three points, I feel separated from people. I don’t have many close friends because to have a close friend means opening up. I have to trust someone a great deal to do this and I run the risk of freaking them out.
I used to feel fine about keeping my writing life compartmentalized like I do. Lately, it’s been bothering me. I want all the parts of myself to be integrated. I want to be able to write the truth of my experience in all my writing, not just here. Sometimes I wish I hadn’t lived in all those worlds. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t who I am…but I am. I can’t deny my past. I can’t deny myself.
Identity builds over time. One experience or event propels you into another. All my experiences have interconnected to make my own unique life. This me I am today is not the me I was years ago. Trying to remove certain parts of the whole of me makes for a painful daily existence monitoring the borders of my fractured identity(ies). I wish I could just be me with no consequences for living the life I have lived. The world is just not that way, unfortunately.
Just me…Marissa
