ten years of pseudonymity

Last week I picked out my new year's "theme" (instead of resolution) for 2014. While I did my best to remain optimistic, 2013 was kind of an awful year. Some weeks it felt like putting one foot in front of the other was all I could manage to do. But that's a post for the 31st.

In 2014 I'll celebrate my ten year anniversary as a blogger. A lot has happened in ten years as a blogger, both in my personal life, in the world of academic blogging, and on my blog as well.

At the time, in 2004, blogging was an outlet I stumbled upon my accident. Somehow, some google search got me to Profgrrrrl's blog (which I miss terribly!).  That lead to other blogs, and I slowly became a regular visitor to the academic blogosphere.

I distinctly remember the night I stopped lurking and began blogging - I lived in a tiny apartment, alone, in Medium Sized City. It had a little home office that looked out over the parking lot of the apartment complex. Medium Sized City had been experiencing torrential rain for a week. My finances were in a mess due to the travel required for my long-distance relationship, that relationship wasn't working out, I wasn't getting along with Old School Advisor, and frankly I wasn't quite sure what the hell I had signed up for. Stressful Times for Psyc Girl was born.

And here I am, almost ten years later. I did not imagine that desperate act of blogging, designed to release some of my feelings of being trapped, would result in a decade of writing about grad school, relationships, dating, students, divorce, the job market, family, fertility, and life on the tenure track. Nor did I imagine many of the life experiences I've had (and written about) since this blog started. Although I've thought about quitting, and I did take an almost two-year hiatus while living in Number Two City and starting my life here in Pseudonymless City, I'm still going.

The world of academic blogging has changed a lot in ten years. Blogs have become more specialized on certain topics (e.g., getting tenure) and less of the mish mash that Stressful Times for Psyc Girl is. Science blog networks have been created. People blog under their real names, doing literature reviews and discussing contentious topics. Newspapers and science magazines have blogs. Bloggers get paid.

Edging up on 10 years, I think it is impressive that this is still (to the best of my knowledge) a pseudonymous blog. As far as I know, I've never been outed by accident - if so, those people have apparently respected my privacy and not disclosed this. Given the sheer anger, trauma, blood (literally), vomit (literally), despair, and agony that went into my graduate school experience, I'm pretty grateful for this. I'm sure blogging could have gotten me severely reprimanded, if not kicked out entirely.

Today my blogging rules remain mostly the same and I'm still pseudonymous. With some regularity I get comments and emails that thank me for being honest about my experiences. I always receive supportive comments when I need them, and a lot of the time the "regulars" I've "met" through blogging are the only ones who believe I can do this academic gig. Who tell me I can get up every day and slog on, who tell me this is normal!

Over time, I've given my name to a very small number of those fellow bloggers. One for a research project, several for their expertise in a specific area, and some for friendship. One of my very, very dear and closest friends is someone I met via psychology blogging (Hey TR!). But, in general, I haven't given out my identity to many people at all. It seems, in general, many of the academic bloggers I started writing with have either owned their identities and incorporated it in their blog, or they only use their pseudonym very loosely.

I used to blog in secret, hoping no one figured it out. As I age, move forward in my career, fall deeper into my online support network, and develop my sense of self as a 30+ year old woman, I find myself wanting to own Stressful Times for Psyc Girl more. I want to say "People! This is me! I've been writing this!" and I wonder if I will get to the point where I do so, after I secure tenure (for example).

Pseudonymity in the past meant safety to be open - I have been able to blog about many deeply personal experiences because of it: the way I was treated as a graduate student, my relationship implosion that fundamentally changed who I am, my job search and initial months on the tenure track, my chronic illness, my sometimes tenuous grasp on mental health. I find myself caring less and less about this safety, the further I go in my career and my life.

It seems lately (particularly with my rising twitter use, and the connections I have made there with others I would consider to be "my people") pseudonymity is hindering my ability to establish true relationships. I can only own so much of my offline identity. I want to connect, have a different type of closeness that can only come from being who you are - and while my online persona is really a version of my offline one (and the online one has become closer to the offline one over time), there are still walls created by a pseudonym.

The ultimate problem of course with shedding pseudonymity is this: Once you take it off, there is no putting it back on. How do you really gauge who to trust? How do you know who will protect your pseudonymity in a way that allows you to continue to blog? (The fewer people who know me, the more topics I can potentially discuss, or at least that's how it feels). What if, God forbid, I "meet" someone, trust them, and they screw me over with my employer? (okay maybe a little paranoid.... but keep in mind my blog has truly been a direct line out of some dark places over the past decade).

And I suppose there is a little bit of this: Psyc Girl is often the better version of me - the raw me, the vulnerable me, the true and honest me. Sometimes she still feels like a separate person. What if people don't like me as much, as the woman-behind-Psyc Girl? Pseudonymity creates protective barriers as well.

But lately, I just want to own who I am. Integrate Psyc Girl with me. Put down the mask, be fully vulnerable, and be who I am in the world. That being said, I don't think I can do it entirely. Instead I continue to be less careful with protecting details, more willing to trust others, and just continue to ponder... what would an online life without a protective mask be like?

And that is where I'm stuck (a post with no resolution).