I Don’t Know How to Share Without Editing Myself Out

I used to share so openly.

Whether it was my blog and the ups and downs of those early years of motherhood, my year-long beauty challenge, or just random thoughts that felt worth putting somewhere, I genuinely loved it. It felt easy. I didn’t overthink it, I didn’t sit with drafts for days, I just wrote and shared.

But over time, that changed.

It’s not that I stopped writing. If anything, I probably write more now than I ever did. I just don’t share it. I draft, tweak, reread, and then delete. Entire pieces, gone. Thoughts that felt important in the moment, watered down until they don’t even feel like mine anymore.

And I think somewhere in the last thirteen years of being online, I slowly filtered myself to the point where I don’t always recognise what’s left.

I was talking about this with a client, who is also a dear friend, and we kept coming back to the same thing. Not one big moment, but a series of smaller ones where we both felt like we had to make ourselves more tolerable. Softer. Easier to digest.

I don’t know exactly when it started. I just know that looking back, those moments stack.

One instance that stood out: I noticed that a mom who had always greeted me, who showed up to birthdays and events, started avoiding me at pickups, birthdays and school events. Her enthusiastic small talk quickly turned into awkward and shallow, “how are you’s” that screamed, “I need to get outta here!” And when I started piecing it together, I realized that her mannerism had changed shortly after I had started talking openly about my love for oracle cards, and the story behind my Hekate tattoo.

Nothing was said. But something had shifted.

And it sounds small when I say it like that, but those are the kinds of things that stay with you. They don’t ask you to change outright, they just quietly suggest that maybe you should.

And then there’s another side to consider too.

Writing, for me, has always been a way to process. Especially when it comes to harder things. Trauma, experiences, things that don’t sit neatly.

But I’m not always alone in those stories.

I can hold what hurt me and still love the people connected to it, which makes the idea of sharing it feel complicated in a way I don’t always know how to navigate. I know how something felt to me, but I also know that reading it might land very differently for someone else.

Even if that’s not my intention.

So I hold back there.

And sometimes I catch myself wondering if I’m overestimating my own importance. Like, am I really that central to anyone else’s conversations? Am I actually the topic of discussion over a glass of wine somewhere, or is that just fear dressing itself up as self-awareness?

I don’t know. But the fear is still there, whether it’s rational or not.

The truth is, I’ve never been someone who does things halfway. I don’t know how to share without oversharing. I don’t know how to laugh without it sounding like a hearty cackle. When I cry, the waterworks really do pour. So yeh… the idea of only sharing the polished, acceptable parts of me doesn’t feel authentic. But at the same time, I’ve seen what happens when things are taken out of context, when words are twisted, when people decide who you are based on a version of you that suits their narrative.

I’ve been there. Done that. I didn’t even get a t-shirt.

Even offline, those moments have a way of lingering.

Before I left my job last year, I was training a head of department role. I had done that many times before, and I had grown confident and even proud of my management style. This time felt different from the start. I wasn’t part of the interview process, and from our first meeting, I could tell he didn’t like me.

A month in, there were already issues. Not just from me, but from others too. I kept trying to handle it professionally, giving space where I could, but it got to a point where I couldn’t ignore it anymore. So I asked him directly if he had a problem with me.

That’s when he raised his voice and told me I’m very aggressive.

And that… stayed with me.

Because I’ve never seen myself that way. Passionate, yes. Direct, sometimes. But aggressive didn’t fit. And even though everything that followed made it clear that the situation wasn’t what he made it out to be, I still sat with that word for a long time. Shamefully, I still do.

I questioned everything. My approach, my tone, my experience. My confidence took a hit.

Because the truth is, my intention has never been to make anyone feel small. I’m not interested in that. If anything, I want people to feel steadier, more capable, more seen after interacting with me.

But intention doesn’t always land the way we hope it will.

And that’s where things start to get complicated.

I recently read something from a therapist that asked, how much of your kindness is actually fear.

I can’t show up honestly if I’m constantly filtering myself through fear. And I do believe that sharing matters. Not the perfectly packaged version of things, but the real ones. The slightly uncomfortable, slightly messy ones that make someone feel seen. It’s stumbling through life, and acknowledging that we’re human, we make faux pas, but also having a gracious community that helps educate and inform. It’s the willingness to be vulnerable that reminds us of our humanity. It’s the passionate curiosity that reminds us it’s okay to not always fit neatly into the mould society is so desperate to place us into.

That’s where connection actually happens.

Not in the curated parts. In the moments where someone feels seen without needing to explain why.

I think that’s what I’ve been missing.

So maybe this is me trying to find my way back to it. Not perfectly, not all at once, and not without hesitation. But in a way that feels closer to who I am again.

Because as uncomfortable as it is to share like this, it feels worse not to.