Why I pulled today's draft blog

I had a lovely blog lined up for today. And then, at the last minute, I pulled it.

I'm ambivalent about whether pulling it was the right thing to do. And I can't quite get my head round my own reasoning for why I pulled it.

I know that the reason is to do with the topic - mental health. And I think a conversation I've just had with a freelancer probably explains my ambivalence about whether or not to publish the blog I had lined  up for today.

I've been doing simultaneous translation from 'policy-conference-speak' into clear English summary. Someone asked me if I did similar work around mental health. Once I'd made a personal reference to mental health, that person then talked about their own experience - which included losing a contract when they had a short illness break related to their mental health. They suspected if they'd lied and said it was really bad flu, then they'd still have the contract.

Yep, that short exchange underlined that, even in circles that talk about equality, personal disclosure is still risky. And it's extra risky via a blog because once it is "out there", you can't take it back or control who can see it.

I can't be doing with stigma, and I find that talking casually, one to one, tends not to be stimatising or uncomfortable at all. I feel that by talking opening and casually, I am helping make a world where mental health loses its stigma. So it seemed natural to carry that into the blogosphere. But....

I think the "to publish or not" comes down to whether the best way to challenge stigma is to hit it head on and hopefully survive, or whether to quietly work away undercover. I have the luxury of being able to choose whether to talk to people about something that could lead to stigma and discrimination, or whether to remain undercover. Others don't have that luxury.

I still don't know whether I will reschedule what would have been today's blog. I still don't know whether my self-disclosure would change anything positively or negatively, either for me or as part of the wider goal of eradicating stigma.

Aaargh!! What kind of world do we live in when what felt like a bit of simple, bloggy, transparency turns into a major, value-laden, stigma-risking dilemma?