My face revealed....

Those of you who are my friends on the blog's Facebook account have probably all noticed that for the very first time, I posted photos of myself late last night. Neither the Facebook or the Myspace accounts had any real photos of me before. The blog has had partial photos of my face and distorted pics, but nothing that really showed me (except the Christmas elf cartoon that did show my face).

So why did I suddenly decide to drop more of my anonymity and reveal my face?

For months, I've wanted to just be 100% open with my readers, but with the nature of what I write, I still feel like I can't be totally revealed to the world. There's been several people that I've talked to for a long time who had never seen my face, and for that I felt a little bad. I know when I talk to someone, I want to know what they look like so I can put a face to the voice/words. I want you all to know me and I don't think you can really know me if I'm hiding from you.

In reality, I haven't had much anonymity for a long time. Most of my friends and ex-boyfriends know about the blog. Some of them read it, some of them don't because they can't handle the anxiety of knowing what I'm going through. My ex-husband and his friends read it a lot. Quite a few of my coworkers and a boss (at least one boss, maybe more) read it. So there are tons of people who know me in real-life who read it. Plus, in general, I'm not shy about admitting to having mental illnesses. I'm quite open in real-life about what I go through, so nothing in the blog would really shock the people around me.

I will not, however, tell any of my family members or anyone from back home about the blog. (Well my mom and younger brother know about it, but they don't have a computer so they have never read it.) I don't want relatives or anyone from back home to know because I don't want it to get it to get back to my father or older brother that I have it. I feel like if my photo or full name get posted on the blog, I'm severely increasing the chances that they'll find out about it. I know eventually it will probably happen that they find out about the blog, and I'm moving toward being okay with that.

On top of that stuff, I was contacted last week by a college journalist who was doing a story about bipolar and found my blog. She wanted to interview me for the story. I've been asked for that kind of thing a lot in the past, but I've never really went for it. Since it's hard for me to talk about the issues I have, doing interviews isn't always a good idea. But this time, I said yes, and so far I'm very happy with the process. If it's ok with her, I will share the article with you guys after it's done.

I'm partly doing that to open myself up some to the possibility that I will be brave enough to start a BPD awareness organization in Oklahoma like the ones in Florida and in New Hampshire. I can't really go about beginning a group if I am afraid to talk to the media about the disorder. (Of course, I am the media myself, so I shouldn't be so scared of it anyways). I keep getting contacted by people in Oklahoma seeking an organization or just a BPD support group, and I always have to say that there are none here, so I at least know there's interest here in a group. I'm really hesitant to start piecing together an organization because of that same fear of my father or older brother finding out about stuff. I've got to get the courage to break through that selfishness and realize that an organization will help a bunch of other people so it would be worth it.