Censorship

I’ve been carefully censoring everything I write here due to my paranoia that people at every job I apply to make their way here from my portfolio site. And while censoring, I’ve noticed that my writing has become stale and deflated. I don’t enjoy it anymore because I think about every little detail and whether or not it will come back to haunt me.

I know for a fact that some potential employers do find their way to this site. But I have only had one very uncomfortable experience where the woman interviewing me grilled me on comments I wrote three years ago in which she had completely misconstrued as an attack at the University of Washington (her employer).

Over a year after graduating college, I’m still not in a full-time permanent position and I’m beginning to feel that censoring myself doesn’t matter. I also have a lot going on in my life, and the best way for me to heal is to write about it. In the past, I’ve tried paper journals, filling a handful of pages maybe once every month. And while that may be the smartest option for me considering some of the touchy subject matter of my current life, this blog is the only thing where I am able to consistently write and heal. While I’m not planning on going into detail about interviews and other inappropriate subjects, I do feel that it’s time for me to open up more and talk about the depression I’ve been dealing with.

Depression is one of those illnesses that many people misunderstand, including me and my boyfriend—two people who live with it everyday. I was afraid that if I were to talk about my experiences, it would hurt any potential employment. However, I realized that I’ve been trying really hard to get better and that perhaps sharing my troubles and solutions might touch at least one person who stumbles upon this humble blog. Or it may not. But at the very least, I know releasing everything I’ve caged up will help me fight my illness. And if that means someone who intends to interview me stumbles across an entry about depression and decides not to interview me or offer me the job despite my efforts to become a happy and healthy person, then I don’t want to work for them anyway.