I’ve agonized for days over what my first blog post should be.
First impressions and all.
I’ve spent hours researching ideas, consulting my pals Mr. GPT and Claude, and disappearing down the social media “how to grow your business” hellhole. All of that effort only led me back to a blinking cursor, a healthy dose of anxiety, and the anti-Stuart Smalley voice in my head reminding me that I’m not good enough, smart enough, and that everybody hates me.
I’m an extreme perfectionist. Which means I procrastinate. I can find a thousand ways to make whatever I’m supposed to be doing “better,” which activates the ADHD squirrel in my brain and sends me chasing another idea that opens another forty-five mental tabs. One of those tabs is always playing the same old tape: You’re stupid. You’re not good enough. You’re lazy.
And because I am exceptionally talented at shame spiraling, I will inevitably hop on that ride and take it for a spin.
Why am I telling you this?
Because being a mentally ill, Christ-following creative while trying to maintain your own identity, stay in recovery, and grieve two dead parents in today’s culture is a little like having the hiccups, needing to sneeze, and having diarrhea at the same time.
At some point, something is coming out whether you are ready or not.
The more I’ve hyper focused (and hyperventilated) over finding the “perfect” blog post or making my Instagram feed look aesthetically pleasing, the further away from myself I’ve gotten.
That’s one of the problems with social media and the gatekeeper known as the algorithm.
The goalpost is always moving. The algorithm is that popular kid at school who gets to decide who sees your art, hears your joke, or reads your diary entry.
Some days it tells everyone, “Look at this! This is great!”
Other days it takes the exact same effort, looks at your work, shrugs, and says, “Nah. Not today.”
You spend hours creating something meaningful, vulnerable, or funny, and then it decides whether five people see it or five thousand. It doesn’t tell you why. It doesn’t tell you what changed. It just hands you the numbers and leaves you to interpret them. For someone with rejection sensitivity, anxiety, or a lifelong fear of not being enough, the algorithm can feel like a digital version of getting picked last in gym class.
One day you’re brilliant. The next day you’re invisible. And because creators are human, it’s easy to start believing those numbers mean something about your value when really they’re just data generated by a computer trying to maximize engagement.
The algorithm is basically the world’s least qualified art curator.
My mental health says, “Your worth is not determined by likes.”
The algorithm says, “Counterpoint: your dashboard says otherwise.”
And that’s how a grown adult can end up having an existential crisis over a post about emotional support tacos.
Maybe that’s the point.
Maybe the goal isn’t to beat the algorithm, create the perfect brand, or write the perfect first blog post.
The goal is to be authentic.
The truth is that I overthink things. The truth is that I have more than one mental health diagnosis (more on that later), anxiety, grief, faith, trauma, recovery, and approximately forty-five tabs open in my brain at any given moment.
The truth is that some days I feel brave and some days I feel like deleting everything and moving to a remote cabin where Wi-Fi can’t find me.
And the truth is that I’m tired of pretending otherwise. So instead of trying to create content that some imaginary version of the internet might approve of, I’m going to create what feels honest.
Stories about trauma.
Stories about recovery.
Stories about grief.
Stories about faith.
Stories about being human.
Some of them will be funny.
Some of them won’t.
Some people will get them.
Some people won’t.
And that’s okay.
Because Bratty Inner Child was never created to impress everyone, and I wasn’t either.
But if my small part in God’s greater story helps someone who has felt too much, not enough, broken, forgotten, overwhelmed, or hopelessly human feel a little less alone, then I hope they know this was never really about me. It was God doing the work behind the scenes, not an algorithm.
So, here’s my first blog post.
It isn’t perfect.
But it’s honest.
And for today, that’s enough.