An Open Letter To The Person That Shamed Me When I Was Brave Enough To Put Myself Out There TheFunnyParent Follow Mar 13, 2017 · 2 min read

People are mean. They judge, they critique, and they compare. I can’t tell you how many times that I’ve been in a situation where people find the negative instead of the nice and positive. Where is the encouragement? Why is it missing? Haven’t we all had enough negativity?

It all began a few weeks ago when I decided that I really missed writing. I thought it would be fun to put some of my work up on Reddit, but had no idea what I was in store for. It was kind of exciting to know that people were reading my articles. It actually gave me a sense of pride because it was the first time that I’d ever really put myself out there, as far as my writing went. However, it only took a few days for the haters to emerge and kill my spirit.

Dear Person That Shamed Me When I Was Brave Enough To Put Myself Out There,

I haven’t written in 20 years. It used to be a passion of mine long, long ago. I would write poetry to express my most personal thoughts. After I had kids, I figured that life was getting comical and I had so many things to write about. So, I put myself out there. I wrote a few articles on parenting woes, some poetry, and some other weird articles — to make you laugh. A little positive spirit to get you all through the day was all I intended.

Unfortunately, the haters preyed on me. They wrote mean comments and criticized me. There was no constructive criticism. I told my husband I didn’t want to write anymore because I was embarrassed. Here, I put myself out there after never doing this before and I am shamed for trying. He told me not to give up.

Being a sensitive person already, the comments were a real punch to the gut. To be honest, I’m still hurt. I don’t know why I am writing this article to put myself out there again, but it must be because I refuse to let anyone tell me I can’t. Yes, of course there will be times of feeling low, but the one thing to remember is, the haters read my story, they took the time to bash me, and exposed my article to many readers. I guess I owe them a “thank you.”

To all of you that took the time to read this, I want to say “thank you.” It adds more smiles to my day and I hope I’ve done the same for yours.