I’m terrified of looking at responses to my Medium stories.

Seriously, it’s like stage fright happening after a performance. Like you planned for the performance, but what then?

Let me get this out of the way, I don’t get a lot of responses. So I’m very grateful for the ones I do get. I just find it stressful to read them.

Even before looking at what the responses say, I have the worst thoughts going through my mind. Why did I write this thing, did they hate it, do they hate me? So I freeze up. Right now I have responses in my notifications and I’m terrified to read them. What the hell is wrong with me.

It might stem from the fact that I’m also not used to having “fans” or “followers”, so the concept is somewhat foreign to me. Sure I have Linked-in and Facebook accounts, but I rarely post and this feels so much more personal. I’m putting out thoughts to the world and less memes.

These stories and thoughts should engage with people. It’s just a weird consequence, that when people respond, it blows my mind. Then I see that notification and, I just freeze up. Like literally freeze up. I can’t function and I close the app.

I even did a google search (“i’m terrified reading comments about my Medium post”), before I even sat down to write this. Just to see if I’m the only one who feels this way and I can’t be, right? I’m ridiculous.

Btw, as a side note, when the top search for my query is “Going Viral: How I got 10k Views on Medium in 4 days …” I’m not sure that’s a good sign for Medium. But I digress.

So, I write another post, on a Saturday morning. One that’s laced with even more insecurities than my last one. Terrified that no one will response, but terrified they will.

Obviously I really need to write more.

Hopefully this anxiety will temper with time and I’ll look back at this as a weird phase for my writing. I hope so, there are so many wonderful responses and I’m just being stupid for not engaging more with this community.

Thank you for just listening. It means a lot.