When Being Seen Doesn't Feel Safe
Learning to share your voice without giving everyone access to you
There have been years of my adult life when I haven't wanted to be seen. I didn't want to draw attention to myself. I disappeared from social media and, in many ways, from my day-to-day life as well.
Being seen could mean being judged, misunderstood, criticized, mocked, exposed, or gossiped about. Sometimes it even felt connected to my physical safety, not just my emotional safety. I learned to stay quiet when I wasn't sure how people would respond. I learned to keep parts of myself private. I learned that there were certain things that felt safer not to explain, not to share, and not to bring attention to. I had enough experiences with being misunderstood or having conflict erupt that it just wasn't worth putting myself or my opinions out there.
And honestly, I think some of that caution was warranted. But there is a difference between being discerning about who gets access to you and believing that you need to disappear in order to be safe. Learning that distinction has taken me years.
The first time I really remember being shaken by being seen
One experience from college stands out to me.
I was in an interior design lecture class with an older, soft-spoken professor. There were several girls sitting in front of me who talked throughout the entire class, and on that particular day, I could barely hear the professor. I knew some of these girls from growing up. They were part of the "popular crowd," and I had never really felt like I belonged with them.
Eventually, I raised my hand and politely asked if the professor could ask the girls to stop talking and speak a little louder. It wasn't an aggressive confrontation. I simply wanted to be able to hear my professor.
But some of the girls apparently didn't appreciate it and used it as an opportunity to make fun of me. One of the girls I had been in school with for many years went home and created a Facebook page about me and another student called "We Hate Interior Design Suck-Ups." At least half of our small class ended up joining it. And while my name wasn't specifically called out, it was obvious from their comments who they were talking about.
I knew these weren't necessarily people whose opinions I should have cared about. I didn't even particularly like them, and a few of them were notorious for their mean-girl behavior. But it still hurt.
More importantly, it taught me something. It reinforced the idea that if I spoke up, stood out, or did something other people didn't like, they might find a way to make me the target. I became more hesitant to express my opinions and more conscious of how I might be perceived. And while their behavior may have had more to do with what was happening within them than it did with me, somewhere along the way, a belief began taking shape:
People are looking for reasons to dislike me.
When being seen became terrifying
Years later, that wound became much deeper.
After my psychosis, I went from being an up-and-coming interior designer with a growing business, gaining recognition and receiving awards, to someone who was barely able to function. There were times when I was visibly struggling to function. I was deeply vulnerable, and I was also deeply ashamed.
Suddenly, being seen didn't just mean someone might think I was awkward or dislike me. It meant they might see me at one of the lowest points of my life.
I became afraid of running into people I knew. Even going to the grocery store could create tremendous anxiety because I didn't know whether I might encounter someone who recognized me. Would they know what had happened? Would they judge me? Would they think I was crazy? Would they tell other people? Would they remember me as the person I had been before and wonder what happened?
I wanted to retreat, and I did. I shut down my business. I stayed home a lot. Eventually, I moved away from the area where my psychosis had occurred. For a while, being invisible felt safer than being known.
Starting over somewhere nobody knew me
When I first moved back to my hometown, there was some relief in knowing that most people there didn't know what had happened. I could breathe a little easier, but I still worried about going to restaurants or grocery stores and encountering someone who might recognize me. I kept my life relatively quiet and eventually found a low-profile, part-time job.
At that point, I wasn't really experimenting with a new identity yet. I was recovering. I was trying to live my life without constantly feeling watched.
Later, after my divorce, I moved somewhere where I knew no one, and that experience was different. For the first time, I had the opportunity to genuinely experiment with becoming a different version of myself. Nobody there knew my history, my marriage, or what had happened during my psychosis. Nobody had an established image of who I was supposed to be, so I could start fresh. That freedom was incredibly valuable.
I encountered people who were kind and understanding when I shared pieces of my story, including people who had also been through their own divorces and understood some of what I was experiencing. Their openness helped me begin to heal the shame and stigma I had expected to face. People shared stories of their own vulnerable moments and difficult experiences with me, and in doing so, they helped me feel less alone. Their willingness to let me see parts of their lives made it easier for me to slowly let others see parts of mine.
Piece by piece and step by step, I gained more confidence to begin rebuilding my life. I started to realize that I didn't have to remain defined by the most painful chapters of my past. I could carry what I had learned from them without continuing to live as though those chapters were still happening. Little by little, I began releasing the pain and allowing myself to become someone who felt more fully like me.
When your story no longer feels like public property
My divorce brought another layer to this wound, though.
I had already experienced the pain of being misunderstood, but during and after my divorce, I became much more aware of how easily personal information can become gossip and how some people will make assumptions about your story without ever asking what actually happened.
I had experienced betrayal from people I trusted and relationships ending in ways I never expected. I also became aware that my story could be retold in ways that didn't reflect the full reality of what had happened. I wouldn't be surprised if my ex shared a version of the divorce that placed much of the blame on me, leaving out the parts that complicated that narrative.
And then there were the two years of cyberstalking by him, other family and former family members, and people I didn't know. Eventually, retreating again felt like the only way to create enough distance for the intrusion to stop.
It was another reminder that being visible and being exposed are not necessarily the same thing. Sometimes other people can take information you shared freely and turn it into something you never intended it to become. That experience made me even more protective of my privacy and much more intentional about who I allowed into my life.
Learning that I can choose who sees me
One of the biggest shifts in my healing has been realizing that bullying, gossip, and other people's judgments don't have to determine whether I use my voice.
I don't need everyone to understand me, like me, or agree with me. What I need is to know myself well enough that someone else's misunderstanding doesn't automatically make me question who I am. I can trust myself enough to share my experiences, my truth, and my opinions even when I know someone might criticize them or talk about me afterward.
At the same time, I'm learning to become more discerning about who I allow closer into my daily life. Being genuinely known by someone I trust feels completely different from being exposed to people who have not earned that access. Not everyone deserves access to every part of my life, and learning that hasn't made me less authentic. It has helped me understand that authenticity and complete transparency are not the same thing.
Even my name became part of this journey
One of the more unexpected parts of this process has been changing my name.
After my divorce, I knew I eventually wanted to leave my married name behind. But I felt paralyzed by the thought of moving somewhere new under that name and then changing it shortly afterward. I worried people would think it was strange. I worried they would ask questions. I worried they would think I was being dramatic or weird.
So I waited.
Years passed.
Then, last December, I received my spiritual name.
Kealani Cerys.
It is unusual. Kealani is Hawaiian and Cerys is Celtic, a name meaning “heaven’s clear light of love”. It stands out, and yes, I still occasionally feel uncertain about explaining it to people.
But overall, taking on this name has given me an unexpected sense of freedom. It doesn't carry the same baggage that my married name did. It feels like an expression of who I am becoming, and who I truly am on a soul-level, rather than a reminder of who I used to be.
And perhaps that's part of what healing the wound of being seen has looked like for me: not becoming someone who is completely unafraid of what people think, but becoming someone who is increasingly willing to say,
“This is who I am.”
I don't have to show everyone everything
There are still many parts of my life that I intentionally keep private: my day-to-day life, the people I love, certain details about my past, aspects of my spirituality, some of the things I am building, and the stories and conversations I share only with the people who are most dear to me. Some of those boundaries exist simply because not everyone deserves access to those parts of me. Others exist because there are legitimate safety considerations, and I don't think healing requires me to throw all of that away.
In fact, I think learning to protect what is precious can be part of healing. There is a difference between hiding because I'm ashamed and keeping something private because it is sacred. There is also a difference between being afraid to let anyone see me and intentionally choosing who gets to see certain parts of me. Privacy doesn't have to mean that I'm living in fear. Sometimes it simply means that I understand the value of what I'm protecting.
The goal isn't complete openness. The goal is choice. I want to be able to choose what I share, when I share it, and with whom. I want to be able to share my voice and allow parts of my story to become a light for someone else without believing that I have to hand over my entire life in order to do it. I can be authentic without being completely transparent, and I can let myself be known without making every part of me available for public consumption.
Becoming visible again
This is where I find myself now.
I'm beginning to intentionally put my voice into the world again through my writing, the work I'm creating, and the things I want to teach. And yes, there is still fear. I'm still aware that someone could criticize me, misunderstand my story, think my spirituality is strange, find my life boring, disagree with what I believe, or simply decide that they don't like me. Those possibilities haven't disappeared just because I'm choosing to become more visible.
But I've reached a point where I don't want the possibility of being misunderstood to prevent me from helping the people who genuinely need what I have to say. I think about the person I was years ago, desperately searching for help, answers, peace, and guidance, and I know there are other people in that place now. There are people searching for healing, trying to rebuild their lives, and feeling alone in experiences that I have lived through.
I can't know exactly who will find my work or what they will take from it, but if sharing some part of my story can help someone feel a little less alone, then I don't want fear to keep me completely silent.
So I press publish. Not because I'm fearless, and not because I've stopped caring what people think. I press publish because I've decided that my voice is worth sharing and can help other people, even if it isn't received perfectly by everyone who hears it.
You can be visible without being exposed
I think this is one of the most important things I've learned: you don't have to become completely transparent in order to be authentic. You don't have to tell everyone your deepest wounds, explain every decision you make, or make your private life public in order to have a meaningful public voice.
You also don't have to wait until you're completely fearless before you allow yourself to be seen. You can take baby steps. You can share something you're comfortable sharing and see how people respond. You can learn who treats your vulnerability with care and gradually open the door wider for the people who demonstrate that they can be trusted.
And you can close the door when someone demonstrates that they can't.
That isn't being cold.
That's discernment.
To the person who learned to disappear
If you've spent years believing that it is safer to stay quiet, I want you to know that you don't have to force yourself into visibility overnight. You don't have to become the loudest person in the room or turn your entire life into content. You don't have to share things that could compromise your safety or peace. You are allowed to be private, and you are also allowed to have a voice.
You are allowed to speak, create, and tell the parts of your story that you genuinely want to tell. You are allowed to let the right people see you while still remaining unknown to the people who have not earned access to you. There is a difference between hiding because you are afraid and choosing privacy because you understand that not everyone needs access to every part of you.
For me, healing this wound hasn't meant reaching a place where I no longer care what anyone thinks. It's meant reaching a place where everyone's opinion no longer has equal authority over me. I can listen to wisdom without surrendering my judgment, receive criticism without automatically assuming I'm wrong, and be misunderstood without believing that I am unworthy. I can allow myself to be seen without believing that being seen requires me to become completely exposed.
There are still parts of me that I protect. There are parts of my life that belong only to me and the people I deeply trust, and I don't see that as a failure to be authentic. I think it is part of becoming more discerning about what I share, who I share it with, and why I'm sharing it in the first place.
But there is also a part of me that is finally stepping out from behind the curtain. Not because I need everyone's approval or because I have something to prove, but because there are people genuinely searching for something I may be able to offer. If I stay completely hidden, those people may never have the opportunity to find me.
And perhaps that's what healthy visibility looks like: not giving everyone access to you, but becoming brave enough to let the right people find you.
Questions to Sit With
When did being seen first begin to feel unsafe for you?
What are you afraid people might think, say, or do if they see the real you?
Have you confused privacy with hiding?
Who in your life has demonstrated that they are safe enough to see more of you?
What behaviors tell you that someone has not earned deeper access to you?
What parts of your life feel sacred or important enough that you want to protect them?
Where might you be allowing fear of judgment to keep you smaller than you actually want to be?
What would it look like to become visible in small, manageable ways?
What part of your story might help someone else if you were willing to share it?
Can you imagine being seen without being completely exposed?
You don't have to become visible to everyone. You only have to become willing to let yourself be found by the people who are meant to hear your voice.