“Using a pseudonym has been one of the great benefits of the internet, because it has enabled people to express themselves freely – they may be in physical danger, looking for help, or have a condition they don’t want people to know about,” she wrote in February on Google’s public policy blog.

“People in these circumstances may need a consistent identity, but one that is not linked to their offline self. You can use pseudonyms to upload videos in YouTube or post to Blogger.”

The Register

From 31 July, people who have created private profiles in, say, the ad broker’s free email service Gmail will be deleted by Google unless individuals switch it to public view.

It’s no longer possible for individuals to simply log on to YouTube with an anonymous username.

and they still are not open about what they do with all your data. Why in hell do people not see Google as being part of the problem? And you did see that it’s the email privacy that will get you nuked?

Why ask for a username that will not be used? Why not say in big bold letters that your real name will be seen by everyone be they a site member or not? Why not respect the convention that a username is what others see, that your real name is never disclosed except by you? And why not realise that if you want people to discuss mental health issues – their own issues – you need to provide a degree of anonymity? Some people might not mind using their own name but the majority probably do not want their name alongside a mental disorder when they are googled. A quarter of Americans have a mental health disorder so if you know 12 people then 3 are affected (statistically anyway). But how many broadcast this fact? Bet it’s not the same quarter. Anyway, 2 Feb I open this site account and within 60 minutes it is deleted. I sent an email to the site owner expressing my concern.
On 11 Feb I got a reply. In the forum it’s my username, for the Rest Of The World it’s my real name. “Do you have any suggestions?” was in the reply.

“My suggestion would be to make it fantastically clear that your real name will be publicly displayed as soon as you join. Given the reason for the site and the stigma associated with mental health and the way that Google and others will never remove information I would expect any display of a real name to be double prompted with “Are you sure?”
I fully expected my username to be displayed everywhere. Literally everywhere, not my real name. I expected my real name to be known to you and you alone for some good reason.
What users choose to display is up to them. How users interact with others outside of the site is up to them. But otherwise I think the site should do everything possible to protect privacy and promote that fact. Promote the fact that you know it’s a sensitive subject but they are safe here with their username.”

On 23 Feb I got a reply (not quick are they?) saying changes would be made soon. I joined again 3 days ago with completely made up details and again the name displayed would have been the real one. If you insist on real names in any forum anywhere you run the risk of less particpation but in one that deals with a sensitive issue such as mental health then it can only be worse. It is worse because those that don’t mind others knowing will be open and those that wish they too could be open will not join. I don’t see a winner here, just loss all round.

I found a couple of other forums which I joined with the expected fake name. Both are established, both have users with thousands of posts. Back when I just had depression I also had access to usenet – a wonderful place until Google did it’s best to kill it. You can tell it was Google that did it because it’s full of spam with no effort to remove it. In usenet there were various groups for depression, most had irc chat. They were helpful to a point but there were many there who were swapping in-jokes and talking in a way that you knew there was a long relationship there albeit a text one. Odd in a depression ng and the same people led the discussions. Anyway, meds kicked in and I wandered off. A couple of years later I go back and it’s pretty much the same people in the ng and irc. I didn’t know if I was joining a social club, interrupting chat between friends or what. It was strange having the same people saying the same thing. I wondered if they were depressed or they needed that chat to stave off the depression or they were dependent on it. Yet here too it was loss. I got nothing from it and I have no idea what it was doing for them.

It’s a difficult thing trying to find some support. In real life it’s practically impossible and online it’s as bad. The lack of intimacy is fine, the fake names is fine but it’s the non-judgemental non-’this worked for me so it will for you’ people you want. It’s forum posts from others that fit your need you want to see. It’s somewhere to write where people say the right things back even though you probably don’t know what that right thing is until you’ve read it twice. So you end up alone with your thoughts, thoughts which the docs are hoping chemically influencing and possibly bad things happen yet when they do the Govt and others express surprise because they say so much help is out there and it isn’t. It really is not there. Which is sad.

And in case you are wondering, I’m absolutely fine. That website just annoyed me.

It takes a minute or less from me to get out of bed and switch the monitor on. It takes only a few more to go get a coffee. Working from home blends work and life together far more than you may think.

I have probably said before that I will not mention my nursing career again but I need to this time. I had 3 ways of getting to/from work. Walking took around 40-50  minutes, cycling took around 25 and the car took considerably less. The shorter the time the less the separation between the two roles. The less the separation meant less focus, taking more time when I was in the role to be the role. Planning work / home life is important regardless of the work and I always felt that cycling to work was ideal. It gave me the perfect amount of time with the fewest distractions. It was also an ideal way to relax afterwards. I found that with the car it was swapping one stress for another then arriving back home with the residue of work stress still there. I will clarify the stress. Workload does not stress me. If there is 100 things to do and I’m the only one to do it then I’ll get on and work through. Stressing about this does no good, makes work take longer.  Anyway, point is that putting physical distance between work helped me to separate the two roles, it benefitted both roles.

The most frustrating things I deal with are blogs that have been suspended and the person asks why. Sometimes this is resolved positively but sometimes not. The ‘not ones’ generally involve phrases like “But Blogger let me do it” and their failure to understand that we just don’t allow PTC MLM penis-enlarging foreclosure avoidance schemes. And the good thing about working from home is that I can say what I want out loud, put some music on, go for a walk or something else that takes me away from the machine. The flip side of course is that if this happens just before we all sit down for a meal then some of that frustration could come with me to the table. (It’s fair to say that my family know the difference between wordpress.com and blogger.com). Of course this is no different to people that use laptops from the office, or Blackberrys. But it is different in that they move about, go to/from an office. The reverse is true. If Jacq and I have had words (very rare to be honest) or I am annoyed at something else then when I walk in and sit in front of the monitors my mood, my potential responses can be influenced.

Looking more at the domestic side, if someone calls I’m always around (this is great for deliveries). I can get called downstairs for good news, to chat about something. I’m here for J when she needs, can do the housework (which I find relaxing), go shopping so in that way I get a mini-break from work and work gets a happier me back. It’s far from all being negative.

But I mentioned in my previous post about the need for privacy and the above is all part of that. I don’t  know if this is making sense yet – I hope another post does.

The untitled docs that lie around are the result of my quitting the editor and just saving to get the quit complete. But that was unsatisfying because I never read the words again and although I didn’t want to read them I needed to do so. I am not organised enough to keep track of these temporarily important files. So I got a  blog. It’s on a domain no-one knows is mine, it’s on another host and I use Ecto to blog there. I bought Ecto when I started doing Support and people would say they had problems with it – the only way to know and help was to buy it. But I use it because what I type there cannot be written here – using another program rather than the dashboard (where I am now) helps the separation. There are 3 reasons why I am not doing blogging the words here it, but the main one is I don’t want people to read it. (The three: J and the girls will read it, my words would be twisted by others, it’s private). I write, I publish. The blog does not ping, is linked nowhere. And the next time I write I read what I wrote, I think a little about what happened since and I delete it. There is only ever one post there, no more. And because I write there I am not writing here. It helps me think, cope with anger / frustration, think about the future, plan things that will never come to fruition (I have an identi.ca account for those fleeting GRrrr moments).

I have this need to split what I write, to keep the private private. I really don’t want you knowing stuff but I do want to write it and I do want to then read it – and a blog is the perfect place. So why write this? So I could write a post here for a change :) But it will tie in with another post that should see the light of day soon.