I Had to Become Someone Else to Be Me

How a pseudonym became my portal to freedom. If you’ve ever felt like you had to splinter just to be yourself, this one’s for you.

I am here to share a secret.

A secret I’ve been holding close to my chest

for a few weeks now.

But I can’t do it anymore.

Chalk it up to a thirst for realness,

or chronic oversharing.

Who knows?

Either way, here goes:

---

THE TRUTH I’VE BEEN KEEPING

On June 9, 2025,

I did something wildly audacious.

I created this Substack.

It didn’t even feel like a decision.

It felt more like being sucked into a technicolor vortex,

after years of drifting in a black-and-white vapor.

The impulse gurgled up deep within my gut,

and somehow weirdly I knew—

it was time.

After a long season

of isolation,

depression,

and frozen dreams,

something inside me

finally

cracked.

And in that opening,

Naomi was born.

I’m smiling and shaking my head writing this,

because still—nearly a month later—

it feels like a dream.

Naomi gave me room to speak.

To write freely.

To show up without the weight

of decades of being controlled—

lorded over, judged, demonized, misunderstood.

She is me.

But freer.

And for 27 days,

I’ve opened to her.

I’ve embodied her.

---

What follows is a journal entry

poured out in a messy mix of

resentment

and relief

just one day after Naomi arrived in my orbit.

July 10, 2025 
Substack Journey: Day 2

My head hurts.

My feet are getting crispy in the sun.

I want a beer,

and I’m just pissed off.

Pissed off at the whole thing.

All I want is to be Fully Me,

but that feels too exposing.

So what do I do?

I create a fake name

and a fake Substack

to go with the fake me.

Except…it’s not fake at all.

Naomi is me.

She’s just not plagued with crippling fear

that if she’s her true self,

people will exile her from…

the tribe she already left.

(Trauma rarely makes sense, does it?)

Naomi gave me the courage to do the thing

that I’ve been working up the guts to do

on my real Substack for six months:

I hit publish.

*Dances ecstatically to “Colour of My Skin” by Johnny Clegg*

But I had to create a pseudonym to do it??

Face palm.

I don’t want a CRUTCH.

I want to be FREE.

But oh, I loved (and hated) how butter smooth the words

slipped from my fingers when Naomi claimed them.

How breezily my thoughts blew in from the ocean

when the people in my life

weren’t whispering judgments,

and praying for my soul as I slept.

I’ve spent a lifetime

dislodging the real me

from beneath the rubble

of who I was taught to be.

And because I’ve strayed so far

from that old, poisonous life—

because I’ve become a heretic in their eyes—

I am petrified

to be my True Self.

That’s why I haven’t been on social media for, what, fifteen years?

It just wasn’t worth it to me.

Until I found Substack.

And for the first time in forever, I thought I could actually build a nest in a faraway place on the internet…where they couldn’t find me.

But they did.

And the second that happened?

My joy deflated.

And my body shut down.

For six miserable months, I couldn’t publish anything.

Every time I tried to work up the courage, I froze.

I spent months frustrated and depressed

that I wasn’t brave enough to ‘just be myself.’

But it doesn’t work like that—

at least not for someone still healing

from the fear of being seen

by those who once had the power to punish.

Sometimes the conditioning runs so deep,

you can’t find the shore.

I had to find a different way.

So I opened a window in a house with no doors.

And her name was Naomi.

Since Naomi found me…

I’ve settled into the belief that:

I can be myself no matter what name I give myself.

Hell, women have been writing under pseudonyms

for centuries just to be heard.

I know I’m not alone in this.

From the beginning of time,

haven’t we all craved

to be our wild, unfiltered selves—

without fear of getting kicked out of the tribe?

Everything about Naomi

is the most liberated version of me. (So far).

Even from day one,

I gave you the realest parts of myself that I could access.

It was liberating.

It was euphoric.

Oh, to be free to create and express without a shaking head or a raised eyebrow.

I wanted to scream from the mountaintop:

“No one from my past knows this is ME!”

And yet, I was dropping clues of the real me with each post I shared…almost taunting those judgy ghosts to find me…because by that point, Naomi had already worked her magic in making me feel invincible.

🦶 For my profile picture, I took a pic of my journal and bare feet in the grass, because that is so me. (Shoes are entirely extraneous, if you ask me).

🗣️ I shared my wavering voice as I recounted how far I’ve come on my journey of healing.

🦴 I wrote about my depression and shared photos of me with Storm, my beloved husky, who has seen me at my worst, and still loves me.

Naomi might not be my real name,

but I am not constructing a persona.

I am creating a safe container

for the real me to feel safe in,

a place where the gremlins from my past

can’t snatch me up.

For those choosing to stay with me

as I liberate myself—

I bow to you.

Let’s keep freeing one another.

One day at a time.

One truth at a time.

Because we ALL deserve

to be our most liberated selves.

ALWAYS.

xoxo.