Part three of a three-part series.

In the last couple of weeks, we've been discussing how to deal with life's more sensitive issues in your online journal.

For example, how can a gay journaler talk about their homosexuality if they haven't revealed that to their friends and coworkers? Maybe a journaler is considering a divorce, but her spouse reads her online diary and she hasn't talked to him about it yet. Or perhaps the journaler is seeing more than one person romantically, and they both know about his online diary. What does he do?

Remaining silent is an option, but there are more ways to get what's really troubling you into your journal, without alienating or offending those you love.

The Anonymous Approach

Some journalers start their journal under an anonymous pseudonym. They don't give their real email address or their real name, and they don't name names of people in their lives. If you haven't started your journal yet, you might opt to go this route. This gives you almost complete freedom to tell all, so long as you never let anyone close to them know what they're really up to.

This doesn't work for me, because my personality is to egocentric. I can't hide like that, but this works great for some people.

If you have already started a journal and your name is all over the place, you still don't have to name names. You could say whatever's happening happened to this friend of yours. Make up a fictitious name and then describe what's really happening to you, but in this fictitious person's context.

Or you can start a second journal. Go to GeoCities or Tripod or one of the other companies offering free webspace, and sign in under an assumed name. No one will easily be able to trace it back to you. You can continue your regular journal, while having this second anonymous journal for the more sensitive content of your life.

And still other people use two journals in another way. They have an online journal, but it's an offshoot of a journal they've been keeping on paper. Or they found they needed to start a paper journal after they made the online one, so they could get out on paper stuff they chose not to say in public.

You can write in a paper journal stuff that you don't want the public to see, and keep it in a secret place. This is how many offline journals functioned before the 'Net anyway. It's worked for centuries. There's no need to reinvent the wheel.

Final Thoughts

However you decide to approach the phrase "I've something to say, but can't," the important thing to know is that sometimes just saying that is enough. Because when you write those words, you're getting it out of you. You know what's behind those words even if the rest of the world doesn't.

Sometimes, in fact, it just helps to talk at something that's bothering you. Acknowledging the problem is the first step to resolving it.

Besides. You don't have to get it all out of you today. At least until further notice, there is always tomorrow.