As a memoirist and longtime writer of my own journey with mental health, I’m with you on this point. I did read the comments about whistleblowers and those who have to live within the constraints of their employers etc. Those are difficult and sometimes dangerous situations and in that case I can see why people would use a pseudonym.

I am my own employer, both as a writer and a therapeutic bodyworker. I have had clients Google me and find my writings that document struggling with bipolar disorder and PTSD. They sometimes ask me about this, opening the door for productive discourse.

Likely there are still others who look me up online and choose not to come to me once they see my writing; I don’t doubt this is so. But I am so far beyond hiding my dragons. If I did they would eat me alive. They are so much better out in the open, where they can be examined and appreciated for what they are: beautiful, dangerous, terrible, wise. Mental illness, like all of life’s challenges, wants to teach us something. As far as we can reveal what it’s done to us, by our own name or if necessary, another name, that far can we travel toward healing.