Deep and dark

One of the things I have noticed about the blogging community s just how open some people become. Matters of personal life are revealed in great detail. Not in a "Look at me - I' weird" sort of exhibitionism or in a plea for help scenario but as straight and factual reporting.
Hence I was pleased to see that misbehaving.net had noticed the same trend and was going to do something about it.

As Elisa wrote, i'm leading a panel at Blogher on blogging about sensitive topics and we're looking for potential panelists who are willing to talk candidly about the most sensitive of topics - depression, addiction, self-injury, eating disorders, illness, suicide attempts, infertility, etc. We're looking for people who've written about these topics and those who've tried to support loved ones. We want to talk about the values of writing about sensitive issues, the challenges of being read, the concerns about responding to someone's intense writings. Especially around issues self-injury, eating disorders and suicide attempts, we'd like to get into how writers feel when they are reported by concerned loved ones. We know that support happens. But we also know that that there are those who believe that bloggers and online community members can become enablers, or at the very least, get in over their heads. Rather than reaching out to people with a "So, you talk about suicide a lot, wanna talk on a panel?" type question, we wanted to throw it out more broadly and see who might be willing to talk. So, this is a call for speakers who would be willing to discuss their experiences handling the touchy topics online. And please note: we are open to only identifying you by a a pseudonym in conference materials. If you're interested, feel free to email me or Elisa.

I'm going to look over shoulders on this one.