I have lost my voice

I am scared of having a voice and how my opinion can have a reaction.  Not just on my blog but at home in conversation.

There is so much going on in the world right now and everyone has an opinion and a voice in one way or another.  Which is totally fine, I don’t have a problem as everyone is entitled to an opinion.

I see it everywhere on social media and it has gone into community groups too and I am finding the whole thing really overwhelming. So I turn it off and tune out of it.

Not just because I don’t like bad news or that I don’t know what to say- half the time I do have a view on what is going in the world, I am just scared of what I am going to say and if it is the right thing to say.

As once you have posted your view out there for the world to see and hear, they have a reaction to it and immediately stamp it down and that makes me think that my view is invalid and wrong or perhaps stupid.

I don’t want to come across uneducated, I want to feel free to express my view but I feel like I have tape on my mouth and I should shut up and look pretty rather than voice up and let people hear my voice.

It’s like my anxiety takes over and says no, you can’t say that or you don’t really know what you are talking about. My anxiety makes me question who I am,  who am I to have a view on something that I have perhaps not experienced or not knowledgable enough to talk about- I am no expert so I should shut up.

If it is on my blog or on my personal social media accounts, I hardly ever comment on the political debate (mainly because my blog is not about politics) because I am terrified that my opinion is wrong and I feel that I should not post because someone else can and will say it better than me.

I don’t know why this is it has only come on like this since lockdown….

Then as I think about it, I have not written a theatre review in ages either and that is mainly because  I have not been to the theatre in a while not that I am scared to comment on the performance. But it does make me question when I go back to the theatre, what makes me review right? Is it experience? Knowledge?  Or is my view wrong? Maybe we should look at the theatre critics from credited sites and read their view rather than myself?

It is a strange feeling, the feeling that I have been silenced and I have lost my voice. I have never experienced it before and I don’t like it one bit.  I want to find my voice again and be strong and confident in sharing my opinion and not being scared of the reaction.