…. Real Life Experience with My First Podcast Post!

Yesterday, I sat staring at my screen for an hour. The podcast was live. The website was ready. All I had to do was share a single link online.  The link that I found the most difficult and had me double guessing and heart racing was to my personal facebook page.

I couldn’t do it.

If you know me in real life, this probably sounds absurd. I’m not quiet. I’m what some call a “High-Wattage Introvert”—loud, passionate, the person who accidentally dominates conversations at dinner parties. But put me behind a screen, and I become someone else entirely. Someone small. Someone scared. Someone with Online Social Anxiety.

I’ve been calling it the Online Freeze, but I know what it really is: Fear of Negative Evaluation.

And if I’m honest, it’s not about the quality of what I’ve created. It’s about my track record.

The Graveyard of Good Intentions

My digital history looks like an abandoned theme park. A blog from 2015. A business Instagram that lasted one post. A YouTube channel with two videos. Passion projects that burned bright and then… disappeared.

So when I think about posting this newly positioned project-Miss Media Pro-on social media, my brain immediately supplies the narrative: “They’re going to roll their eyes. They’ll think, ‘Oh, here she goes again. Another project/phase that won’t last.'”

My anxiety was doing what anxiety does best: keeping me “safe” by keeping me invisible. If I don’t post, I can’t be judged. If I don’t share, I can’t fail again.

But there’s another fear lurking underneath: the silence. What if I put this piece of my messy wee soul out there and nobody responds? What if it just… floats into the void, ignored?

The High-Wattage Introvert Paradox

This is the strange contradiction of my existence: I can be “on” in person—energetic, engaging, present DESPITE having debilitating Social Anxiety.  But online? The online form of social anxiety is crushing.  My coping tools for face to face social experiences don’t translate well online.

Social media demands constant visibility, without the ability to read the room as you go.   It wants you always available, always posting, always engaging. For someone whose social battery drains the moment they open an app, it feels like being asked to attend a cocktail party without the ability to 100% understand the dress code.  In the real world there are so many opportunities to get it right and adjust.  Online – not so much.

In real life, I run on adrenaline,  genuine connection and an ability to read the room on the fly.    Online, I’m running on fumes and the fear that I’m doing it all wrong or wildly miss interpreted.

Why This Time Is Different: 

Here’s what I’ve learned while building this project: there might be others who are feeling the same way. I didn’t want my past attempts to feel like a fail because I was seen as flakey or incapable. I wanted to get to the real reason for my feelings of online anxiety or cognitive overload.

Why do I have a computer full of fun and fabulous work that no one gets to experience or help grow?

I have always had the energy to start—that high-wattage spark—but no real system to sustain it. I was trying to hold every idea, every reference, every strategy in my head, Canva or Google Docs simultaneously. And eventually, I’d collapse under the weight.

This time, I have discovered a different foundation. I’m using AI tools like NotebookLM not to replace my voice, but to anchor it. To offload the crushing mental burden so my ideas can finally travel further than my online social battery allows.

I am in the throws of discovering what works with my brain, not against it.

Feel the Panic & Post Anyway

The research is clear: the only way through online social anxiety is exposure. We have to do the thing we’re afraid of, repeatedly, until our nervous system learns we’re actually safe.

So yesterday, after an hour of paralysis, I still did not “Share.”

Today is different.

Not because I wasn’t scared. Not because I suddenly felt confident.

But because I’m done being unfinished.

I’m done letting fear decide which version of my work gets to exist in the world. I’m done protecting myself from judgment by staying invisible-hiding behind the excuse that I’m “just not good at the online social media stuff.”

This post isn’t asking for validation. It’s documenting a moment: the moment I chose to show up online anyway.

If you’re reading this and you’ve got your own “Posting Phobia”-your own link you’re terrified to share, your own project hidden in Canva, Google docs or elsewhere because you’re afraid of what people will think-I see you.

And I’m pressing post with you.

(Did AI NotebookLM assist me in getting these thoughts expressed? It sure as heck did!)

Margit