THE RISK OF OPINION AND THE FREEDOM IN TAKING IT, BACKLASH VS LIBERATION |

If you’re writing opinion pieces and getting grief in the comments, here’s something worth knowing, the person coming at you isn’t really reacting to you. They’re catching their own words, thoughts and projections bouncing back to them.

When you start writing publicly, you learn quickly that people don’t meet you; they meet the version of you they’ve already built. I’ve had people approach me and talk, then say, “You’re nothing like I expected.” Their surprise is always the same: apparently I’m nicer, softer, less combative than the persona they assembled from my opinion pieces. The cheek, yes, but also the machinery at work. Before I’ve even arrived, a narrative has taken my place, and I’m left managing the gap between who I am and who they’ve decided I must be. The hardest part isn’t letting it slide; it’s realising that these projections aren’t mistakes. They’re the cost of putting your opinion out there to an audience.

I’ve been at this writing game for fifteen years, mostly writing opinion pieces. It hasn’t been easy. In one incident, someone got so offended by what I’d written that he lashed out at several members of my younger female staff. I ended up having to call the police. That moment taught me more than any comment thread ever could, his reaction wasn’t really about the words, it was about whatever those words stirred in him and that’s how far a person’s baggage can take them.

Once your opinion hits the public eye, it leaves your hands. That’s the truth of it. You post, and then if, like most of us, you go stupidly diving into the comments, I tell myself every time, ignore them, because when I read half of them, it is like I’m suddenly reading criticism about something I never even wrote. Once your opinion is online, the meaning of it stops belonging to you. That’s the deal. Often, within minutes, someone twists your words to mean the exact opposite of your intent, and it can really be absurd. They’ll pick out phrases and lines from your articles, put their own spin on them, and leave you thinking, how TF did you get that from that?

And if you’re not careful, that warped version they’re spewing in the comments starts to feel like a personal jab, even though it’s really just a reflection of their own mindset. For a long time, I took it personally, like most of us do, because we’re never really taught how projection works. People aren’t reacting to your words, they’re reacting to whatever those words brush up against inside them. When we put real thought into expressing something, we research it, we feel it. Then to see it twisted into something you never meant hits hard. It’s like a slap against your work and, by extension, yourself.

Everyone reads through their own lens, and you need to get your head around that if you want any shot at this. People aren’t even aware that they read through their own filters, and neither was I. But when we start mouthing off back, we bring our own baggage to the table. Fear, old grudges, echoes from the last time someone spoke to us in that tone. Sometimes it’s a wound that has nothing to do with you but still flares up because of what they think you said.

Some don’t actually read your writing, some will admit that openly and for me thats the most telling sign of someones mindset or intent. They just look at the social media post, which is even more entertaining. They read themselves through your words, like a distorted mirror. That’s how one paragraph can resonate deeply with one person, making them feel seen, while another thinks you’re arrogant, aggressive, or hiding something. Confidence might be mistaken for arrogance by someone punished for speaking up, and what feels like straightforwardness to you can strike as cruelty to someone who’s walked on eggshells for years.

When readers doubt your motives, that doubt usually traces back to their own past hurt, not to your intent as the writer. If you know your writing wasn’t crafted with ill will, and what they claim isn’t true, then their story about you belongs entirely to them, not you.

And yes, genuine misunderstandings do happen, and fixing those is way simpler when you don’t try to defend your entire identity in one go. You can reply calmly, or sometimes just let silence do the work, because you are under no obligation to reply to the comment section. The real test is catching your own knee-jerk reaction when that tight chest starts, that urge to fire off a long message and be seen as right, immediately, in front of everyone.

Because I’ve learnt from the last turbulent four years of my life that the hunger to be understood often masquerades as integrity. That deep craving to be seen properly, to feel like people aren’t rewriting who you are while you’re standing right there. It feels like you’re defending your truth, your work, your character. It dresses itself up as principle. Underneath it is fear of being
misunderstood, misrepresented, judged for something you never even meant.

It’s not some moral stance. It’s your nervous system trying to protect you, that instinct that kicks in when you feel like someone is taking your name, your meaning, your self, and twisting it into something you don’t recognise.

And once you see that clearly, you realise how much of what we call “integrity” is actually just us trying not to disappear inside someone else’s version of us. If my sense of worth was tied to how accurately strangers interpreted me, I’d never survive this work, or life for that matter.

The moment you let your identity hinge on others’ reactions, you’re giving your self-worth to people who don’t even understand their own. Letting go of that was the only way to write freely again.

Misreading isn’t your failure. It’s what happens when your words leave your mouth and land inside another mind. Writing publicly has always been a hall of mirrors. You aren’t on the stand in court. I once thought I had to bridge every gap between what I meant and what others heard. I still respond sometimes, but it’s from a much calmer place. Trying to defend, explain and get people to actually read the piece is impossible and draining. I fell into that pit the other day, still trying to explain to people who had zero interest in listening.

Writing for the toughest critics in our minds is a bad idea too, first it means dulling your edges before anyone else sees them, and we can’t live or write like that. You end up pleasing expectations instead of saying what’s truly on your mind, and then what is the point? There’s freedom beyond that trap.

This isn’t apathy or an excuse to be sloppy. Care matters, and of course research matters. Yes, get pulled on a fact, and you investigate it, but that is different from explaining yourself just to be understood. What’s gone is the illusion that if you explained yourself well enough, everyone would finally see the real you.

Stop waiting for others to understand you, because most won’t, and by letting go of that need, you get back the only thing that was ever really yours: your work.