I have blog on addiction, more specifically alcoholism. I use another name to sign up to some sites (facebook, and probably a few others) that I use for social media. I don't use my real name because I am looking for work and I don't want a Google query to show me as a raging alcoholic. By the way, ragingalcoholic.com is the url of my site. How should I handle sites that want my real name? What sort of problems am I looking at in the future? I do not have really strong, or even sort of strong, Facebook pages or anything else for that matter. Is it better to start over now? I would be grateful to hear any of your ideas. I don't want to build something worthwhile and have it disappear because I cheese whizzed it. I also have some concerns about leakage or change in TOS. Like we kept your information private before but now everything will be public. So if I tell the truth and they change the TOS I am outed. Maybe too much alcohol and a Government Gone Wild has made me a little paranoid.
Here's my advice: if you use your real name on anything that can be found on the Internet, be sure that you would be proud to have your family, friends, neighbors, and potential employers see it. I repeat the word "proud."
What you need to do is to alter your mindset. Being a recovering alcoholic that has found the honesty to admit it and the strength to do something about it, should not be a cause of either shame or fear. Rather it ought to be a source of pride and self respect. Do you presume that educated and sophisticated employers don't understand that you are healing/healed? Perhaps you ought to give people the benefit of the doubt. Good luck to you with all.