Why I Stopped Using a Pen Name

A story about identity, fear, and choosing to stand in my own name

This post is very personal—with details I’ve only shared in therapy. But this year, I feel called to stand in my truth and be unapologetically authentic. So, I'm opening a door I shut tightly ten years ago.

Looking back just a couple of years, I wouldn't have even entertained the idea of publicly sharing my reasons for choosing to write under a pen name. But so much has changed for me mentally over the last two years. I've been ripped open and forced to look at my past choices and traumas in the face so that I could heal and stop running from them.

On Running

The short of it: In 2016, I launched myself into the writing community under the cloak of a pen name because I was running—hiding, really.

Even though by that point, I was in a healthy relationship and had a beautiful little girl to dote on, I was being chased by the PTSD of living through an emotionally, physically, and verbally abusive relationship. I had succeeded in escaping that situation, but failed myself by thinking that leaving it behind me would be enough. I thought suppressing the memories of that dark chapter and simply focusing on my future was the right move.

This relationship ended in 2008, but it haunted my dreams well into the early 2020s. The fear of it drove many of my decisions and behavior patterns, one of which was to pursue a career as an author while actively attempting to partially hide my identity.

Why? The environment I lived through with that ex and with his family was toxic beyond measure. And there was a point, long after that relationship ended, while I was pregnant with my daughter and happily moved on, that the ex appeared at an old job of mine, looking for me. I wasn't there at the time—blessedly enjoying my lunch break (funny how timing works, huh?). Coworkers, whom I had confided in about my past relationship, called me, telling me to stay where I was and not come back to the office until they gave me the go-ahead. I'm sure it was in that moment that the idea of "hiding" myself entered my psyche, if not to protect me but to shield my child from my past choices. To this day, I do not know why he showed up. It may not have been to cause me any more pain or drama, but I wasn't willing to risk it. And therapy has since helped me leave that decision of his to visit my job as just that, without adding on the created scenarios that my ego conjured up to answer the question of why he appeared that day.

Women are incredibly intuitive. We have so much power within us, but for too many reasons to list in this piece, we suppress or downplay our abilities. I vividly recall my gut instinct telling me NOT to get into that relationship. Telling me to steer clear of the drama and the virulence that would chain itself to me. But I ignored the call.

And here I was, having escaped but still needing to run.

On Writing

Writers are often asked, "Did you always know you wanted to be a writer?" My honest answer: No, I did not. I did not because I didn't know how to listen to my angels and my spirit until recently. But when I look back now, I see all the signs, nudges, and calls to this work I love so much. As a kid, I was obsessed with movies that had writer protagonists: Little Women, Just One of the Guys, and For Keeps. I watched them repeatedly, never asking myself why I loved them. Never connecting the dots of the plots.

I always got A's on my papers; teachers commended my work. I loved reading, and my first job was as a page in my local library. Yet, still, I didn't follow the thread that was the through line connecting all of my passions. The realest answer: I didn't see authors who looked like me; therefore, subconsciously, I didn't realize it was a "career choice". And whenever I did have an idea for a story, I always treated it flippantly, like, "That would be a nice book for someone to write."

It wasn't until 2016, after falling in love with a sweet young adult romance novel, that the itch to write my own novel became too fiery to ignore. I put pen to paper and began the complex trek of figuring out how to get published by diving headfirst into research and Googling, "How to get published." (cringy but true)

My memory here is fuzzy, but my Googling must have led me to Twitter, where the writing community was thriving. I wanted to be in that club. I needed to be a member. I was full of hope and an unflinching belief that I would succeed at getting published. But being published meant being seen. It meant removing the invisible shield that I created to keep my past separate from my present. I wasn't ready to be that visible—to be more precise, I didn't know then that visibility was something I should ever strive for. I thought that in order to live in the safety and love that I found, I needed to keep past and present from converging. I thought that if I even let the shield crack, my past would break through, invade my peace, and seize my future. By this point, I had made my personal Facebook and Instagram accounts private and blocked people who were mutually acquainted. But now the question became, "How to get published and be successful without being found by my ex." (No, I did not actually Google that)

The answer: use a pen name.

I took my middle name and a family surname and hid behind it. Over the years, I built a lively writing community around this half-version of myself. All the while, the shadow of my painful past clung to my shoulders, always letting me know it was there. Shrouding me in the fear of getting "caught". I was living under the hope that I could reach my biggest writing goals while only giving the world the slice of myself I was willing to share.

Pen names are great tools for writers. Nothing wrong with using them. They serve lots of purposes, like allowing writers to more comfortably branch out into other genres or keep their personal and writing lives separate, which is what I thought I was doing. But what I was really doing was letting fear take the lead in my life.

On Surfacing

Fast forward to the end of 2023, when my life changed with the end of my relationship with my daughter's father after fifteen years. It ended amicably, and we will always have a deep love for each other, but our paths were sending us in different directions. It was a transition that, thankfully, was a healthy one for both our daughter and us. It was also the first time in two and a half decades that I was going to be single. From the age of fifteen, I went from one relationship to another. A serial monogamist. A seeker of company. (I deeply resonated with that scene in Eat Pray Love when Liz (Julia Roberts) says, "Since I was fifteen, I've either been with a guy or breaking up with a guy.") But for the first time, I was ready to be single. I needed it. And in that space that opened, Divine love poured in and filled it up.

Meditation gave me the stillness to hear and see messages from the Universe. I was able to heed the guidance that gave me the tools to navigate some challenges that would have broken the Ines of the past. One of the messages was to own my name. Another message was to forgive my past self and anyone who had hurt me. And I finally, truly, understood what it meant to forgive and forget.

Forgiving and forgetting meant peeling back the plaster and bandages around my heart, looking at the scars without shame, or pity, or anger. It meant loving the girl who made the choices in the past. It also meant having compassion and understanding that all humans are merely working with what they know and within the circumstances they experienced. I learned the real meaning of "hurt people, hurt people". That does not mean that I would, today, walk back into that painful relationship of my past. But it does mean that I now have the strength and tools to let go of being a victim, of seeing someone else as a predator, or keeping us both in a prison devoid of evolution. In keeping the ex and myself fettered to the labels of abuser and victim, I was keeping myself from growing. And who is to say that he hasn't grown in his life—not my place to wonder or worry. What I know to be true is that I was ready to break free of that prison. I was read to take back my power.

And, That's Why I Stopped Using a Pen Name

In taking my name back, my whole self began to rise.

The most complete version of me surfaced.