Navigating Ambivalence: What It Means to Share Your Health Story Online

With increasing frequency, personal medical journeys are shared online. While online platforms can provide life-saving community, emotional validation, and practical "lived expertise," they may also expose users to harassment, misinformation, and emotional exhaustion. This commentary analyzes the experiences of 12 people who have shared their personal health journeys on social media. Overall, the narrative authors show deep ambivalence toward sharing. I observe three core tensions in the narratives: (a) community versus critics, where the authors find comfort, support, and solidarity online, but also risk harassment and cruel comments; (b) empowerment versus exploitation, whereas patients use social media to both reclaim agency and fill gaps left by healthcare systems but also resent platforms and algorithms that profit from their vulnerability and attention; and (c) expertise, as healthcare workers who share their own health journeys gain unique credibility but also must navigate heightened responsibility, blurred professional boundaries, and intensified targeting. These conflicts are shaped by social media's design, which enables and encourages certain behaviors, and the uncertainty of the imagined audience, which can include both silent beneficiaries and simultaneously, coordinated harassers.