By the time I was in my early 30s, I still refused to let anyone read my poems. One night I went to bed at 3 am but could not sleep, because a few lines kept repeating themselves. I got up to write them and it turned into my longest poem ever and I only finished at about 8:30.

At that time I worked for my father and we did not have emails, we used telex. Telex was perfect for the poem as I could write it all out on one long page, tearing it where it suited me.

As I was finishing, a visitor to my father came out of the office and realising he is seeing a poem on the telex machine, he asked if he could read it.

I could see my father was dying of embarrassment, as his friend is a highly cultured person with well acclaimed books and poetry books published and well read. I could not really say no, so I tore it off the machine and gave it to him. He asked to take it home with him. Then my father asked to read it, so I let him read the hand written copy. He did not offer a comment, so I do not know whether his feelings of embarrassment abated or not...

The next day my father called me into the office to let me know that his friend called him, angry with him for not encouraging me to write. He offered to pay the rent plus a salary for 3 months in London and if I get even one poem published to set a trust for me so that I never have to work at anything than my poems.

It took me nearly two years before I was able to write a poem again.

The long poem was one of the first poems I posted on steemit, but nobody seemed to think it was worthy of a comment or two...

The reason I am narrating that bit of personal history, is because I also did what you said, my personal opinion of my poems always negative, until I decided I do not care if it is not what I wanted it to be, I will publish it anyway. Of course...the no comment track record has been well maintained, unsullied by any meaningful praise or criticisms, as this is steemit after all.