Why are you shoulding all over yourself?

You’re going to tie yourself in knots.

The reader has agency. The reader has will. The reader never trusts the narrator completely. You can’t control how your art affects others. That doesn’t mean that you don’t care about how it affects others.

Sometimes I release things and then say “Oh, no!” It’s OK. I just unpublish them on Medium by copying them into a new story and deleting the old one.

I think it’s admirable to strive for clear-eyed honesty, unflinching, unvarnished realism and a dearth of despair… but I would save that evaluation for the editing process. Otherwise, how would you ever begin?