TW - Heather Armstrong / Dooce (depression) @

[neverfstop]

I know many people are around from the mommy blogger days...

Heather Armstrong died 2 days ago. It's so sad...I'd read her last book, Valedictorian of Dying, in which she talks about basically going brain-dead in order to battle her depression.  It was a funny yet heartbreaking personal account of how terrible depression can be.  

abcnews.go.com/GMA/Family/mommy-blogger-website-dooce-dies-suicide-47/story?id=99233913


She had been sober for 2 years.  

@ warning since this will probably delve into parenting & kids.....

[DarcyLongfellow]

Oh, how sad. I was just thinking about her the other day and wondering if she still had her blog. I remember reading it religiously back in the day.

Her poor family 💔

[seeyalater52]

Somewhere along the way she became a massive and outspoken transphobe

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Despite the fact that she has a non-binary kid.



I’m sorry for her loved ones that she died by suicide but the damage she did with her huge platform is significant.

[Bad Dingo]

I'm sorry for those who are hurting and more sorry for those who she hurt. I have no idea who she was but she certainly sounds like a hateful person.

[underwaterrhymes]

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Cutting and pasting my response from ML because I struggled with my words over there and can’t come up with new words here:

I am so sorry for her struggles with her mental health and I’m sorry for the people who loved her. Her transphobia, however, was unacceptable and immeasurably harmful to Marlo and other trans and non-binary people.

I wish she could have found peace, acceptance, and love in this life for both herself and Marlo and I hope that her children and partner are able to heal in the wake of her death.

[basilosaurus]

May 12, 2023 5:40:30 GMT -5 underwaterrhymes said:

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Cutting and pasting my response from ML because I struggled with my words over there and can’t come up with new words here:

I am so sorry for her struggles with her mental health and I’m sorry for the people who loved her. Her transphobia, however, was unacceptable and immeasurably harmful to Marlo and other trans and non-binary people.

I wish she could have found peace, acceptance, and love in this life for both herself and Marlo and I hope that her children and partner are able to heal in the wake of her death.

Yes. It's hard for me to lament someone I've never heard of. Harder to lament someone who was apparently hateful. But I'm still sorrowful for those that mourn.

[lucybrown]

I have very mixed feelings. Undeniably, she was a major influence for many women to write honestly and get their stories out into the world. I've always hated the term "Mommy Blogger". It undermines the high quality writing that many women do. Blogs were an easy way to get their words into the world instead of chasing publishers. The term seems like another way to keep us in our places.

As someone that lives with depression and has been closely impacted by suicide, it always breaks my heart to hear of another person that died by suicide. I live with constant knowledge that my depression may very well be the thing that takes me out. Not fear, just an awareness and maybe acceptance. It's exhausting. It's similar to my MIL's acceptance that cancer will likely be her cause of death. She has survived it multiple times, but eventually her body will be too old and worn out to fight. Depression and addiction are no different than any other physical conditions. Sometimes treatment works and sometimes it does not.

Dooce helped me come to terms with my own depression and anxiety. Her writing helped me seek support during the worst of my PPD/PPA. As did the work of those she influenced. I read her for a long time and stopped following as much when her ramblings became more incoherent and manic. It felt icky to watch someone unravel. I stopped entirely when transphobic nonsense began. She also spewed other hateful things about various mental health conditions, like ADHD folks being pill seekers, etc.. She deserves every ounce of criticism for her words and the harmful ripples they caused. Mental health conditions or not, words have consequences.

Her death is not surprising, but still sad. My heart is with those closest to her. I hope they can grieve and move forward to find healing.

[neverfstop]

I'm so sorry to hear about her transphobic comments- I wasn't aware & it sound especially and harmful to her own children. I didn't still actively follow her, but others have remarked that she was clearly (publicly) suffering and having a mental health crises. I know she was transformative in the early blogging years of shattering the "perfect mom" myth and sharing honestly about the struggles of motherhood that impacted so many people. I also hope that her willingness to share with her depression and mental health issues helped others feel less alone & educate those without issues on how traumatic they can be.

[wawa]

May 12, 2023 4:19:09 GMT -5 seeyalater52 said:

Somewhere along the way she became a massive and outspoken transphobe

@@

Despite the fact that she has a non-binary kid.



I’m sorry for her loved ones that she died by suicide but the damage she did with her huge platform is significant.

oh wow.  I had no idea she did that...I remember her name and I assume the blog was something i read back in the days when I read blogs but I'll be damned if I remember a single specific thing I read of hers.  

How shitty that used that platform to harm others, including her own kid.

I'm trying to place her in my memory specifically - does anybody remember something of hers that went particularly viral?  

[neverfstop]

May 12, 2023 9:29:23 GMT -5 wawa said:

May 12, 2023 4:19:09 GMT -5 seeyalater52 said:

Somewhere along the way she became a massive and outspoken transphobe

@@

Despite the fact that she has a non-binary kid.



I’m sorry for her loved ones that she died by suicide but the damage she did with her huge platform is significant.

oh wow.  I had no idea she did that...I remember her name and I assume the blog was something i read back in the days when I read blogs but I'll be damned if I remember a single specific thing I read of hers.  

How shitty that used that platform to harm others, including her own kid.

I'm trying to place her in my memory specifically - does anybody remember something of hers that went particularly viral?  

Here's some background.....I'd forgot she was Mormon too & had a big, public breakup with them too. 

www.cnn.com/2023/05/10/us/heather-armstrong-dooce-blogger-death-cec/index.html


Armstrong founded Dooce (named for an inside joke related to the word “dude,” per the New York Times) in the early 2000s. First it was a container for complaints about work, her life after leaving the Mormon church and other daily musings, until she was fired from her job in 2002 for writing about her coworkers using nicknames.



The firing incident went viral – which, at the time, meant Dooce was getting around 25,000 hits a day, per the Times – and Dooce was on its way to becoming a digital phenomenon. The word “dooce” even made it into several digital dictionaries – per Cambridge, being “dooced” means “to lose your job because you have written something bad about it on a blog.”



Armstrong’s blog’s popularity spiked again after she began writing about her children, Leta and Marlo, documenting the trials of young motherhood and raising two kids. In 2004, Dooce became the first personal website to start accepting a notable number of paid ads, the New York Times said. And by 2009, Armstrong was seeing 8.5 million readers a month, Vox reported in 2019. (She appeared on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” in 2009, too; both women were named two of Forbes’ 30 most influential women in media that year.)

[ksun]

as someone with suicide attempts, a mom blog, lifelog depression, an ED and a non-binary child, I relate on a small scale - but when she went TERF and discredited her child I lost respect. I do hope she found peace, but she hurt so many on the way.