Sad to hear this. I followed her blog from 2004 until last year, when her it became clear that her writing was hurting both her own health and that of her family’s. She may not be well known, but she was one of the original bloggers and influencers. For awhile at least, before the rise of Instagram and sponcon, she was able to make a living off insightful, funny blog posts and selling calendars with pictures of her dog. She served as an inspiration to young women struggling with first jobs, romances, careers, and eventually families.<p>Interestingly, this article glosses over some of the struggles she had in recent years (according to her blog) with drugs and an eating disorder. From her writing it was clear that she was in a lot of pain, and was trying desperately (including undergoing electroshock therapy) to find relief. I’m sorry that, after so many years of struggle, it ended like this.
Few things do I read day-to-day that prompt me to physically say aloud "oh fuck."<p>Heather was an amazing writer, always humorous in the face of adversity. Sometimes, over the years, I feel fortunate that we had a few e-mail exchanges too. She was always so open and honest, and appreciated random readers of her blog writing in and appreciating her pictures of putting objects on top of her dog, her other more artistic photography, and her ability to share an honest and strong approach to the world. My thoughts are with her family. Depression is such a silent, damaging disease. Such brilliant minds lost way too early.
RIP Dooce :(<p>I started reading her in 2001, just when I was founding my first startup. When she got fired in 2002 she _was_ the zeitgeist.<p>Public service announcement — dealing with childhood trauma is a monster. She covered it with alcohol, like many people do. If you’re struggling with trauma, get help. It’s not cognitive. You can’t solve it on your own.<p>I feel for her family, and wish them well. So it goes.
RIP. This sucks so hard. I was in my early 20s when I started reading blogs regularly and Dooce was just on the peripheral of bloggers I followed. Even tho I wasn’t into her subject matter, her style was hugely influential. (Edit for clarity)
I had never heard of her, but decided to take a look at her content to try to tease together some part of her story. I sensed from the coverage that something was being elided here, and I was right.<p>It's clear she struggled with depression and some sort of compulsion to live in public in a painful, raw way, pretty much all her adult life. Like many people in her circumstances, she had a love-hate relationship with an audience that often abused her, but was also the source of her income. It's also clear that all of this took a turn for the worse recently. Less than a year ago she posted this rambling, semi-coherent rant that has since been scrubbed from her blog:<p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20220811035913/https://dooce.com/" rel="nofollow">https://web.archive.org/web/20220811035913/https://dooce.com...</a><p>In it, she speaks about her history of mental illness, body dysphoria and attempted suicide. She also says some things about gender dysphoria: she objects to the fact that affirmation is the only treatment offered, is scornful of neo-pronouns, hints that she feels her non-binary children have been swept up in a social contagion, and praises the bravery of de-transitioners. Needless to say, people did not take this kindly, as the comments on her Instagram around this time shoes:<p><a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/ChGWRv-JN2m/" rel="nofollow">https://www.instagram.com/p/ChGWRv-JN2m/</a><p>She was subjected to an enormous torrent of self-righteous abuse by her fanbase in the wake of this. Podcasts were made, Reddit threads savaged her, Twitter did its sociopathic thing, and it dragged on for weeks and weeks.<p>I'm not saying her fanbase bullied her to death. But I am saying that the way she was treated surely didn't help.
I often wonder how much of celebrityhood [minor or major] is a <i>cause</i> of mental/emotional health problems, and how much of it is an <i>effect</i>.<p><i>Trading your privacy and dignity for likes and dollars</i> seems like something that is tricky to sustain healthily.
I'm gutted. Heather was a friend. I've never known anyone who had to work so hard to just feel "ok", and I thought she'd finally made it. I hope she can finally rest.
RIP :(<p>I need a source for "lapsed mormon". It doesn't seem like something that the author should just be coming up with to describe her. Google turns up little.<p>There's this which has the term but doesn't say if she identified that way: <a href="https://www.forbes.com/2009/05/06/mom-advice-bloggers-technology-personal-bloggers_slide.html?sh=5aa98ad47b57" rel="nofollow">https://www.forbes.com/2009/05/06/mom-advice-bloggers-techno...</a>
If anyone is at the end of their rope, feel free to email me. I do emotional philosophy and would be happy to help if you've exhausted all other options.
I’m sad to say that I had never heard of her, but it sounds like she was influential and made her mark and had a way with words. One thing that struck me is how she was suffering from depression for years and committed suicide, leaving her partner and children behind. I’ve only met one other person who was facing this kind of scenario and it has left me endlessly questioning how they could do this and if there is a known etiology that could lead to such decisions like this, such as the much talked about and popularized parasitic fungus that hijacks insect brains and causes them to kill themselves.