Mothers were not wanting potty training tips, they wanted to know that their children would not be taken into care because they were suffering from depression. While writing about ideal weaning foods for babies, mums were messaging me asking what they should do as they needed to cut their body to relieve the stress they were feeling.
This is when the blog became real, it was given a purpose and so was I.
I could no longer hide from the real issues that were taking place around me and I was able to only too well relate to many of the issues that were being raised. It was time to step out of my comfort zone and become the real me.
Not many mommy bloggers could write about the topics I do. To be able to write about such “taboo” and “stigmatised” issues, you have to have thick skin. My blog was not warmly welcomed in the mommy blogging community by some.
I look back and I clearly see why. I had no idea what I was meant to do and so I read other mommy blogs and just copied what they were doing. Some would say I stole content, I just saw it as doing what I was meant to too. My bipolar was not medicated and I was on a roller coaster ride. I am not proud of how I conducted myself in the first few months, it was a hard lesson learned.
I made a few enemies after the blog anonymous feature on the blog became a huge success as there were a small number of mommy bloggers who had joined a team to tackle this. To them I was stealing their idea. What they did not realize was I had been anonymous blogging for much longer than they had, except this took place on Facebook and not on a blog. The blog was born because we had experiences to share yet no space to include them all.
The blog was never made to compete with others, to steal their ideas or to stand out from the crowd. It just seemed to happen that way.
Once mums began to share their own personal secrets and fears, I felt a need to share my own. I was afraid of doing this for many reasons.
How would my family feel? When they read such intimate and personal areas of my life. My battle with mental illness, eating disorders and self harm has never been a public one. In my family things like this should be kept behind closed doors, were much too taboo to speak about.
Would I loose friends when real life friends read what was really happening in my life?
How would other bloggers react to having such a crazy women blogging under the title mommy blogger when I really belonged in a nutty farm and not a part of their community. A reason why I am still afraid to attend any blogging events, because I am afraid of how I will be accepted or perceived. Yes I am still slightly ashamed of the person I am.
Would I loose blog readers? Would my real life become too much for them to comprehend? Would they become fearful of me?
I was afraid of being judged. I was afraid that I would be standing alone in my battle to reveal what really goes on behind closed doors in many mothers family homes.
What has happened has been phenomenal.
I began to grow as a person, no longer afraid to speak out about my personal life. I developed a thick skin and stopped worrying too much about what others thought about me. There are times it does get to me, when I see bloggers who I respect have blocked me from following them on Twitter. Or when I see Mummy Bloggers all chatting away and sometimes I wish I could be more involved.
I have not lost any real life friends since starting the blog, in fact many of them have personally shared their own battles anonymously on here.
I have not lost readers, in the last three months my readership has doubled. There are some experiences submitted to me and I stop and think, is this too much for the blog? Then I have to remind myself that this experience is one that a mother is living with daily, so why should I not reveal a day in her life.
I do not regret sharing my personal life. Yes I am bipolar and have suffered with mental illness since the age of 13. Yes I hear voices and have had to learn to accept psychosis. I have self-harmed for as long as I can remember, yet since writing about this I have received support and been able to ask for professional help in this area. You can read about bipolar and me and delve right into my personal life.
If my family are ashamed of me for writing about my life, I will never apologise for the person I am. Perhaps they should have stepped in and supported me much earlier on. They do ask me about the blog, but avoid any too personal posts.
I sure as hell ain’t an ordinary mummy, so my blog was never going to be was it?
I will continue to write about taboo and stigma and my own battles because they help so many others. I am breaking all the rules and standing out there on my own. But this is what I believe in, breaking down the stigma of many of the worlds taboo topics that affect so many of us.
How much of your personal life should you share on your blog?