Hey guys, today I’m coming at you with a new discussion, in which I chat with you guys about how our mental health can affect our blogging!
So, just to preface I have extreme anxiety and I had depression from the age of 11 to 17 so I know a bit about mental health. I also run a blog (duh) and I’ve noticed over the past year, how my grossass anxiety has been affecting how often I post on my blog and also how I feel about them before and after they go live.
So recently I finished high school, so my anxiety has been fluctuating from barely there to do not get out of bed or you’ll get run over by a bus. Because of this, I have not been prepping as many blog posts, just putting them in my drafts to gather dust.
I find that my outlook towards blogging always counts the most towards whether or not I ever get anything done. If I’m in a good mood I might feel good enough and have enough of a clear mind to dedicate a day to writing reviews and then I try to blog for all of the next day and then I will give myself a day off.
So, how does my mental health effect my blog?
- It affects my outlook on life in general and my attitude towards blogging.
- It affects what I talk about: Is it relevant? Am I ranting? Is it a lacklustre blog post?The tone of my posts can differ depending on how bad my anxiety is for the day
- Do I write a discussion or a tag?
- I generally feel more inclined to blog and talk about books when I’m in a lighter mood. On these days I don’t feel obligated to blog and I will probably write a tv chats post or a recommendations post.
So, doesΒ blogging and mental health correlate for you? Does the way you’re feelingΒ affect the quality of your content, or whether youΒ even post anything?
I think, for me, my mood will alwaysΒ determine the quality of my blog posts and thenΒ howΒ I communicate you guys. If I’m not, feeling it, thenΒ I might not answer comments for a month or two, which has definitely been known to happen. I also mightΒ avoid social media and might just rewatch tv shows andΒ ignore my responsibilities.
Does mental health affect your blogging?
Not sure if my mental health influence my blogging but rather Δo I have time or not. If I don’t have time my posts will be short or non existent. If I have time I will bleed on the blog LOL
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I know how you feel. My mental health definitely determines whether or not I blog, but my time also rules over my blogging life – If I only have an hour my blog post will be pretty short.
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My mental health definitely affects my ability to blog, and my blog also affects my mental health! It can be a little bit of a vicious cycle at times and it’s important during those times to have a proper look at what’s going on and reassess what’s good for me at that moment in time.
When I graduated, I threw myself into blogging but put waaaaaaaay too much pressure on myself and it really exacerbated my existing mental health problems. A lot of the people I follow have been blogging for at least over a year, and I would constantly compare my blog to theirs asking myself “why are my posts not more popular?”, “why have I not made any friends? is it because nobody likes me?”, “are my posts stupid and irrelevant?” etc. It started making me really ill. As soon as I took a step back from blogging, I began to have a real improvement with my mental health. Now I’m at a point where I feel much more relaxed and able to have a healthier relationship with my blog, and it now helps to boost my mental health by giving me something to look forward to and a little community to be apart of.
If you’re not feeling it at the moment, then there’s absolutely no pressure for you to blog right now. Blogging can be really stressful, especially coming up with content and feeling okay enough to post what you wrote. So if it’s not something you can handle right now then it’s totally okay. Having said that, make sure you also don’t cut yourself off from others as that can make you feel worse. Isolation and living in a depressive hole is usually not a good thing – it can help for a little while but it’s not good to be there for too long. Even if you don’t feel up to blogging, maybe continue checking in every so often to read others posts, leave a little comment or a like, and stick around in the community π
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I know what you mean, blogging tends to be one of the most fun and stressful activities I engage in. I am always feeling pressure with my blog, especially just trying to stay relevant and keeping up with comments etc. However, because we’re nearing the start of 2018 I don;r feel like I can just stop an take a bek, however, I might just take a break nearer to April.
That’s a great point, I’ve always felt like taking a break meant just stopping completely but obviously, I can still stick around and comment on blog posts.
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I agree, as a blogger who has chronic mental illness, I find myself in cycles of no motivation, then into over-analysis of everything I do and write. Plus, sharing that reality on your blog is SCARY, not knowing if others will understand. That’s just more of an incentive to continue speaking out and spreading awareness in any way we can, especially through blogging.
Thanks for this discussion! I would really appreciate if you visited my blog as I also discuss mental health frequently. π
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I am the same, I will either have no motivation or I will be writing 3 posts a day. Honestly, writing this post was terrifying: admitting I am mentally ill and talking about the imperfections of my blog.
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My mental health COMPLETELY affects my blogging. First, I always feel more prone to writing and blogging when I’m going through a bad phase. I’m used to saying that I’m a “sad writer” – I can only write when I’m down, and that’s when I write my more personal random posts.
But then when I have those pikes of energy and motivation and I want to change everything in the world it’s the time when I’ll write about books, when I’ll change the design of my blog and usually when I get more followers.
I wish people talked more about this. I feel that when I write my personal thoughts no one really reads it or find it interesting, even though it is what gives me more “pleasure” to write.
Thank you for bringing this up π
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I’m the same, whenever I’m in a bad mood I tend to do more Life Chats sort of posts.
No problem, I’m glad you enjoyed the pos!
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