Anonymous
Post 05/11/2023 10:12     Subject: Dooce /Heather Armstrong
I haven't kept up with Dooce but I did used to love her blog/writing when she was pregnant/had little ones. I guess people have criticisms of things she has said and done more recently, but she seemed to me to have a really great heart. I loved those momversations videos.

She definitely made people feel less alone. She should be honored just for that contribution.

May she rest in peace.
Anonymous
Post 05/11/2023 10:06     Subject: Dooce /Heather Armstrong
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I went to high school with a girl who's parent had killed themselves and what I learned from three years of being around her is that parents should not kill themselves. It messed her up in so many ways.

Hopefully Leta can take the summer to process and get back to school in the fall. I hope both girls have some sort of peace about this at some point soon. Yes, I'm assuming Heather killed herself.


You’re an ignoramus. You might as well take tears to lean that people shouldn’t get cancer either.

She didn’t choose to have the disease she fought mightily for 15 years. She tried literally every antidepressant. She tried experimental treatments. She fought to live with every fiber of her being.

She stayed as long as she could.


To kill your self when you have children is the ultimate act of cowardice. You’re leaving them with a lifetime of issues to unpack plus all the issues you already gave them by being such a bad person and parent! Yes I said it! Quit ennobling suicides and suicidal ideation with “she stayed as long as she could” and shit. She’s not a victim! She failed her kids. So did Amalah for that matter being found with her wrists sliced open and OD on stuff. These are awful narcissists! Life IS full of choices, you get busy livin or get busy dying!!


NP. I agree with this. I had an uncle who killed himself and his family was devastated from it and never recovered. It's really a terrible thing to do. People who are depressed have disordered thinking - that's why they need to make a promise that they will never kill themself and stick to it. Always.
Anonymous
Post 05/11/2023 10:01     Subject: Dooce /Heather Armstrong
How is amalah doing? I thought of her when I heard the dooce news. I hope she is well.
Anonymous
Post 05/11/2023 09:54     Subject: Dooce /Heather Armstrong
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I went to high school with a girl who's parent had killed themselves and what I learned from three years of being around her is that parents should not kill themselves. It messed her up in so many ways.

Hopefully Leta can take the summer to process and get back to school in the fall. I hope both girls have some sort of peace about this at some point soon. Yes, I'm assuming Heather killed herself.


You’re an ignoramus. You might as well take tears to lean that people shouldn’t get cancer either.

She didn’t choose to have the disease she fought mightily for 15 years. She tried literally every antidepressant. She tried experimental treatments. She fought to live with every fiber of her being.

She stayed as long as she could.


To kill your self when you have children is the ultimate act of cowardice. You’re leaving them with a lifetime of issues to unpack plus all the issues you already gave them by being such a bad person and parent! Yes I said it! Quit ennobling suicides and suicidal ideation with “she stayed as long as she could” and shit. She’s not a victim! She failed her kids. So did Amalah for that matter being found with her wrists sliced open and OD on stuff. These are awful narcissists! Life IS full of choices, you get busy livin or get busy dying!!


When people commit suicide, they often believe that they are so screwed up that their continuing living is more of a burden to people than a suicide would be. They are wrong, and that's tragic, but this is what the disease that causes suicide tell you -- that your loved ones would be better off if you weren't there.

When people like you express this kind of rage on this issue, it makes people like me, who have experienced suicidal ideation, feel like we simply are not cut out to live in this world. If you really care about other people's kids, you might try to cultivate some compassion for people who struggle with depression. Your current approach simply makes the world harsher, less forgiving, harder to live in. You are contributing to the problem you claim to abhor.
Anonymous
Post 05/11/2023 09:42     Subject: Dooce /Heather Armstrong
Long time reader - I was always struck with how Heather went to extremes - from running up and down the stairs in her basement to becoming strict paleo to becoming a vegan to marathoning while injured. She mourned the death of Coco in a way that seemed more like the loss of a child. In recent years, her vague, rambling and cryptic postings were frustrating to read (what WERE her stomach issues?) and her continuous "finding" of the actual true issues (addiction, eating disorder, saved by Pete, saved by Paris, saved by meditation) left me wondering why I bothered to try to follow along.

Regardless, she was a wildly talented and funny writer, photographer, and artist and will be missed. RIP dooce
Anonymous
Post 05/11/2023 09:36     Subject: Dooce /Heather Armstrong
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Are there summary links for those of us who are new to GOMI/Dooce?



www.google.com


NP. Oh come on. This is like a decades old mommy blog war that took place in niche compartments of the internet. I have been googling it and went to GOMI to see what you all were talking about and didn't even understand the website. I saw no one named Alice, it seemed like just...like a place where anyone can post something? I came back hoping someone had responded to PP with some TLDR summary.


This is a good TLDR on GOMI (Dooce is among the bloggers quoted in the article).

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/jan/21/gomi-blog-internet-comments-women


Oooh I LOVE GOMI and consider it a sister site to DCUM!!! Both moderators have a LOT in common and the pool of commenters does too.


Jeff and Alice are nothing alike.
Anonymous
Post 05/11/2023 09:28     Subject: Re:Dooce /Heather Armstrong
It was really sad. I don’t know if I misremembered the details but at some point she did have a wrist bandage. But yes I was a big fan of hers (am still) and we have kids the same age, it’s beyond sad. Hopefully she turned her life around! From what she shows things seem OK but how can we ever know as outsiders. It’s a private hell. https://www.amalah.com/amalah/2018/06/the-night-of.html
Anonymous
Post 05/11/2023 09:19     Subject: Re:Dooce /Heather Armstrong
Anonymous wrote:That’s a valid point. There was a time when my three favorite mommy bloggers- Dooce, Amalah and Sundry Mourning- all experienced a form of public breakdown and mental illness. All three of them excellent and loving moms; professional women; and uniquely gifted writers. However they shared in common this intense type of navel gazing and obsessive oversharing that made you as a reader almost uncomfortable. Of the three, Dooce’s marriage fell apart, her posts about sobriety were disturbing and her mental illness painfully detailed; Amy Storch (Amalah) left DC for the Baltimore/Elliot city area, experienced a heartbreaking suicide attempt, depression, has seemed to recover but had almost completely halted her online sharing; and Linda (Sundry) in Oregon suffered a horrendous public intoxication episode that could have cost her her marriage but seemed to rebuild it from the ground up, has worked to achieve her life balance and sobriety, and writes occasionally in this beautifully insightful style that finally seems to have struck the right tone. She’s not a mommy blogger, not an oversharer; she’s just a writer.
I am sad for Dooce but like Prince Harry and other oversharers in my generation, this type of obsessive unbidden sharing is not mentally healthy. Of course people will show up, read it, buy it, click it. They are watching the private, sacred, intimate inner workings of your life trainwrecked in a bloody mess across the landscape and they are thankful they are not you.
Thankful for Jon and the girls that he rebuilt his life and seemingly has a good framework and support system for them. Will always remember her Letters to Leta ❤️


OMG - I didn't know that about Amy Storch. That's terrible. I followed her for a long time. I hope she is better now.
Anonymous
Post 05/11/2023 09:13     Subject: Dooce /Heather Armstrong
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Are there summary links for those of us who are new to GOMI/Dooce?



www.google.com


NP. Oh come on. This is like a decades old mommy blog war that took place in niche compartments of the internet. I have been googling it and went to GOMI to see what you all were talking about and didn't even understand the website. I saw no one named Alice, it seemed like just...like a place where anyone can post something? I came back hoping someone had responded to PP with some TLDR summary.


This is a good TLDR on GOMI (Dooce is among the bloggers quoted in the article).

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/jan/21/gomi-blog-internet-comments-women


Oooh I LOVE GOMI and consider it a sister site to DCUM!!! Both moderators have a LOT in common and the pool of commenters does too.
Anonymous
Post 05/11/2023 08:35     Subject: Dooce /Heather Armstrong
Anonymous wrote:She was a tremendously gifted writer. And so obviously struggling with demons, almost all the time. Even when she was well....well, she was never really well. A very, very sad story.


NP and the her obit-linked blog post was a rambling, incoherent mess. D- writing.



Anonymous
Post 05/11/2023 08:28     Subject: Re:Dooce /Heather Armstrong
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:How did nobody intervene (or did someone?) after this video?

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=3393825147375723


Yes she was sober after this. She lost her battle with sobriety over a month ago. Now she’s gone.

None of this is new. She had been struggling for years before that video


People probably tried to intervene after the video. I don't think you understand what it is like to deal with an addict. Every expert will tell you that if they won't go back for help, you detach with love and let them deal with their consequences and hit rock bottom. I know people would like to think you get a group of people together and stage an intervention and the person gets help and we all live happily ever after. Many addicts burn bridge after bridge. They can seem vulnerable and doe like to the outside world while they are downright abusive to loved ones trying to push them to get help. I am not saying this Dooce, but I am saying addiction is quite a beast.
Anonymous
Post 05/11/2023 08:08     Subject: Dooce /Heather Armstrong
Anonymous wrote:I went to high school with a girl who's parent had killed themselves and what I learned from three years of being around her is that parents should not kill themselves. It messed her up in so many ways.

Hopefully Leta can take the summer to process and get back to school in the fall. I hope both girls have some sort of peace about this at some point soon. Yes, I'm assuming Heather killed herself.


You’re an ignoramus. You might as well take tears to lean that people shouldn’t get cancer either.

She didn’t choose to have the disease she fought mightily for 15 years. She tried literally every antidepressant. She tried experimental treatments. She fought to live with every fiber of her being.

She stayed as long as she could.
Anonymous
Post 05/11/2023 08:07     Subject: Re:Dooce /Heather Armstrong
It was a different time.
Anonymous
Post 05/11/2023 08:00     Subject: Dooce /Heather Armstrong
Anonymous wrote:This was linked in the NYT obit, and maybe it’s just 20/20 hindsight, but it seems like a goodbye to her daughter.

https://dooce.com/

As best I can tell, this seems to be the last thing she posted. It must have been immediately before she relapsed. While the conclusion claims optimism, she spends more time on the pain and struggle. In the end, she couldn’t live with herself drinking and she couldn’t live with herself sober.

https://dooce.com/2022/04/08/dancing-with-wolves/

So very sad. Her poor children.


That first piece linked to is the most self-indulgent piece of garbage. Is that what her "writing" was always like? This woman became famous being a "mommy blogger?" This was not gifted writing. I am sorry for her family, but how did this person become famous? I had never heard of her and I would never have spend a mninute reading that stuff if it all reads like that.
Anonymous
Post 05/11/2023 07:51     Subject: Dooce /Heather Armstrong
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Hope GOMI is proud of itself for pursuing and mocking this lady. Remember how mad GOMI was 10 years ago that MOMS were making money off the INTERNET by telling their STORIES about raising their children?! And how awful Alice thought it was that women were asking readers for donations, and then Alice asked her readers for donations (and got them, while also policing their website emails and deleting the accounts of people who wrote bad things about her - I was never a member but that's what I saw on reddit)?

Please don't read GOMI and don't support Alice. Follow or don't follow who you want, but don't subscribe to the culture of women knocking down other women just for sport and some lols.


GOMI did not kill Heather. Just because people write things on the internet about you doesn't mean you have to read them. I've never googled my own name, for example.


Justifying the tormenting of a human being is shameful. Shame on you.


I feel no shame, because I bear no responsibility. Firstly, we're all assuming Heather killed herself. For all we know, she got hit by a car or something. Secondly, adults are responsible for themselves. Heather had health insurance, family and friends - she had access to all the resources for blocking any site that talked about her online. Again, if you don't want to read things about yourself, you make a choice to avoid them.


Yes exactly. Heather was no victim! No one is forcing any of these people to seek out the sites that criticize them and read bad things people think about you. Ultimately you’re putting yourself out there desperately wanting to be seen, validated and liked and when /if it doesn’t happen you have to have a thick skin. It’s not GOMI, Alice, DCUM, Reddit or any other blog’s responsibility to thought police the reactions and opinions people have.