Thoughts on Dooce

It has taken me a long time to figure out how I feel about Dooce. Heather Armstrong died by suicide on May 9th, 2023, after a life battling mental illness. She documented said illness on her blog. She was one of the bloggers that I read regularly, until I didn't. 

I remember she would take photos of her dog and post them and those posts became so popular, she would have a calendar made once per year, to sell. Chuck was his name, I think. He was a medium-brown dog. I think. 

I can't remember all of this because I stopped reading her blog when she became too much. I do remember thinking, "This person is a hot mess and I don't need that in my brain," so I stopped reading. She would discuss being institutionalized, and would discuss mental health in a very glib fashion. She described her parenting struggles. She talked about her marriage struggles. I think.

As a person just trying to keep her own shit together (i.e. a person living in the United States of America, that's all of us, isn't it?) I found myself falling away from compassion when reading her posts. Perhaps that's why I stopped: because I could not find compassion for a person struggling. She wrote about her life and published her pain and I couldn't handle it. On a particular level, I think I couldn't understand it. I think the last thing I'd like to do is publish my pain. 

"But Amy, that's what makes connections with people! We are all experiencing pain! That is the human condition. if you publish your pain, others will feel validated. Not all, but some." Okay, okay, fine. Counterpoint: I like to keep my pain to myself and it's nobody's business. "But Amy, you are a writer! Your existence as such requires that you share your thoughts." 

I maintain that I don't have to share every one of my thoughts. Do not think that I keep things bottled up--my husband hears it all. Even as a writer, there are thoughts that just stay inside. Especially the deepest darkest ones that a writer might put on paper in a blank journal, only to be found after death. I suppose that's where I might write down my darkest thoughts. But even then, I worry. 

It's the what if game™. What if people think I'm insane? What if people think I'm stupid? Annoying? Unfunnny? Too serious, too dark, too much? 

That still happens, even in the middle of a life lived as I have, serving others, working for the betterment of society via teaching children to read and write and interact socially. Perhaps my life of public service is what constrains my publishing of thoughts--I'm right to worry, because The Public will have an opinion of what I say and think. I think it might also be my upbringing, because my mother often worried What The Neighbors Will Think. This combination for me is not great, as a writer. 

I used to have more audacity. I try to tap into that when I'm writing my book. It's audacious to think that others would want to read what I'm writing, and consider my thoughts. I wrote the word AUDACITY on an electronic sticky note that I would see on occasion, as a reminder to find it. Back in college, 800 years ago, I had it. God, I was audacious. Not one doubt existed in my mind that others wanted to read what I wrote. 

As this piece progresses, I find myself trying to figure out what, if anything, went wrong with me, that I don't want to publish all of my thoughts. Like Dooce did. 

And now she is dead, by her own doing, and there is a part of me that is validated by that. How awful and unsympathetic is that statement? I feel like I knew this is where she was headed, when I stopped taking in what she was sharing with the world. Sadness is the overriding feeling I have when I consider what she did. I was shocked when I read the news. But almost immediately after reading it, I felt anger. I was angry for her children and her family. She has traumatized them far beyond anything she ever may have done "to them" already. I know this because I am a survivor of a friend's suicide (is that the phrase? Does that make sense? ) I know the abject trauma that is inflicted upon family and friends when a person takes their own life. I am sad and I am angry. So very angry. How dare she? 

Luckily, I have friends who understand me and will tell me the truth at all times. When talking with L, she helped me by reiterating that it was Heather Armstrong's choice to do this, and if we are to be feminists who maintain that we get to choose what is done to our bodies, then that includes ending our own life. She also pointed out that Dooce must have thought, even if the thoughts are faulty, that her family would be better off without her. I mean, I suppose I hope that she had even one thought for her family. 

It is my privilege, I suppose, to find suicide so abjectly selfish. Months later, I still cannot find the compassion to accept that this was her choice. Sometimes our choices are made in desperation. Perhaps her choice was measured, but I think not. One of her daughters is 13 years old. Addiction is a selfish disease, though. Addicts want what they want, when they want it. She was open about her alcoholism, which indicates that there is something inside her that impacted her judgment. 

Yes, judgment. That's what I'm doing here, judging her choice. I'm horrified by the thought of it, because I know the other side of the story. I know the trauma inflicted upon those of us left behind. I know her children will be tormented by this. 

My thoughts on this are all so selfish, as well. How many sentences here have started with I or my? Of course, a blog itself is an act of selfish, audacity. Dooce had plenty of that. 

In the end, though, I suppose not. It is more audacious to keep on, and imagine that she has something more to contribute to the world. It is more audacious to think that others still want to read what I have to write, to listen to my teachings, to laugh along with my jokes. It is far more audacious to think that we have something to add to existence. 

My trauma tells me to stop trying to know what she was thinking. We can never know, even if someone leaves a note. We can never, ever know. 

It's none of our business.