Back to a normal life can mean something different to a person, depending on what your issue is, what was pulling you away from maintaining a life that is considered normal? I think as a blogger there is a lot of room for negative judgment, especially when most people have jobs, can get jobs, and don’t have to take an alternate route. For me, I wish that I could get a paying job and because I cannot get a paying job have decided to blog. You have to be a stable person to work in the work force, able to keep a schedule, and able to be hired, I think with disability this can limit your options in life, so while you may want to work, someone who knows that you have disability may be less likely to hire you on that basis, and then you fall apart. I used to always be a very determined person, when I got the job, never late, always there, could stay for a year, was always working my way toward a paid position, and this is what you need experience for. With mental health issues, its easy to stop trying, and my best advice would be to not stop applying, you should continue to apply even if a job doesn’t work out, and even after you have received a different diagnosis, not give up on applying yourself, it will be with a gap in your resume, that makes you less likely to be hired with any gaps in your resume. So what has blogging done for me? Blogging has been a way for me to fill that gap in my resume, during the time of not being hired or not able to maintain a job, do something with my life and be successful at it, and learn skills that are transferable to any job. Learn as much as you can, and if you have to move on later to a job unpaid or paid, so be it, learn to accept blogging as a job for a job, even if its not the job that is the paying job. Writing is a very challenging career, its hard to be supported on your way to becoming a published author, and just because you are being supported on your journey, that doesn’t mean that you still cant get hurt, I think being a blogger is a lesser position in society in terms of the value of your work ethic and experience, maybe I have stood out more as a blogger because I went to law school and experienced success at that, that may also be why I am able to get a job in law not necessarily because of my blog. According to flexmyfinances.com, blogging can be the job, for me its been difficult figuring out how to monetize my site and get paid for traffic, that I don’t know how to do and have been having trouble setting up ads on my website. On a positive note, “Owning and managing a blog is a lot of hard work. It requires learning how to customize a website, copywriting, social media, PR, graphic design, SEO and many other things.” [1] So its not easy, sometimes something that looks easy to do, means that it has been done well. For example, my Instagram, I have struggled with since getting started, what to put on my Instagram, keeping track of my stats, while growing as a blogger, there were some exciting moments and some not so exciting moments, I think whats important is that you focus on quality. For some reason I feel like if you aren’t up to par, and if it seems like you aren’t trying hard, for people to become upset with you, or to view you as not in appreciation of where you are as a blogger, I think being well liked requires you to be thankful and also not to waste the time of your viewers, do you make sense, are you hard to understand, are you being consistent, what are the themes to your blog, topics, what have you been sharing, are you personable, are you having problems, are you being supportive, is there anything disappointing about your work, how are you confronting issues in life, is what youre thinking your fault, or is what you are thinking relevant, and how does what you are thinking affect your audience. I think with mental health issues people will not always understand your bad days and that’s not your fault if you are having a bad day and its totally okay to be honest, and take time off, or for you not to be comfortable describing what its like experiencing mental illness (voices) its torture, its the kind of stuff that makes you want to hit your head and commit suicide, its convincing you that you are something that youre not, its criticism in the form of voices, hurting your feelings, making you cry everyday, hurting your ability to connect with others, its derogatory, its disheartening, it’s the type of stuff that makes you want to isolate stay in your room and not talk to anyone, its defeating. So when I say #stopsuicide, I mean it, everyone is fighting battles some that you know nothing about, and for me fighting voices means to be the best version of myself and not allow anyone to convince me that I am something I am not, hurt me, defame me, or cause me to not feel good in my own skin, that’s voices, you don’t get to be yourself, its someone doing you dirty, embarrassing you, and whether or not its someone hurting you in real life or through technology its nothing that you have control over physically, but it is something that you have to have control over mentally not allowing someone to make you suffer, not be put in pain, and not be made to feel suicidal, so blogging for me has given me a voice, when I cant handle voices, its giving me the opportunity to hear myself, not have to listen to others imagined or real who are trying to tell me how things are when they are not that way, it’s a fight, like most things all illness is a fight, you cant let it win, you have to move forward, you have to be a strong person, and you have to get help, that’s suicide, [2] it’s a convinced feeling of being at a loss that you continue to allow yourself to feel beaten up from and lost, and then you take your own life, which is why when Im not feeling well, I go to the hospital, I don’t wait for someone to tell me if there is something wrong with me, I know when there is something wrong with me, and I get help, that’s not a fight with a person a voice or anyone, who is not responsible for taking care of me or tell me how it is or what a hard life is like, I know what a hard life is like, it’s the life Im living. So the discomfort, is that as an audience member, does not mean to be comfortable then uncomfortable know me or believe in me or be made disappointed by me, that much you have to accept about a person, when they are not feeling well, its about them, not about people, and not about the audience, its about the writer, being strong enough to talk to people, and also be able to maintain some privacy in regards to their own physical and mental health, this is why looking good, weight loss, and stability is so important to me, without which I would not be alive today, I would not look good in pictures, and I would not be writing blogging. Blogging is not a club, its not about people feeling good off eachother, coding off of eachother, or representing prevention and not being considered a figure capable of preventing, Im not the negotiator, Im not the advocate, this is me living my life and staying positive and if you are a good person and you mean well then maybe you will get attention in the form of a vague shout out, in terms of what you have put out there online for everyone to see, stay up. 

Reference:

[1] https://flexmyfinances.com/blogging-as-a-career/

[2] https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org