Popular parenting blogger Heather Armstrong has died at the age of 47, her boyfriend has announced.
Speaking to the Associated Press, boyfriend Pete Ashdown confirmed Heather died by suicide after recently relapsing after 18 months of sobriety. Heather rose to fame in the early 2000s with her pioneering blog and is credited for paving the way for mummy influencers who came after her.
Heather founded Dooce in the early 2000s as a place to write about parenting, work, sex, and leaving the Mormon church. Her blog also went on to write about her children's temper tantrums, her mental health challenges, and her struggles with alcoholism and depression.
Before her death, she wrote three books, including 'It Sucked and I Cried: How I Had a Baby, a Breakdown, and a Much Needed Margarita'. In these books, Heather revealed she had suffered chronic depression throughout her life.
Heather's mother, Linda Hamilton-Oar, opened up on the heartbreak following her daughter's death but added they were taking comfort in their faith. "We as a family are devastated, but we have faith that we will see her again," she told MailOnline.
Her heartbreaking final blog post, published on April 6, discussed her sobriety battle and paid tribute to her firstborn daughter. "Early sobriety resembles living life as a clam without its shell," she wrote.
She told how, in October 2021, she marked six months of sobriety "by myself on the floor next to my bed feeling as if I were a wounded animal who wanted to be left alone to die".
She described the incredible milestone as being "fraught with tears and sobbing so violent that at one point I thought my body would split in two".
"The grief submerged me in tidal waves of pain. For a few hours I found it hard to breathe," she wrote. "I had isolated myself entirely from the outside world because I didn't understand what was happening to me. And I was embarrassed.
"Here, two years into this often frenzied and wandering dance with life, I understand that I couldn't hold anyone's gaze because everywhere I looked I saw nothing but my own worthlessness. And so I chose loneliness. I couldn't handle the idea of anyone else knowing just how bad I felt about myself."
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