Heather Armstrong, a devoted mother blogger known to her followers as “Dooce” for sharing her tales of parenting, alcoholism, and despair, has passed away at the age of 47.
Heather Armstrong, the rising star behind the blogging platform Dooce, who was widely recognized as the most prominent of the identified mommy bloggers for sharing daily glimpses of her arduous battles with depression with millions of readers, passed away on Tuesday at her Salt Lake City home. She was 47 years old.
Heather Armstrong
American blogger Heather Armstrong is from Salt Lake City, Utah. As a result of her difficulty rapidly spelling “dude” in online talks with her former coworkers, she wrote under the moniker Dooce. In Memphis, Tennessee, Heather Armstrong was brought up as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. At Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, she majored in English. While a student in the predominantly Mormon state of Utah, she started having concerns about the church and endured periods of despair.
She left the church after earning her degree in 1997 and relocated to Los Angeles, where she worked as a web developer for companies amid the dot-com boom. Armstrong married Jon Armstrong, a web designer. Later, she went back to Salt Lake City, where she worked as a consultant and designer. Leta Elise and Marlo Iris are their two children.
The Armstrongs announced their separation in 2012, and later that year, they divorced. While Jon updated his blog, Blurbomat, Heather posted an explanation on Dooce. Since Heather had never mentioned anything regarding her marital life on her website and had frequently written nice things about her husband’s support for her despite her troubles with the kids and her melancholy, so the announcement at the time came as a surprise. Later, she claimed that the pair had been attending counselling for years at that point and that Jon had been “controlling and punishing” her and expecting her to ignore the critical comments left on her website.
Dooce: a life safer
Armstrong wrote extensively and amusingly about her LDS Church experiences, her struggles with depression, her admission to a mental health facility, and her pregnancies and parenthood. The first time Armstrong allowed text ads on her website was in 2004, and her readers weren’t happy with the decision. The year after, Armstrong began accepting graphic ads and stated in a letter that the money from them would be the main source of income for her family while her husband took over the management of her advertising and business.
She has since appeared in Suave commercials with her own likeness and brand. Armstrong garnered public attention for her washing machine repair post on Twitter in 2009. Dooce also received attention from websites like Get Off My Internets and the subreddit blog Snark, which makes sarcastic and critical judgements on lifestyle bloggers. Armstrong’s parenting choices were questioned by the forums’ mainly female readers, who argued that Armstrong did not recognise her advantages. Jon joked in 2011 that the traffic from the hate sites had been better for the family business than the birth of their second child two years earlier.
Relapse proved fatal
Armstrong converted her fame into three books, including the memoir It Sucked and Then I Cried: How I Had a Baby, a Breakdown, and a Much-Needed Margarita, published in 2009. She experienced persistent depression throughout her youth, and the book claims that she was not treated for it until she entered college.
According to Mr. Ashdown, although his partner had remained sober for over eighteen months, she suddenly relapsed. He claimed she committed suicide. Her ex-husband Jon, her son Marlo, 14, daughter Leta, 19, and Mr. Ashdown, along with three of his kids from a previous marriage, are Armstrong’s survivors.