A photo of a baby and a small birthday cake with a number one candle lit on the cake to represent - Birthday: My First Year Blogging

Birthday: My First Year Blogging

The one-year blogging birthday for Unwanted Life is finally upon us. So I thought that I’d do something a little different and talk about my first year blogging.

 

I’ll also talk about how my blog and I have evolved over this first year and look at some of my favourite posts. But before I get started, a big thank you to all those who have read my work: thank you! This is my blog’s first-year birthday that I’ll remember, ha ha ha.

 

Unwanted Life started on 7th January 2019, with the first article (Date Night: The Difficulties Of Meeting My Partner) going live on 14th January 2019. Thus, the first birthday of Unwanted Life going live and publishing its first blog was officially yesterday. Happy birthday to Unwanted Life.

 

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One of the first things I wanted to do when I started Unwanted Life was to do something for the mental health community. This led me to create a Petitions page, whereby I’d list and promote all mental health and disability petitions I came across to try to get them more support.

 

I’m also pretty proud of my Global Crisis Lines page, which I created to help people find support if they’re in a mental health crisis or need someone to talk to. I checked phone numbers, email addresses, and links to as many mental health crises and support agencies for as many countries as I could find. Looking for confirmation that the information was correct if I couldn’t find a website for the agency stating these details. Which was a lot of effort. I looked at multiple sites, trying to find a source to confirm the details were correct. I believe they’re all as accurate as they can be at present.

 

Unwanted Life started as a mental health blog, which was going to be based on my experiences of mental health. This would offer a slice-of-life view of what it’s like to live with mental health problems.

 

However, the blog soon expanded to include dyslexia, health issues, and invisible disabilities. This is because I also have dyslexia and several physical health problems. This soon led to Unwanted Life becoming an invisible disability blog, so that it could properly cover mental and physical health conditions.

 

A photo of a cake with candles that spell "Happy Birthday" to represent the topic of the article -Birthday: My First Year Blogging

 

The blog now covers different disorders, psychological theories, and interventions, such as Positive Psychology. Plus other related content that doesn’t solely focus on my experiences. Although my experiences still play a big part in Unwanted Life’s content.

 

A lot has changed in regard to the direction of Unwanted Life over this first year. At first, I didn’t see the point in adding text to my featured images because, well; I was a total noob when it came to blogging. When I finally realised that adding this text was a good idea, if I wanted to get interest from users on Instagram and Pinterest, it took me ages to update Unwanted Life’s featured images, replacing them with every article. I don’t recommend it.

 

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There were some other changes, too. I’ve changed how I use social media to try to promote Unwanted Life. At first, I wasn’t really interested in changing my image sizes to the ideal sizes for each social media platform (InstagramPinterest, etc.), due to the amount of time and effort that would take up. But now, I create promotional images that fit each platform’s size preferences. My advice is to do that sooner rather than later.

 

Anyway, let me wish Unwanted Life a Happy Birthday! Feel free to sing happy birthday, ha ha ha.

 

Birthday: My Five Favourite Posts

 

Positive Psychology: The Theory And Its Interventions | Mental Health and Wellness | Unwanted Life

 

My ‘Positive Psychology: The Theory And Its Interventions‘ article was my first about a psychological theory. It was a theory I’d initially dismissed when I first came across it whilst studying for my postgraduate degree because it came across as ‘pop psychology‘. However, I grew to like the theory and its interventions, and because of that, I decided to create an article about it.

 

Unfortunately, I got carried away with creating this post, and it ended up being really long. But I still love it. I’ve created several positive psychology intervention images based on this post, in the hope that they’ll be shared and thus help people improve their mental health.

 

Traction Alopecia: The Hair Pulling Question | Mental Health and Wellbeing | Unwanted Life

 

Another one of my favourite posts is ‘Traction Alopecia: The Hair Pulling Question‘ because I took a new approach to writing it. Instead of the usual way I write my articles, whereby it’s more descriptive or about my experience, I instead looked at multiple disorders that could explain how I ended up with permanent traction alopecia. I examined each condition one at a time that could possibly account for my resulting damaged hair follicles and then passed a verdict on the likelihood of that condition being the cause. I also asked my readers for their thoughts about which condition was a more accurate diagnosis.

 

It was a fun article to write because it was so different from how I’d written everything else. It was also the first glimpse my readers had of seeing what I actually looked like. Besides these photos, only two people, my GP, and a dermatologist have seen the state of my hair. Making it quite a scary step to take to put these pictures of my lack of hair online, as I’m deeply ashamed of how my hair looks.

 

Which Winnie The Pooh Character Are You? | Mental Health and Wellness | Unwanted Life

 

Which Winnie the Pooh Character Are You?‘ was another article that took a different direction from my usual articles. This was the first post I created that was driven by my move into more generic mental health writing. This is because it’s meant to be the preferred style for readers, which should improve my blog traffic. I used a keyword search on mental health, and Winnie the Pooh popped up as one of the common search topics related to mental illness. Thus, I started researching the idea and created my own take on which disorders the Winnie the Pooh characters could represent.

 

The reasoning behind the post seemed to pay off because it became my first successful post. So not only was it fun to create, but it also seemed to be a hit with my readers.

 

However, I’m now trying to find a balance between the generic mental health blogging and my personal experience, because I’m a nobody, so why would anyone care about what my life is like? Hopefully, I’ll find the balance I’m looking for.

 

The Hard Truth About Eating The Criticism Sandwich | Mental Health and Wellness | Unwanted Life

 

This next article was created because I’d seen how badly people reacted to criticism. Plus, I’ve seen how people feel it’s ok to attack people if they present it as if it’s just them expressing their feelings. Thus, ‘The Hard Truth About Eating The Criticism Sandwich‘ was born.

 

The idea was that it would hopefully lead to people communicating better so that people don’t get defensive because they feel attacked. If they don’t feel attacked, then they can engage in proper dialogue and change can be promoted.

 

Brexit And Hate Crimes: Do You Feel Safe? | EU, Mental Health, and Minorities | Unwanted Life

 

Lastly, ‘Brexit And Hate Crimes: Do You Feel Safe?‘ wasn’t one I intended to write about as I didn’t want to bring politics to my site. Also, I was concerned that talking about Brexit might bring abuse and trolls as well. That’s because Brexit is a very divisive topic that has inflamed all sides. However, I was able to write it in a way that didn’t bring in the ‘leave Vs remain’ aspect of Brexit, but rather how Brexit has led minorities, like me, to fear the rise in hate crime.

 

I think the article genuinely reflects the mood of a lot of minorities at the moment, and also how I felt due to my anxiety problems. The article also did a good job of talking about Brexit, without making it an issue about if leaving or remaining is the right course of action.

 

Well, that’s my five favourite articles for my first blogging birthday. Would you have picked different ones as your favourite five? Or do you agree that some or all of these are Unwanted Life’s best articles so far?

 

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Published Work

 

Over this first year, I’ve been interviewed for a couple of blogs, written some guest articles, and had an extract from one of my articles appear in another blogger’s work. Which has helped motivate me to keep blogging, and I’m thankful to those people for giving me the opportunity.

 

Unwanted Life is officially one-year-old. Hopefully, the blog will get better with age like a fine wine, as I and my site mature. Bring on Unwanted Life’s second birthday.

 

A photo of an Asian baby eating cake at their first birthday to represent - Birthday: My First Year Blogging

 

As always, leave your feedback in the comments section below. Also, feel free to share your experiences of blogging, birthdays, and reaching milestones in the comments section below as well. If you want to stay up-to-date with my blog, then sign up for my newsletter below. Alternatively, get push notifications for new articles by clicking the red bell icon in the bottom right corner.

 

Lastly, if you’d like to support my blog, then you can make a donation of any size below as well. Until next time, Unwanted Life readers.

 

 

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52 thoughts on “Birthday: My First Year Blogging

  1. Many congratulations on such an auspicious occasion! You have come so far!
    And I must honestly say thank you to you for all the support and being willing to feature on my blog.

  2. Nicely done, thanks for making a difference. Your blog is definitely worth reading for anyone struggling with mental health and anyone hoping to get a better understanding of it.

  3. Happy Blog-day to you! Congrats on year one of your blog. I really love the work you’re doing not only to spread light on mental health issues but also to provide resources and ways to take action with your petitions. I learned about positive psychology a bit in school and remember being very intrigued, so very cool that you found interest in it too.

  4. Happy birthday to your blog! Congratulations on reaching milestones and helping people through your posts!

  5. Happy Birthday!
    It sounds as though you’ve achieved a lot in your first year, which is really inspirational. I really like how you’ve not been afraid to evolve your blog as you’ve gone along.
    It’s really nice to see how much you advocate for hidden disabilities too.
    I’ve subscribed and am looking forward to reading more from you in the future. And checking out your older posts when I have a bit more time.

  6. Congratulations on the first year of your blog. That’s a great accomplishment. I’m glad you’re sharing so much about mental health. It’s a subject near to my heart, because of my own struggles and those of close family members. I think more people need to be talking about mental health. I have two active blogs, one is geared towards mentally health too. It’s primarily dealing with burnout, depression, and anxiety. Happy blogging!

  7. So many congratulations on your first blog-a-versary! Your blog is absolutely wonderful, and you’re doing a service to others by openly talking about mental and physical health. And your Global Crisis Hotlines is such a wonderful and useful idea. Here’s to another year of awesome blogging for you!

  8. Happy Birthday to this beautiful Blog! You are such an inspiration! Overcoming mental health issues and then coming out to help others is something that deserves absolute recognition! Keep going. 🙂

  9. Happy Birthday! It’s difficult these days to keep a blog going so congratulations – a feat not to be cast aside! Here’s to another successful year and beyond.

  10. Congratulations on your first blogging birthday! I honestly thought that you’d been blogging a lot longer as your quality of posting is so good! I love that you still create mental and physical health content , I can’t wait to see what your next year is like x

  11. Congratulations!
    I have enjoyed reading your blogging journey.

    The truth is, when you start a blog, you almost have this 100% path that you know that you ought to follow. Then as you progress, you meet other challenges or happy times. Even memories that you may never want anyone else to relieve them. Then you realize – you got space to share these thoughts – a blog. The blog takes twists and turns, with detours and meanders. At the back of your mind, you know why you started the blogging journey. But you realize, your readers prefer more of ‘this’ than ‘that’ – and you keep tweaking it – and this never stops at all.

    Doesn’t this summarize the thrilling ride of blogging? Each one who has a blog or website that they are updating on a day to day or week to week basis can share a similar tale.

    Oh, the bloggers blogging life – what a ride?

  12. Happy first birthday to your blog! It is always great to accomplish a milestone on your blog. You do a great job with spreading awareness with the different topics on your blog posts. Hope you’ll continue to find joy in blogging!

    Nancy ♥

  13. Congraulations on a very successful first year. I know I’ve enjoyed reading your variety of posts. Thanks for sharing your life views and writing with us!

  14. Happy first Blogging Birthday! This is such a special occasion! Already in one year you’ve published such amazing and personal posts! I’ve been posting on and off for five years and I feel like I’m still floundering 😉 But I wanted to thank you for writing such informative and great posts about mental health and for sharing your personal experiences. That can be hard to do, but I’m sure it’s helped so many people! You should be so proud of your first (blogging) birthday! I hope you can celebrate in some way!

    Emily | https://www.thatweirdgirllife.com

      • Oooh I’m not sure the exact date, but I did create my blog in 2014. It started off as a travel blog, but I don’t travel too much, so I think I deleted my first few posts. The oldest one I have is from May 20 in 2014! Phew! Maybe I should do a blog birthday too! An unofficial one, since I don’t know when my real blog birthday is 🙂

        • 20th May seems like a good day for it, unless you can find out how long you’ve been with your host to figure out the exact date? Old bank statements for the year you started for example

  15. Congratulations on your blog anniversary, it sounds like you’ve achieved so much in your first year blogging. It’s also my blog anniversary in a few weeks, I hope you can achieve great things this year too !!

    Charlotte ?

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