The Blogger Recognition Award 2

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I received this nomination a couple weeks ago, just after I posted an award by the same name, but with a different badge. Not sure how I will come up with different answers, because nothing much has changed!

First, let me thank Carlos Lewis (ThoughtsOfaTrainwreckedPineapple) for nominating me for The Blogger Recognition Award! It is much appreciated. Carlos is special at expressing compliments and gratitude to those who deserve it. I especially love the way he described our blog in his award post:

This lovely couple is also new to me but I do like the idea behind there blog, that is to share a journey of overcoming depression with the world. That’s not easy to do. It deserves some recognition!

I still believe that blog awards are a nice way to share ‘love and support’ through the non-physical world of the blogosphere, especially since nominations always seem to come just when the recipient needed a boost in motivation.

Here are the rules to accept award (and you are free to ignore, decline or just acknowledge):

Select 15 other blogs you want to give the award to. (Nominate as many as you feel comfortable).

You cannot nominate yourself or the person who has nominated you.
Write a post to show your award.
Give a brief story of how your blog started.
Give a piece of advice or two to new bloggers.
Thank whoever nominated you and provide a link to their blog.
Attach the award badge to the post (right-click and save, then upload.)
Comment on each blog and let them know you have nominated them.
Provide a link to the original post on Edge of Night.

How my blog started:

Since I already answered this here, I will share some brief history about me that makes the fact that I currently write a personal blog, all the more incredible. Growing up, I was never that good at English, particularly reading and spelling. My mother often helped me with English assignments! Recently, this made me consider whether I actually struggled with a mild form of dyslexia, which I still plan to explore. Anyway, I excelled in physics, chemistry and particularly mathematics – I even got 100% on a final year practice examination in math. When I went to university to study medicine, I would absorb most of the information by recording lectures and listening to them multiple times.

Fast forward 20 years – faced with the immense pressure of dealing with my dear wife’s depression, I looked online for advice and support. Training as a physician does not always help with being partner to depression sufferer. I started to read other blogs and came across a sample of the research showing the benefits of writing online. So I then started to write. I found that I enjoy writing and felt a cathartic relief. I particularly noticed increased benefits from receiving feedback and comments. If you haven’t yet tried it, I recommend you do – I meant blogging… but commenting on my posts are worth it too 😉

Advice to new bloggers:

Consider the pro/cons of blogging anonymously. If you’ve started blogging, maybe it’s too late, or you could start a new one. For many bloggers dealing with mental health issues, it is common to prefer being anonymous, primarily because of community stigma, but I don’t think it should necessarily be that way. Actually, it seems that ‘self-stigma’ is even stronger, since many public mental health writers share that the reaction from friends/family is often less dramatic than they expected, after ‘going public’. The post top in google search results for “blogging anonymously or not”, has really great suggestions to consider.
Many bloggers, including Carlos, suggest for new bloggers not to focus on the numbers. This makes sense, but it’s near impossible to actually ignore the stats – WordPress does a great job tracking and sharing them. So my advice is a little different… if you are looking at your blog stats (which I am sure you will), try to remove any expectations on how fast they should increase. Your blogosphere community is out there – have patience and you will find it.

Nominees:

There is no pressure to accept this award. It’s supposed to be fun, maybe provide a writing inspiration and share a little ‘blogosphere-love’ around your blogosphere friends!

https://empress2inspire.wordpress.com

http://kosmogonic.com/

https://reclusivedreams.wordpress.com/

http://whatsfordinnermoms.com

http://glorybegin.com

http://therenegadepress.com

https://a2eternity.wordpress.com

https://thechessboard1.wordpress.com/

http://assemblyofme.com/

https://razorbackwriteraus.wordpress.com

https://prideinmadness.wordpress.com