Now, after having blogged for about one year and four months, I’m finally taking the WordPress Blogging University course Blogging 101: Zero to Hero. Today’s assignment is to write and publish a post about who I am and why I’m here. Here goes. Obviously, my name is Kitt O’Malley. I mean, my name is at the top of the page, in the URL, tied to a bazillion or so social media presences, so that is who I am. As my tag line implies, I live with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. To find out more about who I am, you can read About Kitt, My Story, or read about my “mystic” psychotic break.
The prompts for today’s post are:
- Why are you blogging publicly,rather than keeping a personal journal?
- I blog publicly (but I’ve also started to journal again), for I have a message to share. Blogging can be a powerful way to affect change – both positive social change and personal change. I started my blog because of a trigger to mood cycling. I found myself blogging for I felt a pressure to write – to get thoughts and words out of my mind. Why share them publicly? Well, I suppose I need support, I need an outlet, I need an audience. I greatly enjoy the company and mutual support in the blogosphere, and in the WordPress mental health blogging community in particular. There is a strong community of mental health bloggers who offer each other positive support. My focus has become clearer as I have written, and as I have engaged with other bloggers. I am a mental health advocate. I am a member of a community of mental health advocates. We not only offer each other support, but we educate each other and the public about mental health issues and work to overcome social stigma attached to mental illness.
- What topics do you think you’ll write about?
- From my answer above, you can pretty much deduce that I write about mental health, specifically about living with bipolar disorder, but I do not limit myself to that subject. I have written about other subjects, and I sometimes I take photographs, mostly of flowers, which I occasionally post.
- Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
- I would love to connect with anyone seeking a better understanding about bipolar disorder, those living with bipolar disorder, and those who love someone with bipolar disorder. In writing and rewriting the previous sentence, I realized that my primary focus is bipolar disorder more than other mental illnesses; though, I do decimate information about mental illness in general, especially when sharing information from the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) or the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).
- If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?
- Write to advocate, educate, destigmatize, and support with regard to mental health issues.
- Hone my writing voice. Write more often and more prolifically.
- Maybe start weaving together what original content I have written into a book. Who knows?
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