What impact does blogging have in your daily life? How has blogging helped you?
Blogging in my daily life gives me something to do to stop me losing my mind as I’m trapped at home with nothing to do. Since my health started to deteriorate and I had to give up my volunteer job at a substance abuse charity as a result, I had a lot of time to waste, even when doing my postgraduate degree. Starting my blog gave me something to do and I got to help people at the same time.
I’ve benefited a lot from blogging, besides it helping to keep me sane. It’s allowed me to expand my knowledge through researching my articles and it’s helped improve my counselling skills.
How do you manage to be consistent with your posts? Do you schedule them ahead or do you simply write whenever you want to?
I post a new article once a week on a Wednesday, so I just have to schedule to that deadline. Most of the time I only finish an article a day or two before it’s to be published, but from time to time I get four or more weeks ahead of my schedule. Although that often depends on how bad my mental health is at the time.
I’ve also started doing a monthly meet the sponsors article, which I can never really get a head with, given the nature of how it operates. But so far I’ve got it done by the start of the new calendar month.
What has been your most successful post? Why do you think that is?
My most successful article, since it was published at least, is ‘How Anime Brings Mental Health Into The Mainstream’. Before that, it was a tie between ‘Which Winnie The Pooh Character Are You?’ and ‘Alternative Subcultures: Goths And Mental Health’. My anime article was only published this year, yet it has topped my visits list almost every day since.
I think this particular article is popular because anime is hugely popular. I love anime and watch it all the time, which is why I noticed how mental health appeared in a lot of anime's popular shows. This was what motivated me to write the article in the first place.
Who inspires you to keep going and pushes you to better yourself in your life?
Cosmic Taryn helped keep me going when I thought about quitting, although they didn’t know it at the time. They were just being them; supportive by nature. But it was enough to keep me going. Happy to have met them and have them in my life, even though we’ve never met each other.
How long have you been blogging for?
I started blogging in January 2019, so it’ll be three years this coming January. Although it feels longer, due to the pandemic.
Is blogging your full time job? If not, what is your occupation and how do you find time to juggle between these two?
At the moment I do two volunteer jobs on top of blogging. My volunteer jobs only require about six hours a week of my time on average. This leaves plenty of time for blogging as long as my mental health or health issues aren’t playing up too much.
What do you do when you are feeling upset about something but don’t want to share your thoughts with anyone? What do you do in that very specific moment?
I don’t really do anything. If it’s particularly bad, I may play some really heavy metal loudly or send a couple of messages to my partner to rant. But mainly I do nothing.
I believe that every blogger is different and has their own stories to share through the images, the display, and the title. Is there something that you find unique on your blog? Something that you might not find on any other blog that you visit?
I’m probably the only mental health blog that has a darker, more negative looking logo, negative name, and darker styling in general. Most mental health blogs use light colours and positive imagery. But my life has always existed in darkness and I’ll always be a goth metalhead, and I won’t hide that. I want to be true to myself and how mental health issues really are: dark.
Is there a time where you really don’t feel like blogging? Did you ever take a break while blogging?
There’s been lots of times where I’ve struggled with blogging, but I don't really take a break. I’m not sure what I’d do with myself if I did. That much free time wouldn’ be healthy for me. But there’s no real specific times where I’ve hated blogging, it’s just my mental health and health issues can drain me of motivation or just make it too hard to do stuff.
I love reading your blog posts and from what I have read, you are always honest and a straightforward type of person. If you don’t like a product, app or anything else, you will tell the readers your honest opinion. That’s how I feel when I read your blog. How would you describe yourself in three words?
This really stumped me, I had to come back to this one once I’d finished the other questions.
Damaged, but trying
Your blog has great topics including mental health, wellness, physical health, dyslexia and others. What’s your favorite type of posts to write about?
I guess the area between mental health and advice, where these two come together, that’s what I prefer to write about. I get to learn as much as my readers when I write about that intersection.
What is your biggest achievement? (Either as a blogger or in life in general)
I guess my biggest achievement to date is graduating from my postgraduate degree, which was a lot harder to do then it should have been. I lost funding during this degree, so I had to defer a year. Two placements for my clinical hours let me down two years in a row so I couldn’t get my clinical hours. My mum developed cancer while I was studying, and my health issues were getting worse. So it became quite a slog fest to finish.
Do you have a favorite tv show or a favorite movie that you would like to share with our readers?
I guess Star Trek (TV series and films, the whole collection), because it paints the ideal situation of how human society could function in a world without capitalism. All the more important as capitalism leads us to our climate disaster. Plus, sooner or later, almost every single job will be done by robots, so we won’t need to work, so this presents a good replacement model to live by.
How did you come up with the name of your blog?
I came up with the name for my blog by adapting the name for my biography that I never wrote. I would have called that book, Life of an Unwanted Youth. So I took the Unwanted part, because I’ve always felt unwanted, dropped the rest, and added Life on the end: Unwanted Life was born.
Do you have a preference between promoting your blog posts on Twitter or on Instagram? Where do you feel you are most active and engage with people?
Instagram is a waste of time for promoting my articles, I’m not sure how anyone else finds it, but Instagram’s algorithm doesn’t favor any of my posts there. Twitter is far better for traffic, so I’d tell people to invest their time there.
Have you ever met any other bloggers in real life? Would you want to meet another blogger?
I don’t think I’ve ever met a blogger in real life, but then I don’t share my real name or images of my face. With people not knowing who I am, you don’t really end up in situations where other bloggers might get to meet you. But that might change one day. I could see myself revealing who I am at some point.
What are some of your hobbies?
Not much at the moment, just watch a lot of TV shows, films, and anime, and do some gaming from time to time. I’d love to do more creative stuff, but I just don’t have the space to do that.
Do you have any upcoming projects or any posts that you would like to share with our readers? (personal or blog projects)
I’m currently putting together an article about what it’s like to live with suicidal thoughts, so if anyone would like to share their personal experience of that with me for that article, please contact me.
I’d also love to share more of people’s stories of feeling unwanted and how that affected them too. If that interests you, please reach out and let's have a conversation about how we can make that happen.
Currently working in collaboration with an arts organization and an artist to create a video of what it’s like to go through an episode of my psychosis. Which is a situation I never thought I’d be in, which is both scary and exciting to be involved in.
What would you do to improve your blog?
If I had more knowledge about website building, I’d improve it’s loading speed. Google keeps telling me it doesn’t load fast enough, but I’m at a loss about how to make that happen. I might also add a counselling service if my imposter syndrome lessens for long enough.
Unwanted Life is an amazing blogger, if you enjoyed this interview, make sure to check out the blog and all of the social media. Unwanted Life writes about mental health, learning disabilities, therapy and more, you should definitely check it out.
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Thank you for the interview and allowing me to be apart of your awesome blog
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