Heather Armstrong Dead At 47: 5 Things To Know About The ‘Queen Of The Mommy Bloggers’
Heather Armstrong, known as ‘Dooce’, skyrocketed into internet stardom after launching her motherhood blog in 2001. Learn about Heather, her life, and her legacy here.
Heather B. Armstrong, a mommy blogger known by the nickname “Dooce,” has died at the age of 47. Her family revealed the shocking news with a post to her Instagram account on Wednesday, May 10. “Heather Brooke Hamilton aka Heather B. Armstrong aka dooce aka love of my life. July 19, 1975 – May 9, 2023,” the caption of a snapshot of a smiling Heather looking upward said. “‘It takes an ocean not to break.’ Hold your loved ones close and love everyone else.”
Heather’s fans were in complete shock and filled the comment section with their deepest sympathies. Heather became popular after she launched her website, Dooce, in 2001. On the site, she blogged about the realities of motherhood in a way that connected with millions of moms around the world. “I looked at myself as someone who happened to be able to talk about parenthood in a way many women wanted to be able to but were afraid to,” she told Vox in 2019. Dooce enjoyed more than 8 million monthly readers at its peak, according to the outlet, and landed Heather an interview on the Oprah Winfrey Show in 2009 as well as a spot on Forbes‘ list of “The Most Influential Women In Media”.
Unfortunately, all the success in the world cannot buy happiness, as Heather struggled with personal demons that led to her untimely death. Her boyfriend of about six years, Pete Ashdown, confirmed she died by suicide in their Salt Lake City home to The Associated Press. Read on to learn about Heather, who was at one point dubbed “the queen of the mommy bloggers”.
Heather Armstrong Had Two Kids
Heather left behind two teenage children when she died. She had Marlo, 13, and Leta, 19, with her ex, Jon Armstrong. Jon worked for Dooce until their separation in 2012. Both Heather and Jon announced their separation in respective blog posts, per The New York Times, and their separation ultimately continued via divorce. Heather began using her last name, Hamilton, following the divorce. Neither of their breakup announcements appears to be online any longer.
Heather Armstrong Struggled With Depression
Heather opened up about her severe postpartum depression in her 2009 book, It Sucked and Then I Cried: How I Had a Baby, a Breakdown, and a Much Needed Margarita. She even admitted that she thought about ending her life. “I thought about suicide every day during those months. I thought about how I would do it; perhaps I would hang myself with the dog’s leash, or maybe I’d grab every single pill we had in the cabinet and drown them with a couple shots of tequila. I wanted to do something, anything to stop the pain,” she wrote (via the Los Angeles Times.
Heather only felt better once she checked herself into a mental institution. “If you ask Jon he will tell you that when he saw me that afternoon [I went into the rehab] he saw Heather for the first time in seven months, not that awful woman who liked to throw keys at his head,” she recalled in her book.
Heather also wrote about her continued depression in The Valedictorian of Being Dead: The True Story of Dying Ten Times to Livetime, which she released in 2019. The title comes from her experience in a clinical trial at the University of Utah’s Neuropsychiatric Institute, which put her in a chemically induced coma for 15 minutes for 10 sessions.
Heather Armstrong Was Sober The Last Few Years Of Her Life
Heather struggled with alcohol abuse and in 2021, started her sobriety journey. She got candid about having to relearn how to live without alcohol in a July 2021 Instagram post she shared from Paris, which can be seen below. “I did not know when I stopped drinking that I would have to teach myself how to walk across a room without running into a wall. I had destroyed my normal depth perception, and for weeks I was covered in bruises from knocking my body into everything, in burns from trying to cook,” she recalled.
“I don’t crave alcohol nor am I tempted to drink. The thought of alcohol nauseates me, and I can’t even remember what it was like to want to drink,” the mom of two continued. “And yet, I have never attempted anything more challenging or demoralizing. This last week in Paris—here in a place I call home, as I approach 100 days—this part has been the hardest. I have to relearn how to sit, how to stand, how to lie down. I have to remember how to open doors and cross the street.”
Heather then opened up about the shame she felt from being so dependent on alcohol. “I always had a bottle in my purse or in my hand. The memory of it and what it did to me, what it came very close to doing to me, is so haunting and humiliating,” she wrote. “I’m learning how to wrap that part of me in my arms so that she knows she’s going to be okay. Because she doesn’t believe it. She doesn’t believe there exists a way out and is so embarrassed that *this* is who she is.”
Heather celebrated two years of sobriety on April 8, 2023.
Heather Was Once Fired Thanks To Her Blog
Heather and her former husband, Jon, lived in Los Angeles together when Heather began Dooce. She and Jon, however, were forced to move to her mother’s basement in Utah after Heather’s boss found her blog and immediately fired her. “[I wrote about] how much I wanted to strangle my boss, often using words and phrases that would embarrass a sailor,” Heather once told The Associated Press. She temporarily shut down her blog, but started it back up again a few months later. She would take more breaks from her blog later on in life but for mental health purposes.
Heather Was A Dog Lover
Heather was a proud dog mom to a Husky when she died. She often posted about her dog and wrote poems alongside photos of her companion. Her dog was very loyal, and she even said at once point she gave her a bit too much love. “My emotional support animal who has no training in the art of emotional support has been a bit overly emotionally supportive by climbing directly on top of my head when I am lying down,” she comically wrote in Sept. 2021. “When that doesn’t work she sticks her face directly in my butt. Which always works.”
However, she expressed her gratitude for her dog and loved ones as she opened up about her difficult sobriety journey. “Life here on day 174 is a struggle. Every day is a goddamn struggle and I fight and fight and fight. Luckily I have a wolf up my butt and dear people like @e_gray_n who took a chance and reached out a hand thinking I might need one,” Heather candidly added.
If you or someone you know is in crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741.