Blogging Then and Now: How One Frazzled Mum Finally Found Her Voice
Once upon a time, way back in the 2000s, I was a hot mess in my early 30s (I mean, I am still a hot mess now in my 40s, but for different reasons): a single mum, moving house, and spending every spare second hammering out competition entries like it was an Olympic sport. And not just blog comps — all the comps. If someone was giving away a set of saucepans, a box of wine, or a garden gnome, you’d better believe my name was in that draw.
Somewhere between hitting “submit” for the 400th time that week and stalking the postman for a delivery that never came, I thought: you know what, I could do this better. I can absolutely write a better blog than the ones I am entering competitions on, and because I’ve never been able to resist chaos, I did.
Spoiler alert: I couldn’t do it better. Not at first. My early posts were absolutely criminal. Crimes against blogging. Crimes against grammar. Crimes against humanity, honestly. But you’re not supposed to be good at something right out of the gate, are you? You’re supposed to cringe at your archives ten years later and wonder why no one staged an intervention.
The Blogger Dress-Up Years
So there I was, suddenly a “blogger.” Except I wasn’t, not really. I was a woman with a keyboard, some questionable grammar, and a deluded belief that people wanted to read about what I had for tea. Spoiler: they didn’t.
In the early days, blogging felt like playing dress-up in someone else’s clothes. Everyone was a parent blogger with neat routines and Pinterest-worthy photos, and there was me, shoving out posts that read like a badly written diary entry. Half the time I was trying to sound professional, the other half I was rambling like a drunk aunt at Christmas. Consistency? Never heard of her.
And yet, somehow, it worked. The emails started. Freebies, review requests, trips. My inbox turned into a chaotic jumble of “please promote our product” and “would you like to come to this event?” And for a while, it was great. Who doesn’t love free mascara and a day out pretending to be organised? But even at the height of it all, I knew deep down I was winging it. Playing blogger. Trying to keep up with people who actually had their act together, while I was one missed nap away from disaster.
The Blogger Frenzy (and My Social Burnout)
Ah, yes, the linkie years. If you were there, you’ll know. If you weren’t, imagine speed dating but with blog posts. Everyone frantically linking, commenting, pretending to be BFFs while secretly hoping for clicks. I was in deep — whole evenings spent writing comments on strangers’ posts about their toddler’s lunch like it was an Olympic event.
And Twitter chats? Don’t even get me started. One minute you’re innocently joining in, the next you’re knee-deep in hashtags, trying to sound witty in 140 characters while simultaneously burning your tea. Blogger circles, Facebook groups, endless “support threads”… it was like playing an elaborate game of pretend where we all cheered each other on while slowly losing the will to live.
And yet, in the chaos, I did make one genuine friend — someone I still talk to daily, which is frankly a miracle because I’m basically allergic to social interaction. That’s the single biggest win I got from the whole circus. The rest? Exhausting. People drifted, blogs died, the circus packed up and moved to Instagram and TikTok.
The truth is, I am not social. At all. I hate small talk. I hate forced chit-chat. And forcing it online was just as bad as forcing it in real life. Painful. Which is probably why my social feeds now look like the ghost of blogging past. Twitter = tumbleweeds. Instagram = abandoned museum. Engagement strategy? I’m more likely to engage with a nap. I tried, I failed, and honestly? I don’t even feel bad about it.
The Silence Years
And then I just… stopped. Poof. Nothing. The blog sat there like a crusty pot plant in the corner, technically alive but one sneeze away from death. Life was happening, my brain was fried, and every time I opened the laptop I thought, actually, no thanks.
Meanwhile, other bloggers were churning out posts like they were hooked up to an IV drip of inspiration, and I was over here trying to remember my own password. Instagram was exploding, TikTok was being invented by children who weren’t even born when I started, and I couldn’t even figure out how to upload a picture without it breaking my entire layout.
So the blog just… lingered. Awkward. Like that drunk guest at a party who doesn’t take the hint even after you’ve put pyjamas on and started hoovering around their feet. It didn’t die, but it didn’t thrive either. It just sat there collecting dust, silently judging me every time I dared open WordPress.
The Perimenopause Plot Twist
And then came perimenopause, crashing into my life like an annoying guest who wasn’t even invited. Hot flushes, night sweats, insomnia, rage that could level a small village — it’s been a joy. But weirdly? It’s also been the thing that finally shoved me into finding my voice.
Because once you’ve sat bolt upright at 3 am, sweating through your pyjamas, googling “is it normal to want to set fire to everything my family does,” you stop caring about being polite. You stop caring about fitting in. You stop caring about whether Karen from Twitter thinks your tone is “a bit much.”
Perimenopause basically handed me a megaphone and said: “Here, say it how it actually is.” And so I did. I leaned into the sarcasm. I embraced the chaos. I wrote the way I think: messy, blunt, dramatic, sometimes oversharing to the point where I wonder if I should delete it later (I don’t). And for the first time in over a decade, blogging finally felt like me.
Sure, not everyone likes it. Some people want neat parenting tips and polished advice. But honestly? Wrong blog. I’m not here for that anymore. This is my space, my voice, my chaos. And if you can’t handle a perimenopausal rant with a side order of sarcasm, the internet is a big place – there’s something out there somewhere for you.
Now: Frazzled, Chaotic, and Weirdly Content
So here we are. Over a decade later, the blog is still standing (just about), and so am I (barely). I’m still frazzled, still unhinged, but finally comfortable enough to just write the way I want without caring if it fits into a neat blogging niche.
As I’m writing this, my current foster dog — a slightly chaotic little Frenchie madam — is side-eyeing me from the other end of the sofa. She’s just started her season, and honestly, I think she’s jealous. Perimenopause lets me say whatever I like and call it “finding my voice,” but if she so much as snaps once because her hormones are out of whack, she’s suddenly “aggressive” and “not family-friendly.” The irony isn’t lost on me that she’s the total opposite of me too — a pure social butterfly, needing everyone to love her, while I sit here dodging human interaction like it’s an Olympic sport.
And maybe that’s the point. I don’t fit the mould. Never did. I’m not here chasing freebies or inbox chaos anymore. I’m not forcing myself into linkies, Twitter chats, or pretending to enjoy small talk when I’d rather poke my own eye out. I’m just here because I love writing. Always have. Always will. And if that means my blog looks a little messy, sounds a little unhinged, and occasionally veers into over-sharing territory, so be it. That’s me.
And honestly? I think I’m a better writer now than I’ve ever been — not because I’ve polished up, but because I’ve finally stopped pretending.
If you like my writing (and somehow survived this far)…
I finally decided to remove the multiple personalities from here and give them their own spaces. So if you fancy more chaos:
- One Frazzled Dog — my life as the eternal “spare human” to foster dogs.
- BizBreakdown — where I pretend to be professional and talk business.
- One Frazzled Fibro — fibromyalgia, perimenopause, and everything in between.
- One Frazzled Fiction — because I love writing fiction, even if it’s been forever since I actually wrote any.
Still frazzled. Still oversharing. Still side-eyed by a French bulldog who thinks she could do it better.
