Dooce' Heather B. Armstrong, 'queen of mommy bloggers,' dead at 47
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Heather B. Armstrong, a popular mommy blogger who went by the online name of “Dooce,” died at the age of 47 yesterday, her social media confirmed.
Her cause of death was suicide. Armstrong’s boyfriend Pete Ashdown told the AP he discovered her on Tuesday night in their Salt Lake City, Utah, home. Armstrong, who has been open about her struggles with alcoholism and depression, recently relapsed, Ashdown said.
The news of her death was announced on Wednesday via her Instagram page.
“Heather Brooke Hamilton aka Heather B. Armstrong aka dooce aka love of my life,” the caption read. “July 19, 1975 – May 9, 2023. ‘It takes an ocean not to break.’ Hold your loved ones close and love everyone else.”
The Post reached out to the family for further comment.
Armstrong first rose to fame in 2001 after she launched her blog, Dooce.com.
The pseudonym she wrote under, “Dooce,” originated from AOL Instant Messenger, where one of her friends developed the word as slang for “dude,” according to the Atlantic.
Her blog and writings quickly gained a large cult following, as she was open about the ins and outs of motherhood and her personal life — including why she left the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, according to Vox.
Armstrong was fired from her job in 2002 after she wrote about co-workers in her blog, according to Vox.
She attended Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.
She was married to Jon Armstrong, a web developer who had also left the Mormon Church, in 2002.
The blogger appeared on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” in 2009, and that same year, she was also named on the list as one of Forbes’ Top 30 most influential women in media, alongside the likes of Kelly Ripa and Nancy Grace.
In 2011, she was getting over 100,000 daily visitors on her blog, and the New York Times wrote an article about her that crowned her as “The Queen of the Mommy Bloggers.”
Armstrong was also open about her struggles with mental health, including her divorce from her husband, Jon, in 2012 and hospitalization for postpartum depression, according to the Atlantic.
She had struggled with depression from a young age, according to Vox, and documented it throughout the years in her writings.
In 2017, the blogger decided to join a clinical trial at the University of Utah’s Neuropsychiatric Institute to help treat her depression after falling into a particularly bad episode in 2016.
The trial necessitated being put into a chemically induced coma that would leave her temporarily brain-dead for 10 sessions.
The experience was the subject of her 2019 book, titled, “The Valedictorian of Being Dead: The True Story of Dying Ten Times to Live.”
After the treatment, she decided to relaunch her blog, Dooce.com, which she had only posted sporadically on since 2015.
“I know [blogging] has contributed to bouts of sadness throughout the years,” she told The Post at the time.
“But the outpouring of people saying ‘thank you so much for talking about this’ far outweighs the criticism.”
The most recent blog post on her website was on April 6, detailing more about her journey to sobriety and her eldest child, Leta, 19.
“I now understand that ‘what was happening to me’ was a physical reconciliation with pain,” Armstrong wrote in the blog post. “22 years of agony I had numbed with alcohol had come alive and transformed itself into an almost alien life form. I often felt like I was being electrocuted for hours at a time.”
“The core of my body absorbed the shock of it all, and it brought me to my knees. I was forced to stare this wild-eyed savage straight in the face, and now I look around and think, “Oh, this. This is just life. All of this is just a physical reaction to psychological pain.”
In 2009, she penned a book called, “It Sucked and Then I Cried: How I Had a Baby, a Breakdown, and a Much Needed Margarita,” and another one in 2012 titled, “Dear Daughter.”
She is survived by her two children, Leta Elise Armstrong, 19, and Marlo Iris Armstrong, 14.
If you are struggling with suicidal thoughts or are experiencing a mental health crisis and live in New York City, you can call 888-NYC-WELL for free and confidential crisis counseling. If you live outside the five boroughs, call the 24/7 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline hotline at 988 or go to SuicidePreventionLifeline.org.
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