Penalized for Grieving

Social media not so social.

Homeschool.

Author.

Autism.

Apothecary.

Herbalist.

Grief.

I began blogging in 2008 on Vox when I began homeschooling Logan.

He was 8 and in the 2nd grade.

He was bullied for being different. His autism and motor tics placed a bullseye straight on him. After numerous meetings with the faculty and after their final comment, “The parents are worse than the kids.” I gathered up our sweet little boy and took that leap of faith.

Blogging about homeschooling and autism was a way I could express myself and raise awareness. I connected with many other moms throughout the country. Blogging was in its infancy but gaining traction. To this day, I am still friends with many OG mom bloggers.

Three years later, I moved over to Blogger and created Confessions of a Daydream Believer. I wrote reviews for curriculums and new products with a group of other homeschool parents, and I freelanced for numerous magazines. It was an incredible time. Social media connected people and helped bloggers like me; Instagram was a place to share our homeschool photos, and then slowly, a shift began to take place.

Years later, when I published my first book, it was acquired by a traditional publisher. I had to adapt to an ever-changing social media. I no longer had my blog but a website. I was once again in the infancy of self-publishing and hybrid authors. We could shape it how we wanted. Or so we thought.

When I opened my apothecary in 2018, the market for perfume oils was niche and new. Promoting on social media was becoming increasingly difficult and expensive. Etsy was my main traffic source, and it was fine until it wasn’t. By then, bloggers had morphed into content creators and influencers.

Videos. Videos. Videos. Make more videos.

Join every social media platform.

Promote.

Promote at least five times a day.

Then Covid hit with hurricane force. Lockdown. Social distancing. Small businesses collapsing.

Everything changed.

2020 was a tipping point.

In the first part of this decade, I’d attempted to do what I could regarding my apothecary. The Etsy market was saturated, and the company took advantage of the lockdown influx, as did people who simply resold items they purchased on Amazon or elsewhere. It was no longer a creative space. People wanted cheap perfume oils, and many who created them used chemicals and sold them cheaper than mine. I tried to stand out as the apothecary with true, real ingredients, but the harder I tried, the worse it became.

Then my health crisis hit with hurricane force. TIA. Nervous system shut down. Neuropathy. Pernicious anemia.

I changed.

I could no longer keep up with the algorithm demand, but I continued to write. I created this Substack in early 2022, but it wasn’t consistent. My brain wasn’t functioning well, and the medication I was on to relieve my nerve pain numbed me fully.

I was a zombie.

My apothecary closed in June 2022, and what I thought would be a time for my body to heal, the universe had other plans.

Dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

He died in July 2023.

Throughout those months of taking care of him, I wrote as much as I could; really, it was to update everyone on Dad. After he died, my grief poured out on social media, a little bit here, but I noticed a drastic change in early 2024. Because I wasn’t as engaged, I was penalized.

The algorithm penalized me for grieving.

If I wasn’t creating griefy content, I was punished.

When I posted something, no one saw it.

Or did they?

People who I deemed safe punished me for grieving.

“You’re just too sad for me.”

“I don’t want to read about about death all the time.”

“I want to see happy videos.”

“I don’t have time to read your novel posts.”

“I don’t know who you are anymore. You’ve changed.”

In my grief group, I read many posts where people have stepped away from social media because their grief overwhelmed them. Once they felt okay enough to enter back into it slowly, no one was around.

No one asked how they were.

No one saw their words.

A friend of mine experienced the same thing, and she permanently left social media. What was the point?

It wasn’t social.

It was penalizing her.

People were penalizing her.

My rebellious soul instinctively goes against what is trendy, which was a large part of why my publisher dropped me all those years ago, but there are just some things I won’t compromise on, and that is my health.

All aspects of it.

I can’t afford to.

What I experienced that Saturday morning when my body and brain said, “Nope. We’re out.” Terrified me. It terrified Phil and Logan.

I didn’t know if I was going to die. I didn’t know if my husband and son were watching me die. And then, a year and a half later, after caring for my dad, I watched him die.

You are damn right, I’ve changed.

I am sad (not all the time).

I am grieving.

I fucking lost chunks of me. I will never get them back.

Never.

My brain doesn’t function like it used to.

I don’t want to hustle or fit into some societal algorithm.

I just want people to give a shit about others. Grief is so fucking lonely, and when relationships deteriorate because of grief, that sucks.

I am punished.

I am penalized.

No matter what myself or Logan create, the focus will not be on social media.

It will be here or on our website. I will not make the same mistake twice and rely on social media. I’ve learned so much in the first half of this decade—hard lessons—but I have also learned so much about myself.

I’ve done the work and continue to do so.

The anger and pain.

What brings me joy, and who anchors me.

I am not obligated to allow access to people who don’t care about me or my boys. I’d rather be social right here in my community than continually be penalized for not creating what the algorithm deems profitable.

I just want to be happy and create some cool shit with my kid. Maybe write a funny book. Maybe start a new business. Maybe I will figure out the identity of this newsletter. Maybe train for a marathon (okay, that’s too far), but what I do know is I am not going to burn my health to the ground again. People can subscribe here or not. People can read our words, support us, cheer us on or not. Also, what I know is I won’t ever stop talking about my dad and what he endured, what my family endured. I won’t ignore what happened. I won’t pretend that there are rainbows and glitter every day because it’s not.

Life will keep on lifing.

People will die. Relationships will end. Shit will happen, but how I react to it all is what makes the difference. There is no woe is me; there is keep moving forward, and there are times I move slower, and days I don’t move but maybe an inch, but I do because I want to. Because I choose to. Not just for others but for me.

My health is unpredictable.

Life is unpredictable.

I refuse to waste any time on things that don’t make me happy or suck the everloving energy right out of me. I can’t dwell on what was and can’t stress over what could be. I can only live right now, in this moment. That is what death has taught me because parts of me have died.

Life didn’t magically become challenging in 2020. Our marriage, Logan’s health, and financial difficulties ravaged us in the early 2000’s.

Tragedy swallowed my family whole.

We weren’t being punished or targeted by God.

Life lifed.

I am bloodied and bruised.

Scarred.

I mourned relationships.

I mourned who I was—a few times.

I’m still standing with some tingling limbs and a numb face, but I’m here.

So fuck the algorithm.

I have life to do.