I think I started blogging in 2000/2001 when I got a livejournal (my account is now deleted). I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit I joined because a frenemy was on the site. I can’t remember my first posts, that’s probably a good thing because at the time I was an angry teenager on the cusp of my first romantic break-up in a small town with not much going on. All my friends were going to university, moving away, starting their jobs or starting a family. I felt like I was going nowhere so I’m certain I was whining about that. Regardless, I started blogging and I enjoyed it. I gradually started customising the layout, then adding links/pictures to the posts. I joined communities and made friends. I started finding out about cybergoth events happening in the nearest big town, so I started going to them. From there I met a bunch of people that went on to became my reallife friends. I kept in contact with them through our blogs. I eventually deleted my livejournal account after a few years because it lost favour to Myspace.

Since then, I’ve had about a dozen blogs which I have used infrequently and deleted. I enjoy customising layouts and I like interacting with others through blogging (probably because my anxiety makes reallife interactions difficult). I like blogs within closed communities, because sometimes that makes me feel safer when I am writing about personal things. I tend to start a blog when I’m experiencing a big change in my life (or if I’ve been triggered and I’m having a big ol’ existential crisis). This blog was starting when I came to university – I wanted to write about the culture shock, but I haven’t been able to write as frequently (or as openly!) as I hoped.

My favourite University of Brighton blogs belong to my favourite colleagues; Alumni, Careers, Elearning and Radical Brighton. Outside of university, I occasionally read Tukru, Sean, Obesity Timebomb, Arched Eyebrow, Kelvin and Vegan in Brighton. I added the RSS feeds to my favourite blogs to my Outlook so I can read them at lunch in work (I know subscribing to RSS feeds is an outdated thing to do now but I love them!)

My goal in doing EdublogsClub is to be more open. I often want to blog about political thoughts or experiences of being a survivor but it just feels like something I’m not quite confident to do yet. I’ve started blogging about my mental health over the past couple of years – that was a big step for me – and it has really helped me deal with things as they happen. I have also found it interesting to look back at my blog entries when I’m having a tough time so I can remind myself that these feelings pass.