I just realized that it was exactly one year ago today that I made my very first blog post! Since then, I’ve written 23 more posts containing many, many thousands of words (too many at times, probably!). When I started, I wasn’t sure where I was going or what I was doing (well, even less than I do now!), but things came into some degree of focus as I went along. I discovered that focusing my blog on my experiences with anxiety disorders wouldn’t be as confining as I’d feared, that there really was enough material there for me to find some new aspect to talk about on an ongoing basis. And, incredibly, there were people who actually wanted to read what I wrote, even people who didn’t know me!
Here are some fun facts from my blog’s first year! (Well, they’re fun to me, anyway!)
- I’ve had a total of 423 visits from people from 17 countries on 5 continents (still gotta break into South America and Antarctica!).
- My blog post with the highest number of views was “Movie Characters with Anxiety Disorders (Are There Any?)” from February 26, 2017. I would not have guessed that. And it still gets views, someone just read it this week!
- Weirdly enough, the post with the least number of views was the very next one, “Anxiety and the Oscar Night Debacle.” You still have a chance to read it!
- The post with the highest number of “likes” (with the caveat that “likes” can only be granted by fellow WordPress members) was “Me and My Meds.”
Writing my blog has been a great experience for me, and has been truly therapeutic. It’s given me a way to sort through my anxiety-jumbled brain and provide some order to my thoughts. It’s also been a way for me to practice talking about my mental health issues, which has given me more confidence to discuss them in “real life.” Plus every time I press that little “publish” button when I finish writing a post, I feel a sense of accomplishment – and for those of us who struggle with mental illness, that feeling can sometimes be hard to come by.
My little blog is certainly not the biggest hit on the internet, and that’s okay with me. I truly feel honoured every single time I see that someone has clicked on my site. So a huge thank you to anyone who’s read my ramblings this past year, and especially to my small but greatly-appreciated group of followers. And onwards we go to year two!
Over~Thoughts 