Heather Armstrong, a trailblazing mommy blogger who openly discussed her problems as a parent and her struggles with alcohol abuse and depression on her website Dooce.com as well as social media, passed away at the age of 47.
Pete Ashdown, Armstrong’s boyfriend, told The Associated Press that he discovered her at their Salt Lake City home on Tuesday night.
She had two kids with Jon Armstrong, her ex-husband and business partner. They started Dooce in 2001 and developed it into a successful profession.
Heather Armstrong Was An Inspiration To Many Parents
Heather Armstrong turned her blog, Instagram, and other accomplishments into book sales and released a memoir in 2009 called “It Sucked and Then I Cried: How I Had a Baby, a Breakdown, and a Much Needed Margarita.”
Heather Armstrong starred on the on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” that year. She was also listed by Forbes as one of the most powerful women in the media.
The Armstrongs made their separation public in 2012. They got divorced the same year. Nearly six years ago, she started dating Ashdown. They shared their home with Leta, 19, and Marlo, 13, Armstrong’s kids.
Ashdown stated that Armstrong committed suicide. According to her book, she experienced severe depression for a significant portion of her life but wasn’t identified and treated until college.
The internet sensation dubbed “the queen of the mommy bloggers” by The New York Times Magazine fell out of favor in 2017 after her marriage broke down, just as social media started to come into its own.
She enrolled in a research trial at the Neuropsychiatric Institute of the University of Utah after her depression got worse. She underwent ten rounds of chemically induced comas lasting 15 minutes each.
