Why I Quit Blogging

So I was dusting off the old blog roll and was interested to see that several of the blogs I used to follow are also now defunct.  It got me to thinking about why I quit blogging.

1. Voice-  I feel like I come off as prim and proper in my blog, which I am oh so totally NOT in real life.  I'm not sure why that is.  Possibly just trying to seem professional or be concise, but I know as time went on, it bothered more and more, and I got to a point where I felt like I had unintentionally boxed myself into a persona that really didn't reflect who I am. 
2. Pressure- It may seem laughable to people with huge blog followings, but even having 30 people following me started stressing me out.  Part of this is likely a manifestation of my anxiety (which I'm now on Cymbalta for, woooo!)  This probably relates back the the first point, in feeling an internal pressure to live up to a standard/persona I had unintentionally created.  What people don't like what I post?  What if someone leaves me a nasty comment?  Minor issues for most people, but when you have anxiety, everything gets blown out of proportion.  I had mentioned once in a post that I have *GASP* tattoos, and noticed that basically immediately a long-time follower dropped me.  Ouch.
3. Disappointment- I found myself getting pretty discouraged by the cattiness, infighting, and snark I was seeing in some of the popular blogs I read (I'm so totally not naming names, so don't ask!).  None of us are perfect, but man.  I found myself thinking that if I had to become a sanctimonious asshole to be a blogger, especially a "popular" one, I'd rather just don't blog at all.  Okay, so maybe saying that makes me sound a bit like a sanctimonious asshole myself, but I see people offering constructive criticism in a very loving and gracious way, and the response is basically "shove it, I'm hilarious and popular and you're not" it's just...blah.  It really turned me off of blogging, which was not fair to the 99% of bloggers who aren't like that.  But combined with the other stuff I was just not feeling it anymore.
4. Lack of focus- This was a big issue as well, and again ties into the first.  Initially my blog was largely about homeschooling, conversion, and country life.  Well, then I was not homeschooling for a couple of years, my conversion was several years in the past and I was experiencing the euphoria crash following my conversion zeal, and we moved into town.  So.  Yeah.  I definitely felt a loss of focus there.  And with the other issues mentioned above, I just didn't really have the desire to figure out how to re-focus the blog.

So that's that, and here I am trying to get back into it.  I do miss the sense of community and having  a place to put my thoughts down.  We'll see how it goes.

Did you quit blogging, or take an extended break?  Why?