HAPPY ONE YEAR!!

(Yes that's me)

 HEY EVERYONE!

Welcome back to Month 13 of #faltufriday!

Today's post is a special one as the 'Damselz-in-sanity' family completes ONE WHOLE YEAR!!

It has been an absolutely thrilling and amazing year and I can't seem to thank y'all enough for it. From where we started to where we have reached, the response has been massive. 

I never knew blogging would spark such a keen interest in my life but the support that you all have given me <<3

As I promised, today's post is a special Q&A post where I answer your most requested questions :)

Without further ado, let's get to it!

I've always been a person who enjoys doing something out of the box. For me, being an Instagram influencer or youtuber never really "clicked". To be honest, I didn't even know google had it's own very well equipped blogging platform. I was bored during online school and decided to go the various products that google offered when I came across blogger-and it just "clicked". That feeling is hard to explain but can be phrased as 'when you know, you just know'. That was it for me. I immediately texted my best friend who wholeheartedly supported me and then told my parents about it who were equally supportive. The hype got me going and by evening I already had a couple of names and niche's written down. 

I knew that writing about my experience would feel more 'complete' and 'accomplished' which is why I chose blogging and not any other platform.

There wasn't a "single" thing per se that made me want to take up blogging on this topic and is a question I've pondered over for months. Is it because it'll make me famous? No. Is it because it'll look good on my college applications? Nope. Was it because I deeply connected with this topic and knew that it was something that not only I but nearly every teen struggles with? YES.

Up to a large extend conversations about mental health has been normalised among peers but a lot of people who genuinely struggle with it, don't open up for various reasons-whether its because they're afraid how people around them might react or whether they'll just undermine and phrase it as 'nothing' or just assume it to be something else-the reasons go on. That was my main source of inspiration. To clear out lot of misconceptions about this unspoken topic and help destigmatise it. 

Being a person whose themselves struggled with their own mental health, when I was in that place, I saw that this all happened to me too; and I didn't want anyone else going through the same.

So if I could create even a small impact in one readers life, it would mean that I have played my part and have helped contribute to a change.

I have made an ABUNDANCE of mistakes over the past year while blogging.

From the quality of posts up to the lack of marketing-there have been lot of places where I could have improved when I started. But hey, isn't that what growth is?

For starters, I never did an introductory post-I just started off my blog. It started off with a pretty simple post which almost no construct and format to-just plain simple writing. About 2 month's into blogging I started talking to different people and learnt about how I could enhance my blog and how make it more presentable.

I made plenty of grammatical errors and in a lot of posts the lack of flow was present-but they are things that I have tried to get better at so #win :)

Marketing was never my main goal-not when I started and not even now. Hence, the lack of establishing a social media presence for my blog did impact the traffic but it didn't affect me much. I always promoted my posts on my personal account which helped a lot :)

With plenty of mistakes came a bunch of great victories. Here are my top 5:

• Crossed over 1000+ readers in the first week of blogging
• Crossed over 6000+ readers overall!
• Reached out to over 50+ countries which brought in a great variety of people reading
• Had the opportunity of taking my first interview and well as giving one!
• GOT VERIFIED BY GOOGLE!!
  
  Couldn't wait to give you the news of the last one!! It happened 3 months ago I just wanted to share it with y'all on a special day!

Aside from this, every time a person texts me saying they really enjoyed my post and how my writings may have helped them, it really makes my day and counts as mini accomplishments for me:)

 My most successful post would be my very first post, 'Starting High School' along with 'Mental Struggles of the LGBTQ+ community'. My most successful month would be June 2021, so far. IT WAS BALLISTIC. We crossed over 250 reads in under 24 hours for each and every post and brought in a huge number of new readers. I, myself was proud of the posts I had written that month which made it feel even better that they took off. Definitely the best.

Aside from my readers, my family and my best friend have definitely been my biggest supporters. They would often promote my writings with their social groups and celebrate mini accomplishments with me :)

Shout out to my best friend for being by my side even when some didn't take off that well as expected and giving me constant hype throughout everything :)

A lot of things. Right from debunking a lot of myths I myself believed in to learning so much more in this vast field. I have definitely learnt the rights and wrongs and additionally learnt numerous number of coping mechanism in most types of disorders (many of which I actually implement in my real life). Not to forget the great learning of perseverance and improving my English language vocabulary.

 There was a long list of names I had come up with before going with 'damslez-in-sanity'. Here are the one's that made it to the top:

• The Mental Mango
• A Teenager's Eudaemonia
• MindOfMine
• A Sloth's Blog(My mom loved this because apparently it is the perfect adjective to describe me
   -_-) 
• Teen Prime

The reason I went with 'damslez-in-sanity' was because of it's pun twist to it. It basically mean's a  damsel(girl) who is both "in sane"(in sanity) as well as "insane"(insanity) which pretty much sums up my entre personality :)

This is one question, which VERY surprisingly, was the most common one.

Being a foodie, I have always loved exploring this field too. Be it a classy restaurant or even just street food-I love travelling to different places to try out their speciality. However. there I a few nosh's that are my comfort foods,a.k.a, my anytime khana.

• Maggi(Who can forget this ha??)
• My mom's butter chicken accompanied with laccha paratha
• Milk cake(Technically a sweet but shh)
• Any McDonald's burger (please don't come at me)
• SHRIMP!! I can gorge on these for days! 
  
  

Meh to be honest I don't handle it all that well. I'm not gonna give any cliché advice here cause both of us know it's not use🤷🏻‍♀️ Sure there are times I succumb to the heavy pressure and at times end up flunking up a lot of my tests(tuitions ofc-my pedagogues are well aware😂) but I think what really helps me get out of this is knowing the fact that I can still rectify it. Not procrastinating is a practice one definitely should put to use from the very start or else it gets really hectic later. Take it from a person whose 🎶 been there, done that 🎶 It is not worth putting off tasks till the very end.

That was it for today's post! There were so many questions it was so hard to pick just the top 10!

Thank you all so so much for all your love and support through the year <3

Looking forward to an even more successful one. 

If you have any more questions, do drop them off in the comments below and I'd be sure to answer them :)

  

Signing off,

Kuhu :)