Top 5 Warning Signs of Blogging Addiction

We’ve been experiencing some, er…”technical difficulties” here at b5media, which is why you’ve probably visited Mental Health Notes and been greeted with a wonky page or two at least once in the past few weeks. You’re not alone – we writers have been dealing with the same said wonky pages. Not the mention the inability to log in (what do you mean, access denied?!), losing valuable posts (clicking the “save” button is supposed to save them, right?!), and some very real, very serious, blogging withdrawal.

Which is why I decided to create Bloggers Anonymous. Unfortunately, my efforts were thwarted when I discovered Bloggers Anonymous already exists. (Sure, it seems to have been abandoned as it hasn’t been updated in almost two years, but credit is due.)

So, because copyright infringement is not on my to-do list today, I thought I’d go a different route and simply offer up some warning signs of blogging addiction. That way, maybe I can help prevent a few of you from ever experiencing the horror that is blogging withdrawal. (And, should you discover you have an addiction to blogging, maybe you’ll want to give Bloggers Anonymous a friendly nudge to get going again.)

Top 5 Warning Signs of Blogging Addiction

#5 – Finding blog-worthy information relevant to your blog topic while watching television, reading a book, or scanning the magazines in the checkout aisle is second nature to you. You don’t search for it; you don’t have to search for it. You simply latch onto it thanks to the new cognitive process your brain has created: Blog Sensing. It’ll be an official subcategory of Extraverted Sensing any day now. Wait and see. (See The A.S.S Award and Grey’s Anatomy Has Enraged Me Again.)

#4 – You already know what you’re going to blog about two weeks from now. That’s right. Not tonight, not tomorrow, but two weeks from now. It’s already marked on your blog post schedule/calendar. Perhaps you’ve made an outline of the post, complete with headers, subheaders, and bullets. Severe blogging addicts may even already have the posts written, saved, and scheduled to launch on the appropriate two-weeks-from-now date. (You folks are in for a mighty treat come Patient Safety Awareness Week next month.)

#3 – To further feed your blogging addiction, you start “contracting” your other addictions. ( “What? Michael Scofield was diagnosed with low latent inhibition? Haywire has schizoaffective disorder with bipolar tendencies? T-Bag killed and then took on the identity of a psychiatrist? There has to be a Mental Health Notes blog post in there somewhere!)

#2 – You dream of the day your five-figure income turns into a six-figure one. And we’re not talking paychecks here, people (don’t I wish). We’re talking stats. And if you’re a true blogging addict, you check them everyday.

#1 – And, finally, you find spending multiple hours perfecting one blog post to be perfectly acceptable. (Honestly, the perfect graphic can make all the difference, right?!)

Have any blogging addiction warning signs of your own to share? Personal experience stories? Leave ‘em in the comments!

P.S. Oh, yeah. I’m told the “technical difficulties” we’ve been experiencing are actually growing pains, so, the light at the end of this winding tunnel of blogging withdrawal is that our dear b5media network is growing!