MENTAL HEALTH TIPS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE | THE #HELLOYELLOW CAMPAIGN WITH YOUNGMINDS

 

In a bid to reassure young people that they’re not alone in their mental health, YoungMinds have created the #HelloYellow campaign which you can support by wearing something yellow on October 8thand donating to their cause here: https://bit.ly/3EsL71H

 

DON’T JOKE ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH, ABUSE, SELF-HARM, OR SUICIDE

After the abuse began when I was fifteen, the first mental health difficulty I can remember experiencing was suicidal thoughts and feelings. To be fair, I say ‘suicidal’ but I think it was about more than wanting to be dead; it was about wanting to escape. Wanting to be safe and free. That realisation that actually killing myself wasn’t what I really wanted - and a few other things - led me to start self-harming.

Scratching at my arms hard enough to cause red marks very quickly became more and more severe and it got to the point where a friend noticed a scabbed scratch on the top of my forearm. I still remember the comment she made in front of a few other friends “were you trying to kill yourself?!” And someone else laughed and piped up “if she was killing herself she’d have done the other side!” “Maybe she missed” said someone else. 

TIPS FOR WRITING ABOUT HALLUCINATIONS | I WROTE A CHAPTER FOR THE PRACTICAL HANDBOOK OF HEARING VOICES – AVAILABLE TO BUY NOW!!!

Buy your copy: https://bit.ly/38P5yag

Let the walls crack, 'cause it lets the light in
Let 'em drag you through hell
They can't tell you to change who you are
That's all I know so far

All I Know So Far – P!nk

 A good few years ago, I began collaborating with the author of the book Emily’s Voices (which you can buy here), and she asked me to write a chapter for the book she was in the process of writing; The Practical Handbook of Hearing Voices! The book was scheduled to publish a while ago, but the pandemic kind of put a spanner in the works and so I’m really pleased to say, it has been officially published TODAY!!

I wrote a blog post for World Suicide Prevention Day with advice for writing about suicide (you can read it here), and its popularity has encouraged me to write this piece in a similar format…

Find a metaphor or expect a lack of empathy 

I think that when I discovered a metaphor for my auditory hallucinations not long after creating, I’m NOT Disordered in 2013, it was a real turning point in me feeling understood and that gave me the experience of an overwhelming sense of relief.

Without that metaphor, I experienced such a lack of empathy – which I attributed to the pure fact that no one could understand or appreciate what I was going through. And I believed this was the case because admittedly, even I didn’t understand what was happening to me. I didn’t have the words to form an explanation that I believed would be efficient and powerful enough so that others would understand. That might seem hard to believe considering I’m a blogger and all I do is come up with words to explain things! So I think that not being able to do that, really illustrates just how new, scary, chaotic, and unpredictable things were.

HOW TO READ ABOUT SUICIDE & STILL BE SAFE | I’M WRITING A FICTION BOOK – COVER RELEASE INCLUDED!!! | WORLD SUICIDE PREVENTION DAY 2021

I’ve felt some pain,

I’ve seen some things,

But I’m here now

Good Old Days – Macklemore ft. Ke$ha

This year, having already written a blog post (which you can read here), specifically in preparation for the inevitable influx of content themed around suicide for World Suicide Prevention Day; I thought I probably wasn’t going to publish any other content… Then I found myself working on my next book – which is largely around the reality of suicide and realised that now might be the ‘right’ time to reveal some of the top-secret details(!) and talk about how you can cope with reading topics like this…

My very first book; When All Is Said & Typed (which you can buy here) it was definitely a case of purely copying and pasting all of my blog posts on I’m NOT Disordered from its beginning in 2013, to the date of publishing the book in 2019. It meant that when I began considering another book, I felt it could also be based around blogging for two reasons: Firstly, I had learnt so much about blogging and I’m NOT Disordered had come so far since that first book that I had a ton of new ideas, and secondly, I felt that this book would feel so much more different if it meant I was writing it from scratch. That yes, there were blog posts copied and pasted, but they were mostly to be used as examples of the content rather than being the sole content of the book.

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*This piece is in collaboration with the Etsy store: Fluffy Creatures LTD and features photos of their products which weren’t gifted, though there is a discount code below!)*

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Discount code (20% off when you spend £10): NOTDISORDERED

So, you may have missed it, but I got a new mini lop lionhead bunny (Luna) on September 1^st (you can read about her arrival here) and it almost felt inevitable – to me – that I created a joint Instagram account for her and my little calico rescue cat; Emmy… 

https://www.instagram.com/big.pawslittle.paws/

A FRESH START

The reason I had to make the decision to even just get Luna was because my previous lop Lionhead bunny; Pixie was put to sleep in April (you can read about her death here).

HOW TO WRITE ABOUT SUICIDE | IN PREPERATION OF WORLD SUICIDE PREVENTION DAY 2021

When I first created, I’m NOT Disordered and began my blogging career in 2013, I was an inpatient and had been admitted to the psychiatric hospital because of a suicide attempt. It wasn’t my first – and it ended up not being the last… So, I guess that from the offset, I knew I would end up blogging about suicide…

I’m always very cautious around writing advice posts, for two reasons:

1.      I wonder what right I have to advise anyone about anything!

2.      What if my advice doesn’t help and leaves a person feeling hopeless?

With the first point, as my reader count has soared, I’ve found more and more confidence because whilst I realise not everyone who reads my posts will like them, I must be doing something right to be almost at one million readers! And that, coupled with my confidence to write advice around mental health (which I’ve found the confidence to do so from my own recovery), has given me the courage to write this post.

The second point is a worry I have which is based on my own experiences of being given advice and it not helping. In those instances, I’ve never looked to the person giving the advice as useless or criticising that they don’t know what they’re talking about, I’ve always looked inward. Looking for the reasons why it’s my fault that the advice wasn’t helpful. As though I was the failure and it was my fault for having such terrible mental health that advice which helped others, was wasted on me!