I'm NOT Disordered

Monday, 31 December 2018

ALL OF MY THANK YOU’S FOR 2018 | HAPPY NEW YEAR 2019

Previous New Years with I'm NOT Disordered:

2013/2014 featured a list (what I didn’t achieve from it, carried on to 2014/2015) but now, in 2017, I’ve now achieved/completed the entire list - 12/12!

2014/2015 was a list of goals for the year ahead – and if you go read it and are wondering, I did/have done 9/10

2015/2016 featured a short list of upcoming projects, plans, and goals for the year ahead.

2016/2017 I celebrated with a completely new design – I can’t believe I’ve had this new logo for a year! I guess I need to stop calling it my new logo! I also asked myself – and some others – two questions: 1. What was one of your favourite things about 2016? And 2. What one thing are you looking forward to in 2017?

To mark the end of 2018, I wanted to take this opportunity to thank all those who have made the year so very special.

*To all those not specifically mentioned (you know who you are) I have an equal amount of gratitude for you too! But there’s only so long a post can be before people stop reading it!*

People:

Mum, thank you for: never straying from my side, always trusting me, playing with Emmy when I’m too tired to, putting faith and determination into my recovery, making the phonecalls that would make me anxious, the laughs and inside jokes, the hugs when I cry and the tears when you’re proud.

Continued »

FINDING A PURPOSE IN BLOGGING

Something I rarely talk about – and I’m sure it’s hard to imagine that there’s anything I’ve held back from this blog – is that one of the key feelings I experienced while I was suicidal was inadequacy. I struggled a lot with the belief that I had no purpose in life because I wasn’t good enough to have any sort of impact on the world. I wasn’t important enough. I spent months of Psychology sessions in Hospital working on my conviction that I was destined to commit suicide at a young age. I think that this belief worried professionals because it was almost a comfort blanket for me and a big reason not to even try and get better. I saw it as rationale for all the overdoses, and thought it justified the number of tablets I’d swallowed.

When I first began I’m NOT Disordered in January 2013, it was about feeling on the cusp of recovery and wanting to document every step of it. I thought it’d be nothing more than an outlet; a place to discuss the dramas on the hospital ward and a sounding off board for all the new trials and tribulations I would face as I began to get better. I think that viewing blogging as a purpose in life has come with the building of popularity. I’ve always described those first few years of I’m NOT Disordered as a snowball; it’s like I don’t remember a point when its popularity began to grow. It’s just that one day I was celebrating 100 readers and then I was throwing a party to mark reaching 100,000! With popularity came feedback and by that, I mean an abundance of praise, compliments and positivity.

Continued »

TW: A DISCUSSION ABOUT SUICIDE | FROM THE WARNING SIGNS TO THE STIGMA

A little while ago I got a phone call on the train telling me that someone, I’d worked with at a few events had just committed suicide. There’s no easy way to say it, is there? Suicide. You can’t really sugar coat it with ‘we lost him’ or ‘he passed away.’ It’s almost as though the act of committing suicide is so… honest(?) - it’s such a stark reminder of the darkness and unhappiness that can lurk in the people we love and care for - that it deserves to be spoken about as equally honest. Though there is controversy and… discussion(!) around the term ‘commit suicide’ with some feeling that it insinuates the person has committed a criminal offence. *Personally, I believe that ‘commit’ is purely referring to the action of it as opposed to it having any legal definition but out of respect for others, I’ll be avoiding using the phrase in this post*

Continued »

12 CATS OF CHRISTMAS WITH I'M NOT DISORDERED | POST TWELVE | IN COLLABORATION WITH CATS PROTECTION | AD

I hope that this series raises the profile of Cats Protection's work and an awareness that cats aren’t just for Christmas. Pet’s aren’t presents. They need to be given a loving, permanent home and not a one-day excuse for some excitement and a few happy squeals! Pets are a amazing, beautiful and heart-warming commitment.

https://twitter.com/CatsProtection

https://www.cats.org.uk/