Thanks to a poll on my Twitter back in November, my wonderful
followers decided that I should publish a blog post and film a vlog every day
for the entirety of December!
So welcome to December 19th…
Today is all about my collaboration with one very special brand on Etsy, in this post I’ll be reviewing the products they sent to me and on December 23rd you can enter a competition to win these products and the remaining one that I’ll be reviewing in two days’ time!
This post is in collaboration with the incredible London-based Etsy store; Laleeland LDN who kindly gifted me a few products; namely the Serotonin and the ‘keep going, be brave, be strong’ bracelets but also some other bits that will be a surprise for the lucky competition winner!
For this post, I thought I’d concentrate on taking inspiration from the Serotonin bracelet which has a purple band and is made up of the chemical symbol for Serotonin (which I think is such a genius idea!). So, I’ll be talking about the top five things to make me happy…
1. My Mum
Of course, Mum come first! For my entire life it has been Mum and I as a little team but boy, do we make a strong team! Hopefully, just saying that will help you to understand the magnitude of being admitted to a psychiatric hospital over 100 miles away from home for two and a half years. To be honest, in the beginning, I think that I was so mentally unwell that it really didn’t hit me being so far away from Mum until a few months into my admission.
Getting leave to go home every so often wasn’t enough and it was so incredibly hard to then leave Mum all over again and go back to the hospital where I didn’t know when I’d next be allowed to leave (I was sectioned under the Mental Health Act).
I’m a very ‘cup-half-full’ kind of girl though so I desperately looked for a positive to it and feel that what I found was powerful enough to get me through the two and a half years! I realized that the experience could teach me a lot about respecting and appreciating my Mum a lot more so whilst I obviously wish I hadn’t had to go to hospital to learn that, I’m glad that I did learn it! Being in the hospital also taught me a lot about unconditional love and how if you have it, then it doesn’t matter how many miles are between you both, that love will be just as strong as ever.
2. My Pets
Pixie (my bunny) and Emmy (my cat) make my house a home so of course they come second!
If you don’t already know, both of them came to me in particularly hard points of my life so that makes them mean so much more to me!
Pixie came first in 2017 when I had started to hallucinate rabbits. I’d been so scared to tell anyone because I was so afraid that they’d put me back into hospital and think that I’d ruined my recovery and was going backwards. So, when I walked into Pets At Home one day with my Mum, and saw all of the rabbits, I thought ‘I can either let this knock me or I can use it to my advantage.’ Next thing, I was asking one of the store staff (shout out to the lovely Kelly who is now a dear friend!) if I could hold one of them and explaining why. When she handed me Pixie, she (Pixie) went really still and just lay on me and I became so overwhelmed with comfort that I was holding a real rabbit that everyone else could see, that I started to cry in the middle of the store! I bought her the next day!
Emmy came along in 2018 after losing my four-year-old cat; Dolly to organ failure. Pixie and I were a family of two for less than a week before I realized we needed a cat in our lives! Emmy was even more special because the adoption center I got her from (Willows) does a personality match over the phone so you tell them about yourself and they decide on a cat who suits you and the kind of cat you’re looking for.
Over a year later and if the pair of them can be together then they will be! Emmy likes to try and lick Pixie’s ears and then Pixie likes to chase Emmy down the corridor!
They bring so much love and joy to my life that I couldn’t be without them.
3. The besties
Lauren – I love that even though there’s now miles and miles between us, when we’re together things are the same as though we were five minutes apart again!
Ellie – I love that you brought my God Children into my life and will be forever grateful for that. It’s also amazing to have a Harry Potter obsessed friend!
Marty – It means so much to me to have a friend who’s also a Blogger because I’m NOT Disordered is such a huge part of my life that having someone who really understands that makes me feel validated and less alone.
Becky – I’m so lucky
to have such a relationship become such a strong friendship! I knew from the
moment I first met you that we’d be friends, but I didn’t realize just how
close we’d be and how much you mean to me. Georgie – Thank you for always being there for me; for understanding what I was going through and for being such an inspiration in all that you do!
4. I’m NOT Disordered
I didn’t for one minute imagine that when I created my Blogger account in January 2013, I’d still be doing this over six years later! And I couldn’t have ever predicted what a huge part of my life it would become and just how much it means to me and those who read it!
I’m incredibly lucky to have had so much success in blogging because I feel that there’s so many mental health blogs out there these days that I’m NOT Disordered could have easily gotten lost in those. It’s actually a huge validation that my blog hasn’t been forgotten about because it sort of reassures me that maybe there’s still something special about it and that my content is still of a good, original quality.
Blogging really gives me a huge outlet for my creativity and it allows me to be imaginative with my thoughts of collaborations, partnerships, and just content in general.
I’ve talked before about why the number of readers I have matters to me because having such popularity really opens up so many opportunities with organizations and charities wanting to collaborate for the chance of some free publicity. It’s also an honour to see so many people enjoy my content and the work that I put into it.
5. Christmas!
Of course, I had to put Christmas time. A lot of people at the minute are talking about how excited they are that it’s almost Christmas Day, but I was excited for December in general! I was so looking forward to all of the events, meetings, and things that I had planned for the month as opposed to just the one day!
So, I think that Christmas in general makes me happy because even though I recognize that a lot of people still struggle with their mental health at Christmastime, the majority of people do end up with a smile on their face. It’s also more special now that I have God Children because I believe that Christmas is about the children and allowing their imagination to go crazy and their excitement to peak.
