“Transparency
fosters a sense of trust and provides serious motivation.”
Billy
Boughey
Now, I’m very uncomfortable referring to myself as an Influencer but having the number of readers that my blog has (there’s over 2.3 million of you lovely people!), the fact others have labelled me it, and that I’ve been working with the Celebrity and Influencers Relationship Manager of Cats Protection – and I’m certainly not a Celebrity! – I think it’s perhaps time I try to accept it and own it! So, in a conversation I was in recently, there was talk about the fact that so many people can form opinions of an Influencer’s life, without recognising or realising that the content they see, is what the Influencer has chosen to let you see. It’s not their entire life. Their entire story. I’d like to think my mental health blog and the content I produce on social media (particularly I’m NOT Disordered’s brand-new Instagram: @imnotdisordered) is more balanced, transparent, and honest. So, in this post, I’m going to chat through more about that conversation and the thoughts and opinions within it, my thoughts on being deemed an Influencer, why I think my content is different, a ton of transparent insight into blogging and social media. As a sort of sidenote: I’ll be creating another ‘most transparent blog post…’ about mental health soon…
I
decided to do a bit of research (in doing so, I happened across this BBC article that’s worth a read!) in the
hope that I could find some sort of widely-agreed upon definition of an
Influencer in the hope it would support my reluctance to claim the label, and I
came across this article on Backstage which divides/names types of
Influencers by the size of their following. And it basically states that due to
the size of my blog’s audience, I’d actually be named a ‘Mega-Influencer!’ So,
my goal of disproving my relevance and suitability to owning the label, has
actually just completely backfired; hasn’t it, really?!
So, why
do I struggle so much with the thought of applying this label to myself?
I think
the answer to this massively links back to my thoughts and concerns as to the opinion’s
others might have of me. I was raised by my Mum not to ‘follow the herd’ and so
I recognise that I shouldn’t care what others think of me – those with opinions
of me who really matter are that of my loved ones and myself. No one else
should be of any real importance or influence – and they especially shouldn’t be
of so much importance that the thought of them can actually shape my entire attitude
and all my actions. You shouldn’t change to accommodate someone else’s ideals,
demands, or expectations. Especially not if making those changes leaves you with
poor thoughts about yourself, your self-esteem, and your self-worth.
The way
in which this thought applies here with the issue of the Influencer label, is
that my reluctance to use it for myself, is largely based on my worry that it
sounds – and that other people will think that it is – vain or superficial or
boastful. I remember not long into my blogging career, when I was still a
psychiatric hospital inpatient and there was another girl on the ward who had a
blog too and I was celebrating a milestone in my readership when she asked – in
front of a few others – why I was “so bothered about the numbers?” Now, some
might think of that as a harmless, curious question; but if you knew that girl,
you’d know that it wasn’t intended that way. No, it was a snarky, wise-ass bit
of backchat aimed at making me look superficial and ingenuine. As though I have
the wrong motives and priorities towards blogging. And so, I squirmed where I
stood and stared at the floor with my cheeks turning red as I wracked my brains
to think up an answer. Having not created I’m NOT Disordered too long prior to that;
it wasn’t a question I’d ever been asked nor a topic I’d even considered and
thought about my opinions on it at all.
As is
true Aimee style, I’ve come to find a massive positive when reflecting on that
situation; and that’s a sense of gratitude for initiating my urge to ponder
that issue because it’s led to me developing an answer – two answers actually! Two
very solid answers that I’m really passionate about and feel incredibly
strongly as to how valid and genuine they are! Like, I feel as though they
really rival the whole intention of wanting to make me look like the exact
opposite kind of person – kind of Influencer! For anyone curious, there
are two reasons why I care about the size of my blog’s audience and love
celebrating the milestones within it:
1.
I’d
say around at least 80 – 85% of the content I create is primarily published
with the intention and hope of it helping someone (usually a specific someone
depending upon the exact topic/theme of the content) in some way (again,
dependent upon the topic or theme!). And so, the more readers I’m NOT
Disordered has, the larger the chance that I/my content makes a positive and productive
difference to someone’s life.
2.
The
larger your following – on a blog or social media – the higher the chance that
you’ll land a collaboration because, understandably, organisations or
well-known people don’t want to put their energy and time (and, in some cases,
money or products etc) into content that isn’t going to have a far reaching
impact – something which I’ll get into more later in this post!
These
two rationales are thoughts that I feel very committed to and proud of
establishing. Developing these answers has made me feel more secure and
confident in my honest passion for both blogging and for this entire industry
in general too. And I think that I could really use that as a building block
for developing a sense of agreement and belief in this whole Influencer label debate.
To pick
up on another concern I mentioned that I have in using the Influencer label to
describe myself – when I said that I worried it would seem boastful and vain – I
thought I would include a little bit about staying grounded throughout the most
surreal moments. I think that not being grounded is a quality which the general
users of social media and the online world in general, are always observing and
commenting on any discrepancies they think they see. I’d say that this is
because seeing someone lose that stable and grounded quality to them, often
means – or at least looks like – they’ve changed entirely as a person. Whilst
it’s something I’d like to think has never happened to me – or at least I
haven’t noticed it and no one has told me! – but with the theme of transparency
in mind, it’s something I’m incredibly aware of and very cautious about because
I honestly believe it’s quite easy to fall into it.
Now, a
huge reason for losing that humbleness and grounding, can be the variety of
achievements that can come through for an Influencer. And I guess the first
thing from my blogging career which I’ll talk about as an achievement is
something I mentioned earlier; the size of my blog’s audience… Something which
happened in connection to that, and which I think has also contributed to my
ability to stay grounded and thankful, is that I can vividly remember the
excitement and what happened when I’m NOT Disordered reached 100 readers!
I was
actually still an inpatient of the psychiatric hospital and had been there for
just under one year, and in that time, I had built the loveliest relationship
with one of the other inpatients. Upon being admitted to the ward I was on, a
current inpatient was allocated to be the ‘buddy’ and give a tour and tell the
new person the rules and bits and pieces about the ward, the way it was run,
and things to expect and prepare for. And so, this girl and I had literally
bonded from Day One of my admission! A good example of how close we were was
that there was once she was really struggling in her room and crying, and one
of the staff came and got me and asked if I would come and talk to her and try
to calm her down! In a way, that was very wrong of them because it wasn’t
exactly my job to do that! It wasn’t why I was there, and those staff were
literally being paid to do this! Anyway, that’s how well I knew her and how
helpful we were for each other.
Our
friendship meant that I knew she was quite good with computers and graphic
design, and so, when I created, I’m NOT Disordered, she was actually the one
who put together the entire layout and design (including the logo). One
difficulty with this was that I really didn’t like having to rely upon her and
wanting to make changes but having to ask her to do them and then wait until
she could. Another tricky component of her doing this was that she had been in
the hospital a lot longer than me and so her discharge was being talked about
way before mine and her home was actually really far away from the hospital, so
I thought we’d not see each other again until I was discharged too. In a way,
it ended up being a good thing in terms of my blog’s design etc because it served
as motivation for me to begin researching things and learn how to do all those
things she could, for myself. And developing this knowledge and skill, has
given me a real sense of responsibility and ownership for my blog, its
appearance, and the impact it has on people.
So, one
day; one of us told the other (I can’t remember which way round it was in terms
of who said what!) that I was almost on 100 readers and so we were both in our
bedrooms (which were one door apart) and she must have also been looking at the
statistics because she had my blog’s login details so that she could do the
design edits. And so, when the views reached 100, I went racing from my room to
tell her and at the exact same time, she was coming out of hers and we just
joined in the middle, crying, screaming, jumping up and down, and hugging! The real
hilarity and memorable moment came when the alarms started ringing and the
staff came running because they thought we were both fighting! They were fully
about to restrain us when they realised that we were just really emotional
because we were so happy and excited!
Remembering
that first milestone has really contributed to both my pride and my passionate
recognition of each of the much larger, recent reader milestones. So that,
coupled with the acknowledgements I mentioned earlier of realising that the
more readers I’m NOT Disordered has, the greater the chance my content can help
someone and the larger the chance that I’ll be successful in landing monumental
collaborations with notable organisations; have very much led to me having the
confidence to publicly recognise that statistic. As a result, I’ve put together
a number of pieces of content to mark various milestones, the largest of these
were:
Thank You for 100k | I'm NOT
Disordered
A QUARTER OF A MILLION
READERS!!! | I'm NOT Disordered
HALF A MILLION READERS!!! |
LESSONS LEARNT, ADVICE & MORE! | I'm NOT Disordered
CELEBRATING ONE MILLION
READERS!!! | I'm NOT Disordered
Other,
posts in celebration of reader milestones, included reaching 700,000 readers, 850,000, 900,000, 1.2 million, and 1.4 million. There was also a blog post
that was more a recognition of a statistic: the fact my blog had over 100,000 readers within five
months – which
was really huge due to the fact that it had actually taken me two years to
reach the first 100,000!
I think
that the fact I was able and willing to recognise those reader achievements, really
contributed to my ability to also take part in another aspect that affected me
staying grounded: media appearances. In fairness, ‘only’ three of them were
centred around my actual personal journey and I’m NOT Disordered’s existence,
its success and then there was one piece that was actually based on the release
of my first book:
Blyth suicide survivor Aimee
Wilson tells how she came back from the brink - Chronicle Live
Former suicidal woman Aimee
Wilson wants to help others with depression | Daily Mail Online
I'm NOT Disordered Is In Take A
Break!!! | 'Ad' | I'm NOT Disordered
My
other features/appearances were actually sparked by my experiences on news
issues/already established stories e.g. my appearance on ITV Tyne Tees
News in
February 2017 was sparked by new statistics around self-harm, and then both my bit on BBC News at 10 in May
2017 and my
interview on Channel 4 Dispatches in July
2018 (which I
also blogged about: TOP FIVE TIPS TO TALKING TO THE
MEDIA | MY FEATURE ON C4'S DISPATCHES | AD | I'm NOT Disordered) were based off the leak of
Facebook’s policies around moderations and guidelines on mental health content
on their platform. Then, another two features in the media which I have links
for, were actually related to collaborations; one was from my joint work with
my local NHS mental health Trust and my local Police force (you can read that here) and the other most recent one,
was from my work with the Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
(which you can read here). Then there’s a few other
appearances/features, but I can’t post links for them due to them being on the
radio, they were a live interview on BBC Radio 5 Live and a pre-recorded
segment on Metro Radio!
I think
that second to the worry that I will look boastful talking about my
achievements and qualities around being an Influencer, another difficulty which
I definitely experienced in the media appearances, was that I’ve actually never
been one to enjoy blowing my own trumpet. The way I’ve finally managed to get
around that and move forward despite this somewhat anxious reluctance, was by
focusing on what I want to achieve from blowing my trumpet! Like, with the
number of I’m NOT Disordered’s readers mattering so much for the reasons I
talked about earlier in this post, it means I’m filled with the urge and goal
to continue to grow my audience. And that is so passionate, powerful, and
influential that it’s proven to be enough of a mindset to counteract these challenges.
The
final tool I have in maintaining a feeling of being grounded comes, I think, purely
from the fact that I blog about mental health. As I said before that the
general public and users of the online world are massively scrutinising Influencers
for qualities such as being boastful and arrogant. And I recognise that if
anyone – even just for one minute – questioned whether I was exhibiting those
behaviours and that attitude, I’m NOT Disordered would absolutely collapse in
terms of its popularity and the amazing opportunities I am afforded through its
success. I think that whilst Influencers within any other theme/industry receive
a level of trolling and negativity, it would likely be ten-fold toward someone
who professes to have a mental illness as I have with my now historic (if you
missed the part where my Consultant Psychiatrist finally determined I’ve
recovered and are removing it from my records, you can read the blog post all
about it here)
diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and to have survived a horrible
trauma as I have made it through rape and abuse. Like, surely someone with
those qualities and life experiences, should be a good, genuine, and fair
person who doesn’t find their number of followers so important…? And so, I
sincerely hope that my rationale for having formed that level of importance, is
understood and appreciated as me being honest and transparent to a degree that gives
me a good, positive, and fair reputation. But I do really think that my knowledge,
awareness, and consciousness of the chance of me being perceived horribly and
my blog suffering from it, is hugely grounding.
Inspired
by the discussion of media appearances and having a huge audience, I began
having several thoughts around the topic of attention seeking and its relevance
to this posts’ whole transparency theme. Attention seeking is actually
something I’ve blogged about before – mostly as parts of larger posts e.g. this
one: A
LITTLE CHAT ABOUT SELF-HARM & ATTENTION SEEKING & A MESSAGE TO ALL
THOSE USING THE TERM | SELF INJURY AWARENESS DAY 2022 | I'm NOT Disordered –
but there’s also one purely about the topic from way back in 2014: The
'attention-seeking' Rant | I'm NOT Disordered! Since both were a number of
years ago now and the size of my blog’s audience was massively smaller, I figured
there’s such a huge chance that not only do I have new thoughts and ideas on it,
but also that not many readers will have seen or remember those posts too. However,
huge thank you to those who have been here from Day One and hats off to those
who do remember this content – feel free to bypass this section!
Anyway,
one of my key opinions around attention seeking (which I think I voiced in both
of those old posts) which is still extremely true and something I continue to
be passionate about; is that attention seeking should instead be deemed as a
positive behaviour or attitude. And, thinking on it, this is actually something
that I also spoke about in my recent speech/presentation at the February National
Emergency Medicine Trainee Association (EMTA) Conference for the Royal College
of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) – which I blogged about here
and here.
My
thinking behind this belief, is that those accused of attention seeking, are
often people who are struggling with their mental health and, as a result, they’re
often desperately trying to get help and support from various people and different
professionals. Now, I’m not naïve, I recognise that there are some people in
the world who will lie and claim to be suicidal or having thoughts to self-harm,
or who even say they’re hallucinating(!) and that they do that with the goal of
seeking attention. But in all honesty, I believe those people actually also
need – and are deserving of – help and support because that is neither a safe,
honest, or healthy attitude or behaviour. Perhaps an area of debate here, where
I would hesitate, is around who has the priority for being awarded that essential
need for some sort of care – those who are being dishonest and those who are genuine.
Pretty confident I’d say the ones who are honestly hallucinating, suicidal, or
having thoughts of self-harm. Those who are at immediate risk.
Now,
those are my thoughts around attention seeking in terms of mental health and I
started with that because those are the situations where I’ve experienced
discussions and debates around the topic. And so, whilst this blog post is
centred around transparency in blogging and the online world, I felt it was
important that I show where my
understanding and experience of attention seeking comes from because I have been
extremely fortunate in the fact that I’ve never been labelled it or in any way
confronted with it in terms of my blogging and the content I create on social
media. Obviously, I say ‘fortunate’ but actually, it’s only fair because that
lack of being branded as having that quality, is deserving. If I – at any single
point or moment in my twelve years of blogging – had exhibited that attitude
and/or behaviour, I’d have certainly been called out on it by at least one of
over two million people! Like, someone in that vast number, would have surely been
bound to have noticed!
The
thing here though, is that you could very fairly and justifiably argue that
literally everyone posting content online, are attention seeking. Like no one
creates content purely for themselves and so, even if your motives for
publishing content for others are genuine and wholesome e.g. my aim in wanting
to help others with their mental health and recovery through my blog posts and
social media content, you’re still wanting attention. You still need attention
to make that happen. In order to help someone with my content, I need to get the
attention of them. And this thought process is what leads to the next point in
attention seeking; the fact that these needs to attract readers, views, and/or
followers, can sometimes influence a person to create more dramatic and/or exaggerated
content. Click-bait: is what it is referred to as in the communications and
marketing industry. This can be especially true and incredibly risky in mental
health related content.
For
me, personally, I feel the need to develop a balance. To recognise the
importance of yes, creating content that is attention-grabbing and worthy of a
person’s time to look at/read through; but to also create that content in a way
that is still honest and realistic. In all honesty, I’ve fallen for click-bait content
before and gotten all hyped up in expecting to see content that is advertised
in a certain way, but then it turns out to be a huge disappointment because the
rest of it turns out to actually be a lot less exciting! And this is why I labelled
it as ‘risky’ earlier because causing that disappointment and/or misleading
someone can lead to a loss of followers/views and/or a reduction in statistics
around comments, likes, and just general engagement with your content. And
this, can be a bit heart-breaking – especially where those things mean a lot to
you as I explained they do to me – because the whole point of attention seeking
is that no one posts content online with the hope of losing or reducing those statistics
or qualities.
So,
I’d like to think that after reading that and then looking at my content on
Instagram (@aimes_wilson
for more personal posts and @imnotdisordered
for purely blog related posts) or whatever, you’d agree I have mastered a
balance in these things. And I would definitely admit that having that balance
doesn’t – or at least it didn’t for me(!) – come naturally. No, I’d 100% say/agree
that it took me a number of years and that, actually – even twelve years into
my blogging career – I’m still learning about this!
A hugely
possible result of being very dishonest with your content and your attention
seeking goals, is to receive negative and horrible (and I think of a whole host
of other adjectives!) comments. And this is an area of content creation where I
feel very fortunate that I’m actually able to say it’s something I have very
little experience of. But isn’t that sad? The idea that I feel lucky to have
not been trolled and bullied online? Because – from that – you can really
interpret that those negative behaviours are so common and almost normal that
it’s actually a rarity to have little to no experience of them. That something
like that stands out and makes you feel rather privileged.
So, I’ve
had two incidents of horrible comments:
The
first was a comment on a blog post in 2014 and it had been a bit of a rant
about the ward staff because I was actually still a sectioned inpatient of the psychiatric
hospital I was in when I created, I’m NOT Disordered. Now, I honestly can’t
remember which blog post it was nor exactly what the comment said because I actually
confronted the author/content of it in a blog post (which I’m going to link
soon) and – surprisingly! – it was subsequently deleted. But it basically was a
dig at me for not be respectful or appreciative of the staff and mocking the
fact I had no job and yet I was criticising those who do. My upset with this
one came off the back of the fact that this person wasn’t a fellow inpatient –
nor even an ex-patient! So, in my opinion, what on earth gave that person the
right to pass any sort of judgment – much less negative – on my thoughts,
feelings, and experiences? Which led to my thought that unless you’ve been in
someone’s shoes – which, I believe no one can ever say they truly have been – you
shouldn’t judge their behaviours, attitude, decisions, and/or opinions. If you
can’t understand or appreciate how that person feels, what right do you have to
speak against them?
This
comment was similar to mine – and literally all of the other girls on my ward –
belief that when the staff would come out with all these new rules and
procedures, we would struggle to find reason in them because the staff were there
for their shifts and that was it. They weren’t living their literally 24/7 and so
they weren’t the people who were actually going to have to live by those rules!
And so again, what right did they have to make demands that they couldn’t recognise,
understand, or appreciate the actual impact they would have on those of us who had
to follow them?! And this scenario was incredibly tricky and exacerbated when the
majority those new rules were actually coming from new Ward Managers who ended
up only being there for a few months (the number of Ward Managers we had in the
time I was there after the Manager who had been there for years before I was admitted
left – I blogged about it here
– was ridiculous!)! So sometimes, it was like; at least get your feet under the
table before you make changes and pass judgments that would affect all those
who would be there a heck of a lot longer!
The
second horrible comment I received, was off the back of a blog post for
National Suicide Prevention Day 2014 (you can read it here)
where I had talked through the three attempts I had made at that point, and the
person commented a simple – but disgusting – message: ‘good luck with the
fourth one!’ I honestly couldn’t believe people who would say things like that
to a total stranger online even existed! It was a big reminder of when the rape
and abuse started because my naïve and innocent upbringing meant I had no clue
that people this horrible existed in the world! But the largest contributor to
my upset with this comment was around the fact that I have that experience of
what it feels like to be suicidal and to make an attempt and so I would never even
think of encouraging someone to feel like that or to do something like that. I mean,
imagine if that person went through with what you’d said; how could you live
with yourself? But do people who say things like that even have a conscious or
a decency enough to feel bad about it? Because if they did, surely that fear
would mean they wouldn’t actually even make the comment?
Now,
the impact these two comments had… It was horrific! In all honesty, it was to
the point where I’m glad that not only was my mental health doing so well (I
was discharged not long later) but also that I was still sectioned and an inpatient.
I say that because I think that if I’d still been struggling and/or at home
with my freedom, I’d have been incredibly unsafe and would likely have actually
acted on those thoughts and feelings. And so, it meant that the impact was really
to my blog – of course that then had an effect on me too, but it was largely
about I’m NOT Disordered. The two blog posts that I created at that time, and
which will go into much more accurate and current detail can be found here:
The
End of I'm NOT Disordered | I'm NOT Disordered
An
Explanation | I'm NOT Disordered
So, how
was ending my blog the greatest thing for my career?
It
taught me a lot.
It
taught me about a number of skills and qualities which I feel have become
crucial and massively influential upon my blogging, content creator, and
communications and marketing career: passion, interest, dedication,
determination, strength, courage, investment, defiance, confrontation, respect,
equality, appreciation, gratitude, and insight. Don’t worry, the length of that
list means I certainly won’t be going into details about each and every one of
those! But I also want to do justice to their importance by providing at least
some explanation as to how they were helpful and why they helped I’m NOT
Disordered’s popularity and success – and my own success in my career and,
actually, my education journey too.
With the
want to keep this bit short, I think that the main and key way that quitting
has helped, has been because being without my blog, made me realise both just
how vital it was to my mental health and how much I just genuinely enjoyed
creating content. It was one of those situations where it’s said that you don’t
know how much you need or love something – or someone – until it’s gone. That’s
what ending I’m NOT Disordered did for me. And in showing how helpful it had
been for me, my safety, and my wellbeing; I developed a recognition that in
opening it back up, I should be more appreciative of it and throw everything I’ve
got into it. Into creating content and into making my blog as good and as
helpful to others as it can possibly be. And I’d like to think that I’m winning
at this! That quitting was worth it because look at how my blog has turned out
now! And look at how I’ve twisted the importance of those two people with their
comments to have gone from debilitating to motivational. So, a big thank you to
the two of them!
A final
addition to this part, comes from the thought that I should address the idea of
others quitting their content creation too… So, one behaviour I’ve noticed –
mostly on Twitter and Facebook, though – has been people saying that they’re
closing down their account and that’s the last piece of content you’ll see from
them. Within days, they’re back! Personally, I find it annoying and frustrating
– especially when the same person does it multiple times! I just think that it’s
a sign that they either aren’t putting much thought into quitting, or – the one
I think is most likely – they’re saying they’re quitting purely as the click-bait
type of content I mentioned earlier in the attention seeking section. My
annoyance with this behaviour, meant that when I closed I’m NOT Disordered
down, I put a lot of thought into it, I mean I had been considering closing the
blog for a little while before I did and before I received those comments
because my discharge from hospital was beginning to be discussed and I felt
sure no one would want content form an ex-inpatient who was just living a
normal life in the community! I did actually blog about that thought and debate
at the time, so you can read the post: A
Massive Decision (that I shouldn't make alone) | I'm NOT Disordered.
This also meant that bringing the blog back, was made that little bit more of a difficult decision because I was so worried that people would think I was ingenuine and dishonest by ‘making a song and dance’ about closing it down and then coming back literally just within almost two months later! I worried that, if anything, it would render I’m NOT Disordered even less popular and successful and me, less supported or respected. In the end, bringing the blog back; I just had to focus on the benefits that blogging has for myself and prioritise that over all the worries of what others might think.
In
talking about horrible comments and facing them, I feel that on multiple
occasions, I made reference to its relevance on the popularity of your blog or
content in general e.g. for those Influencers who are predominantly – or even
solely – on social media. And so, I figured it was the perfect opportunity to
get into this point about transparency around statistics and the, both positive
and negative, impact those little numbers can have on the content creator.
With literally
the entire purpose and goal behind this blog post being to bring a very honest
insight, it’s only right that I talk about how horrible I have felt when the
statistics regarding my blog’s popularity – specifically the number of readers
per day (which is as frequent as I can see – so I can’t see how many readers in
any less than a 24 hour period) and the number of views a specific blog post
has – have worsened/lessened in comparison to previous numbers for similar time
frames and similar themed content etc. That reduction hits me mostly due to thoughts
and feelings related to my confidence levels, I think.
Now, I’m
going to do a full section about confidence and go into it more specifically, but
in terms of it relating to statistics, I think that it’s mostly to do with the
impact it has on my sense of self-worth. It’s a real, internal argument that is
almost completely self-evidenced (meaning I find the proof for my thoughts and
feelings myself and that it’s often even created by me in a desperate bid to
prove myself right!) and about whether I deem myself to be deserving of my statistics
– regardless of whether that’s in a very positive or an incredibly negative sense.
I mean, there’s been times where I’ve literally just basically talked myself
into the fact that my blog is an absolute failure and there’s no point in
keeping it going any longer. And then instances where I’ve been utterly convinced
that my blog is on an absolute roll and is unstoppable, but that I’ve done literally
nothing to have contributed to that success and popularity. As though it all
happened by chance!
The
huge difficulty with these instances and scenarios, is that yes, I almost
always talk myself into the deepest and most troubling thoughts and feelings, I
only do so because of a factual statistic! Like, there’s no denying that I have
100 less readers on Wednesday than I did on the Tuesday; you can’t argue with
the numbers – especially when they’re not just coming from me trying to add
things up! I mean, it’s a pretty reliable and accurate system that calculates
these things! But this means that if I voiced my thoughts and feelings around
these issues to someone else, I’d say that they would massively struggle to
talk me round or talk me through anything because I’d feel 100% backed up and
supported by a fact. So, whether my interpretation of it is right or wrong,
there’s no denying what the analytics are literally right there telling me! And
this is mostly (I’ll tell you the other reason in a second!) why I don’t voice
these things – because I’m certain that no one can help me in any way and so
what’s the point in bringing them into a stressful, tense, and upsetting
situation in which they’re kind of powerless and unable to control?
The
other reason I don’t voice when I’m struggling with my blog’s statistics, is the
fear of what others will think of me. The worry that I’ll be judged and given a
whole number of different labels: superficial, materialistic, dramatic, and petty.
Or think that I have the wrong priorities and/or that I’m creating content for
all the wrong reasons. And they’re the bits I’m most concerned with others
thinking of me: that I’m not blogging with honest and genuine motivations and
intentions. I want it to be really super clear – through both my content and my
own actions and attitude – that I truly care about what I’m doing and that I
massively care about the impact that what I do is having on others and those it
is intended for. I mean, would I still be doing this – or at least, would I be
doing this as passionately as I am – if it wasn’t with the best priorities and
intentions? Like, after twelve years, if I was in this for all the wrong
reasons; I’m 99% certain that I would have just quit and given up by now
because this content creation malarkey takes a lot out of me. Like, I spend a
ton of time and energy doing this, and I honestly feel that I always pour my
heart and soul into every single piece of content I create and publish on I’m
NOT Disordered.
Having
talked about both the suicide attempts I’ve made and instances where I’ve felt
suicidal but haven’t exactly acted upon those thoughts and feelings, I feel
that a fairly likely and common thought or question that people are considering
at this point in the blog post is whether the statistics have had that level of
an impact on me, my mental health, and my levels of physical safety. And that
would be a fair issue to be thinking about, if I really think through how
outsiders might think or feel then yes, I appreciate why you’d wonder. And
whilst part of me finds that hard to think that people would imagine that I
would allow my safety to be affected by something like that; I recognise that
actually, people have committed suicide as a result of thoughts and feelings
around the concept of failure, disappointment of some sort, and issues of poor
self-confidence and self-worth. And so, does it truly matter what has caused
those thoughts and feelings? Or is it just purely about the fact that they’re
present in your head and your body and that you feel that you honestly and
truly can’t cope with them in any other way?
Personally
though, I feel that ironically; because of those suicide attempts, matters like
this, aren’t capable of damaging or affecting my safety. That’s certainly not intended
to reference or allude to thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and opinions around strength
and bravery because I’m actually someone who definitely doesn’t deem suicide as
weak or at all cowardly! No, it’s more about perspective and insight. Insight
into how bad the world can get, how difficult my head can become, and how ugly
and challenging a place it can be to be in it. And so, unless I’m at that point,
I don’t feel like something can influence thoughts or feelings of suicide
within me. It’s almost like it doesn’t matter what it’s about, it’s about how I
feel about it. And I’ve never felt that way about my blog’s statistics –
definitely not saying that it never will be(!) and 100% not judging anyone who
does.
Another
aspect of self-worth and the statistics is around feeling deserving – both when
it is good and when it is bad! When my blog’s views decrease from their usual
average or a piece of content isn’t as popular and successful as I thought it
was going to be, I typically spend a lot of time considering why that has
happened. And the self-determined consensus(!) I usually come to is that it is
my own fault and this can feel true in a variety of ways. Sometimes this is
about thinking that I haven’t shared my blog’s content on social media frequently
enough or that I have but it has been ineffective and not encouraging/intriguing
enough to influence someone to go check out the blog post that the social media
content is referring to. And other times, it’s about the standard and quality
of the blog post, my general writing abilities, and my creativity skills.
With
the consideration of these negative feelings around my self-worth, I think it’s
understandable to say that those horrible comments I just spoke about, only
exacerbated and validated those difficult and upsetting thoughts and emotions. I
could use them as evidence of my lack of worthiness and see them as just being
really honest facts – just that they were said in a rude and horrible way and
by people who really weren’t even necessarily entitled to say those things.
When I took Art and Design as an optional subject at High School, I had this
teacher who consistently undermined, ridiculed, and criticised literally all of
my work. And it ended up teaching me a lot about criticism and the difference
between tearing someone’s confidence to pieces and providing healthy, useful, and
constructive criticism. It meant that I grew to actually really appreciate
receiving any feedback that is productive because I recognise how this can help
me to make changes and not repeat things that haven’t been successful or
correct for one reason or another.
I find
that I’m actually most able to cope with content that was unpopular or like I
said, unsuccessful in some way, when I, myself, can pinpoint a reason for a
decrease in my blog’s stats. It helps if I can see and recognise that perhaps I’ve
phrased something wrong or failed to use a hashtag on my social media posts
sharing a blog post or used bad imagery and graphics. In making these recognitions,
I turn them into lessons instead of criticisms and deem them to be reasons to
not repeat those faults or mistakes. The Crisis Team actually taught me something
incredibly similar: nothing should be labelled a regret if you can learn something
from it. And finding this lesson, increases the chance of the negative comments
having any upsetting impact on me, my mental health, and my blogging career.
One instance
where a reduction in the statistics and trying to learn from it is particularly
difficult is when it’s concerning a collaboration. In that instance, the responsibility
I experienced was ten-fold compared to a decline in statistics around blog
posts written by me about my own experiences, thoughts, and feelings etc. I
think that a large reason why this particular scenario was difficult was because
typically, a collaboration partner agrees to work with a blog/Influencer because
they think it will be a good publicity opportunity. And so, to me, for them to
not only not experience that but to actually experience the exact opposite and
receive less attention that was predicted or expected, made me feel like I had
disappointed them. That my blog had disappointed them. And that, was a concept
I never wanted or imagined would occur. Rest assured though, none of my
collaboration partners have ever voiced anything if the posts weren’t as
successful or as popular as they’d hoped or expected. And I think that says a
great deal about each of their priorities and decency.
There’s
a flipside here though when it comes to statistics and self-worth and that is
around feeling deserving in relation to my blog’s statistics in so far as having
pride and recognising when I’ve done something well that has resulted in an increase
of readers and various engagement functions on social media. Ironically this
can also be challenging to cope with(!) because I’ve never been one to easily
praise myself or recognise my own achievements, but I’m incredibly happy and –
again – proud to say that this has become more and more possible through every reader
milestone that my blog’s statistics reaches. They make for a hugely easy celebration
and seem to be a very worthwhile recognition. I especially like that they’re massively
validated by others – even those outside of the blogging industry and
Influencer circle. Even those who I don’t really know will send well done or congratulations
comments on content celebrating those milestones. And validation is something
which has proven to be incredibly useful for my mental health and confidence
levels in general, so for something like this? Well, it’s very appreciated.
Finally
for this section, a tricky element to the statistics and their connection with self-worth,
is that it does seem to be one of the other. Like it’s either celebration mode
or desperately searching for lessons from a decrease! This sense of extreme is actually
reminiscent of my mood in so far as my historic BPD diagnosis where two of the symptoms
can be experiencing irrational anger and exhibiting an unstable mood. In a way,
this has been an extremely good thing because I’ve been able to cope with the
variety in my statistics through the therapeutic skills, I learnt in the Dialectical
Behaviour Therapy (DBT) I went through as the recommended treatment for someone
with BPD. So that’s – very surprisingly – proven to be useful in more than just
my emotional wellbeing and safety levels! Now, something I will say here, that with
the theme of complete transparency in mind, something which might be perceived
is whether there’s an element of some sort of blame on readers. As though
perhaps it’s their responsibility that things are so up and down…? But that isn’t
true – for me at least, some Influencers may very well hold that blame. I,
however, actually put the responsibility for the dramatic changes on myself because
I’m the one creating the content that the readers are responding to. There’s a
degree of recognition where I might not be in complete control of the popularity
of I’m NOT Disordered, but I’d agree and accept that I do have the most
responsibility out of anyone.
Having now
mentioned confidence a number of times in the blog post – but particularly in
that previous bit about self-worth – I figured that it was about time for this
part!
So,
having talked through confidence in terms of being labelled an Influencer, I
thought I’d tackle the many other ways that being a content creator or Influencer
can impact your confidence and how the concept of ‘fake it ‘til you make it’
can be a useful and effective way to maintain yours and your blog’s popularity,
success, and reputation. The problem I’ve had with this section though, has
been that there are a number of areas where this discussion of confidence is
relevant, but they’re topics I’d want to delve a lot deeper into too. So, I’m
going to stick to the area which I think is the most common amongst those in
this industry: self-esteem.
On
Googling the definition of self-esteem, it stated: ‘confidence in one’s own
worth or abilities’ and I think that both are really relevant, important, and
defining qualities in blogging and online content creation. But the way I
process that and find it appropriate means that I’m actually going to start this
chat with that second bit: your abilities…
My Mum
always talks about how when I was a lot younger, I would write short stories
about animals – typically horses though, because I used to take riding lessons –
going on various adventures (which I think were massively inspired by my
obsession with the Sheltie
book series by Peter Clover – hoping someone else recognises this Series so
that I don’t feel too old!). She once told me that when she would do her regular
phone calls with my Nana, my Nana would always ask my Mum when the next story
was coming! When I think back, I do have a snapshot memory of seeing my Nana have
a little laugh when reading one of the stories and I wonder whether that has
resonated with me in some way – the idea that your writing can influence an emotion
in the reader. That your writing can earn or invoke a reaction of some sort and
that this means you can control what someone feels or thinks after reading what
you’ve written.
You’d think
that having grown up with a great deal of support around my writing, I would
have a good amount of confidence with it… And this is something that’s probably
mistaken because I promote my blog posts a lot and I think it’d be fair to say
that I show a lot of pride in it, but that’s actually more about my blog as a
more general achievement than publicising my writing specifically. But I do
think that in posting a lot on social media about my blog and its milestones, that
has helped me to develop and grown confidence in my writing because I’ve grown
to recognise that those milestones and achievements wouldn’t be happening if my
writing was – excuse the language – crap! Like, if it was pitiful, useless, and
the same as all the other mental health blogs out there… Well, surely it wouldn’t
have earned the number of readers I’m NOT Disordered now has (over 2.3
million!) nor would it have helped the blog to end up number 1 on FeedSpot’s Top
BPD Blog in the UK (you can see that little, but super meaningful, list here).
A
quality about my writing which I think I’ve always appreciated or recognised as
good, is the creativity within it and which is illustrated through it. It’s
something that one of my best-friend’s; Martin actually literally just
commented on! I just created one week of Instagram content for the blog’s new
account (I think I linked it earlier but if not it’s: @imnotdisordered) on Canva and sent him a sneak peek and his
comment was: ‘You’re so creative and inventive with all you do!’ This not only
meant a lot because he’s one of my best-friend’s but also because he’s a
Blogger too (www.gumonmyshoe.com) and
so that adds a little aspect of being able to relate to things far better than
most others (literally no one else in my life has a blog or could be labelled
an Influencer!). So, comments like that really help me to build on my confidence
because it helps me to feel supported and validated – which I talked about earlier
as already being established to be really helpful for my mental health.
Now,
unfortunately – in some ways – there are a number of areas or qualities that
are important to being a Blogger or an Influencer and that are also relevant to,
or which also concern, confidence… The first and one of the most prominent of those,
is around self-esteem which, I think, is a huge issue in the online world
anyway; particularly concerning body image. This is typically influenced or
caused by the difficulty with comparisons – which is actually another aspect that,
in itself, plays an important impact on confidence. I think that making
comparisons with others of a different body type or weight can almost come natural
to some people in that it doesn’t always feel like a conscious awareness or
action/behaviour. It’s like you just suddenly realise: “oh, I’m comparing
myself!” And the trickiest thing is where the comparisons is to someone whose
appearance isn’t even practical to compare your own too because everyone has a
different body type and so some people might have freckles and wishing you had
them too, doesn’t mean you’ll suddenly sprout freckles! It can be true for
weight too; that some people are just naturally petite – which can actually
sometimes come from a person’s height too which makes it an impractical
comparison too.
The
largest and hardest experience I’ve had concerning the online world and weight,
was when I was a teenager and I began losing weight due to stress and upset from
the abuse starting. I ended up liking my new appearance and so I began looking
online for tips on weight loss and came across the many websites out there
which actually promote various Eating Disorders to a dramatically unhealthy and
unsafe degree. And this was the largest example I’ve experienced myself that supports
my argument when people voice the negativity of social media and the online
world. I always say that the internet is what you make it and so, if you Google
tips to do something unsafe, then you will certainly find content that matches
that result. However, if you Google recovery stories and blogs full of help and
advice, you’ll find that content in abundance too. It’s what you go looking
for. You can absolutely control what you see – of course, ads that are
unrelated to anything and everything you’re looking at or have looked at
previously; can appear with no ability to control them! But I think that has to
really be a risk that you take and accept in using the internet.
The relevance
of this to confidence is that if you search for tips on being more confident
and having confidence in your creativity or something more specific like your
writing, you’ll find content which is helpful and beneficial. To support and
evidence my point, I went searching for such content, and came across a very
positive and helpful article on inspirefirst.com which is titled: How To Write
with Confidence and Crush Your Writing Goals; and you can read it here.
And I think that the point this makes around transparency is about not making
assumptions that someone who has millions of readers on their blog and
regularly promotes their content, doesn’t necessarily have a whole ton of
confidence around their work, ability, and skill. In fact, the popularity of
their blog might cause a difficulty with confidence…
An
insecurity I’ve struggled with throughout pretty much the entirety of my
blogging career that is connected to both confidence and my blog’s popularity is
around the reason behind that popularity. The put the thought into the simplest
of sentences: ‘what have I done to deserve all those readers?’ It’s as though I
just desperately want to be able to pin point one, or even a short list, of
exact reasons as to why my blog has grown in popularity over the years. In the
very beginning, I was very aware that there were really only three well-known
mental health blogs at that time (2013): one was from an ex-inpatient, another
from a Psychiatric Nurse, and the other was a Police Officer with a keen
interest in mental health law and callouts pertaining to psychiatric crises. There
was little to no – at least none that I could easily find – written by a
current psychiatric hospital inpatient. And I guess that’s quite reasonable
considering being an inpatient might typically be interpreted as being too
mentally poorly to think to create or be able to maintain a blog. I appreciate
that thought because there have been a number of instances when I’ve been an
inpatient – previous to the admission that I created I’m NOT Disordered during –
and would readily admit to being mentally unable to do something like I did in
2013.
Discovering
this niche, however, was both amazing and detrimental! Initially, it was amazing
though; it meant that I had what so many budding Bloggers are undermined by; having
a place in the industry that would make your blog stand out from the overly
saturated categories there now is. And I’d found that place for I’m NOT
Disordered without even trying or putting a whole lot of effort into anything because
in all honesty, I didn’t Google anything until a little while into my blogging
career – within the first year for sure and at least a few months into it. And
I only really did so because its popularity was building at a far greater rate
than I had anticipated. This was largely because from Day One, my target
audience was literally solely my friends and family and that was because of my two
goals in starting to blog:
1.
To
increase the awareness and understanding my loved ones would have of my mental
health, which I thought would help them to appreciate how difficult things were
and to better place them in helping and supporting me through my recovery
journey.
2.
To
better their general understanding of mental health in the hope that it would
encourage them to both support any others in their lives who were struggling, but
also to feel able to seek help and support for themselves.
Now, in
addition to that aspect of blogging around self-esteem that is relevant to confidence,
another quality to being an Influencer and having a blog which affects your confidence,
is around the very various aspects in and behind collaborations…
The
first point with this, is that in pitching a collaboration, you need to have
confidence because you seriously have to sell yourself/your blog. If you don’t rant
and rave about the number of readers you have, the frequency of views you
receive, and the impact organisations have experienced through previous
collaborations with your blog; you’ll likely not get too far with your pitch. Over
the years, I came to learn that my collaboration pitches were far more likely
to be read and acted upon, the earlier I mentioned my blog’s statistics in it.
To the point where, I began putting the total of readers in the actual subject
line of the email pitching the collaboration e.g. ‘Collaborate with A Mental
Health Blog with 2.3 Million Readers.’
Since I
actually don’t have a template or draft for Collaboration Pitches, as a little
extra transparency here, I was going to add a Collaboration Brief template, but
remembered that I actually massively talked through completing one in a lengthy
two-part series of collaboration posts with St Oswald’s Hospice (a previous collaboration
partner and employer)…
You can
read the first part here: PART
ONE: BEHIND-THE-SCENES OF CREATING A COLLABORATION BRIEF | WITH ST OSWALD’S
HOSPICE | I'm NOT Disordered
The
second is here: PART
TWO: BEHIND-THE-SCENES OF CREATING A COLLABORATION BRIEF | WITH ST OSWALD’S
HOSPICE | I'm NOT Disordered
Please
note(!) this is for a Brief and not a Pitch – the two are completely different.
Apologies for those within the industry who this is an obvious one for – I’ll keep
it quick(!), but for those who are not and are wondering and curious: typically,
you pitch the idea first and once it’s accepted and confirmed etc. you work on
the brief which solidifies the idea between the parties and also provides specifics
e.g. the Publishing Timeline (which I talk through in Part
Two of the Series) which aren’t always necessarily relevant or appropriate in
that first contact through the Pitch.
The final
aspect of relevance confidence has in collaborations is sort of the reverse of
pitches; it’s rejections. Now, in trying to count the number of pitches I’ve
created over my twelve-year blogging career I struggled so I’m going to work in
percentages, and say that, fortunately, perhaps around 80 – 85% of my
Collaboration Pitches have been accepted or have received some sort of positive
response. So, with my lack of experience, I – full transparency again here! – feel
a bit of a fraud writing about coping with collaboration rejections, and so I’ve
actually gone ahead and put together this little list of five articles from
various websites that are all around coping with rejections in business pitches
etc. and there’s even bits on how to turn them into something helpful, positive,
and productive:
2.
From
Setback To Comeback: How To Manage Rejection And Move Forward
3.
Pitching
your Business • 6 tips to handle rejection and move forward – Lemonayd
5.
How
to Handle Rejection and Use it to Improve Your Proposal or Pitch - Design Dash
Hopefully
that can be taken as useful more so than being deemed a bit of a cop-out on my
part for avoiding the fact that I have no real knowledge and experience to
speak about something. I mean, I didn’t want to feel totally useless (which I honestly
would have done if I hadn’t provided you all with at least that list of articles!)!
And I didn’t just copy and paste those links without much thought or review of
them myself – because I recognise the impact on reputation there can be when
you share a link that you have no clue about and don’t actually know personally
whether it’s useful or even whether it’s clear and well written etc. Proof: I
especially liked and found very true and useful, the bit in the Forbes one (article
two) about how dwelling on what could have been, can be ‘counterproductive.’ It’s
so true; that sitting and just constantly ruminating over something that isn’t
going to happen, becomes a waste of your time and is really only helpful in so
far as reflecting upon it and learning from it. Other than that, yes; it’s
definitely ‘counterproductive!’
When I
first created I’m NOT Disordered, I think I read something online where Zoe Sugg – who was then referred to as what became to be
known as her 'brand name:’ Zoella and is actually now rarely mentioned or used
on social media etc. From that point, I was absolutely obsessed with the Blogger(!)
– who actually very quickly became more of a YouTuber with her own channel –
she actually still has the Zoella
channel (though it has been unused for a long time) as well as her current/active
one: Zoe Sugg - YouTube. She –
and a few others (namely her now Fiancé and Father of her two children: Alife
Deyes) – seemed to be paving the way for Bloggers and Influencers in general
too. Their YouTube channels were absolutely blowing up and landing them millions
of subscribers within a relatively short timeframe. Actually, one of my
favourite ever videos from the entire history of me following her, was a vlog
where she filmed doing her first live TV interview and talked about how nervous
she was and then her channel reached five million subscribers and she filmed her
almost-immediate reaction to the news: 5 Million Subscribers &
Live TV - YouTube.
Unfortunately,
once she had several huge successes and opportunities, Zoe seemed to distance
herself from the limelight and stopped creating neither as much as content as
she was nor of the same style and standard. So, with there still being a lack
of mental health blogs out there, and my recognition that having an inspiration
or an idol in my blogging career was helpful for my work ethic and the content
I created, I found myself discovering Victoria Magrath of www.inthefrow.com!
I think
that some didn’t exactly understand how following her work and content creation
would influence my own blogging career and the blog posts I put together and
published on I’m NOT Disordered. A huge part of this stemmed from the fact
Victoria is predominantly a fashion and beauty Influencer – with quite a bit of
travel and lifestyle content too! But I think that having an inspiration in
life isn’t about wanting to straight-up copy off their work or everything they
do and say etc. I mean ‘inspiration’ is defined (here!)
as being someone who gives you the idea to do something and I think that it’s
actually even more perfect that she isn’t a mental health blogger because being
inspired by her only calls more upon my creativity! In order to find
inspiration and ideas in the content she creates, it takes creativity to then
turn her work into being relevant and suited to my own.
I can’t
take a ton of credit though, some of her content has been incredibly easy to take
ideas from, I’ve spent some time looking through our blog posts and came across
the following four (though I’m sure there are many more out there!) pieces from
Victoria’s blog: InTheFrow, and how they inspired and have translated into suiting
I’m NOT Disordered’s aesthetic, theme, and my blogging style. No, they weren’t straight
copies – I mean, the dates might not directly match up e.g. Victoria’s might be
from a lot longer ago than my versions, they’re more about just generally
illustrating the simpler instances of inspiration and influence…
The
One Million Instagram Milestone - A Thank You! - Inthefrow which resembles:
THANK
YOU FOR 2 MILLION!!! | HERE’S THE LARGEST REASON FOR I’M NOT DISORDERED’S
POPULARITY & ALL MY SECRETS BEHIND IT! | I'm NOT Disordered
How
to Protect Your Mental Health On Social Media - Inthefrow that is within: SOCIAL
MEDIA & MENTAL HEALTH | I'm NOT Disordered
My
9 Most Frequently Asked Questions - Version 2.0 - Inthefrow just like: EVERYTHING
YOU WANT TO KNOW | MY FAQ’S | I'm NOT Disordered
What
The First Year of Dog Life Has Taught Us - Inthefrow which can be seen in: 5
THINGS I’VE LEARNT ABOUT PETS & MENTAL HEALTH | WISHING THE KITTEN A VERY
HAPPY 1ST BIRTHDAY!!! | IN COLLABORATION WITH MAMMY’S BISCUITS | I'm NOT
Disordered
In
discussing ideas for online content, it leads me onto one point I wanted to
mention in this section, which is about the difficulty some Influencers or
Bloggers might genuinely face simply in taking the step to recognise that you
need or would benefit from having someone in your life to help inspire and
influence ideas for new content. As though it’s some sort of sign of weakness
and a way of declaring that you’re a failure of a content creator because you
aren’t creative enough to think up ideas by yourself for your own content! But
actually, I’d say that it’s actually a sign of strength to recognise that you –
and your channel/platform/content – could benefit from having an outside
influence or inspiration. It illustrates that you’re truly dedicated to your
content creation and are determined and passionate about creating content of a
good quality and that is inventive and to a high standard.
There
has to be two cautions here though in looking for or establishing an influence:
1.
Making
Unrealistic & Unreasonable Comparisons: This danger can be particularly true, I think, when
it’s around or concerning body image. Something that I’ve learnt over the years
around this issue, is that everyone genuinely has a different body type and
that how someone else looks isn’t necessarily even physically possible for you
to look the same or too similar. It’s really all about having an inspiration
who instils a sense of personal confidence in you as well as in your work/career.
Victoria is very open about her weight and self-confidence in voicing when she
is struggling or tackling difficult thoughts and feelings around these issues
and this can be refreshing when a person who you admire, is actually also, honestly,
recognising and stating that they aren’t perfect.
2.
Developing
Unhealthy Envy:
The definition of ‘envy’ is: ‘the feeling or wish that you have something that
someone else has.’ And so, to me, this can be absolutely fine and – in my
opinion – even understandable, but like many things; there’s a point or a
degree or a boundary where, if it is crossed, being envious can become unhealthy.
There’s that saying which rings true here too about the grass always seeming
greener ‘on the other side.’ And again, this is something which I have learnt
about over the years, and I feel whilst I’m perhaps unable to necessarily stop or
resist feelings of envy, I am more in tune and aware of them and able to establish
myself as seeing things from a reasonable and healthy perspective.
A
quality or mindset/way of working which I think could be really helpful to see
in more Influencers and Bloggers, would be if there was more content
documenting a process or journey rather than immediately being shown the
achievement or the ‘product’ of it all. I think that the almost natural reason
this doesn’t happen is purely about following the ‘norm’ in that posting
content labelled a ‘reveal’ is a very popular concept or angle. This is likely,
mostly because posting the process and beginning of something, can mean risking
everyone knowing if it fails. Whereas, if they don’t know you’re working on it
and it falls through, no one will have even been aware you had started!
At the
same time though, there’s also the point that perhaps reveals are popular because
they seem more exciting and a lot more appealing and intriguing than ‘I’ve
started doing…’ or ‘I’m going to try to…’ Ironically, I think that despite recognising
and agreeing with this, being a Blogger around mental health, means that I’m so
used to creating content detailing all my thoughts, feelings, and experiences
and so, I almost naturally want to broadcast all of the details of any big
projects immediately! I honestly struggle to hold back and wait until projects
are ready for the big, stereotypical reveals and announcements! And having this
quality – having just said I think it would be a good one for an Influencer to
exhibit, is one reason why I’ve come to recognise the genuine possibility that
I could be an inspiration to my readers too. But I’m going to talk through the
upsides and downsides of that later in the post.
Time
for the bit which I think has the chance to be deemed the most boring of the
entire content, but all of it has to be said with the theme of transparency. I
mean, it sort of renders it inevitable. And it also seems to flow nicely with
the last bit about inspirations and idols because those are the people who have
inspired my thoughts and actions around the ads and income part of this section.
I’d say
that the most common question I’m asked in telling strangers that I’m a blogger
or Influencer, is “do you make a lot of money from that?” or a frequent statement
is: “I bet you make a ton of money from that!” On the one hand, I appreciate
the curiosity because it’s an industry where it is quite rare to meet someone
in it. It’s also an industry where there’s a lot of intrigue in terms of the
behind-the-scenes for those of us working in it.
However,
I think it’s incredibly important to have boundaries here and to recognise that
– in all honesty – it’s absolutely none of anyone else’s business what money
someone else makes. Like, literally anyone! I mean, the comments I’ve mentioned
have often been made by taxi drivers who talk a lot, but who I would never
dream of asking their wage! Like, I wouldn’t ask if they make much per day –
the closest I’ve ever gotten to it, is asking how many hours they tend to work!
But, like I said, I really try to appreciate the curiosity behind it as opposed
to being offended or refusing to answer – which would definitely make the entire
taxi ride extremely awkward!
So, in
writing this part of the blog post, I had to consider whether the theme of transparency
rendered it appropriate and expected that I would disclose any sort of income I
receive through blogging now. But I think, it’d be more transparent and honest
to stick to the mindset that it’s literally no one’s business! But the one bit
I will go into which might resemble income slightly; is freebies!
It’s
very obviously no secret that I’ve done numerous collaborations with
organisations that have included freebies, discount codes, or complimentary
experiences of some sort e.g. my overnight stay in Leeds with Radisson Blu (which
you can read about here)
or my complimentary first-class train tickets with LNER (which I was actually given
a few times, but you can read about one of them, here).
These collaborations mean the absolute world to me and I was nervous saying
that because I’m fully aware that it might sound superficial and materialistic
to a lot of people – but likely only those people who don’t actually know me! I’d
like to think that those who do, will know – without me having to explain – why
these instances are so meaningful and important to me. So, for those who don’t
know or who wouldn’t want to assume why, here’s some of my reasons:
1.
It
illustrates a sense of belief in me, and in I’m NOT Disordered; by trusting
that working with us will have a positive result for that collaboration
partner.
2.
It
shows a level of deserving in the partner recognising that my blog and I are
worthy of these amazing gifts and opportunities because we’ll do good with
them.
3.
It
brings a sense of achievement to see I’m NOT Disordered go from working with small
businesses to collaborating with huge retail outlets and stores. My equal appreciation
for working with both types of organisations, means it’s a win-win no matter
who the partner!
For me,
these opportunities are the ones which I deem to be ads, and, in my mind, I do
them often enough to feel there’s no real need or point in featuring irrelevant,
annoying, and sometimes, completely misplaced ads, across my entire blog. And
that issues of such ads also trigger thoughts that I actually also have around
income from blogging, and that’s that I don’t want I’m NOT Disordered’s readers
and my followers to ever think that I’m doing this for financial gain. I don’t
want to be seen as being in this industry for the wrong reasons, which, I think,
is an incredibly easy misunderstanding to form about Influencers. In fairness,
this is likely largely due to the fact that there are so many people creating such
content for those reasons and I try not to hold judgment against people, but I
also have to be true – and transparent(!) – to my opinions and values. And so,
for me, I prefer to make it clear that I blog and create content online, for more
genuine and therapeutic reasons.
The
reason I mention judgment is that who am I to say that if a big opportunity
came along where there was a massive financial gain that I wouldn’t take it?
Finally,
copyright! This is going to be – you’ll be pleased to hear because we’re on over
12,000 words right now! – a short one from me because it’s something which I feel
comfortable ‘admitting’ that I know fairly little about. Or at least, that I’m
not as confident in this area as the income and ads sections. In all honesty,
it’s something which I typically pay little mind to, despite its very legal and
technical importance! The times when I do really consider the risks of using
Pinterest images, is in my books. And that’s why I’ve used actually gone and
used Unsplash for the background images of my two books: Everything Disordered
and You’re NOT Disordered because I recognise the importance of copyright in
mass-production materials like that. But I do think it’s something I perhaps
need to be paying more consideration to; especially with the amount/level of
following that I’m NOT Disordered has!
So, to
provide more detailed information; for anyone interested in learning more about
the topic, I’ve gone ahead and partnered with one of my best-friend’s; Martin
Baker and his blog: Gum On My Shoe, to link this blog post of his which covers:
considering what kind of image you’re looking for, guidance on what you can use
without fear of copyright, links and information for three online image libraries,
four image editing apps, a really good example, and so much more! You can read
it here: Gum
on My Shoe: How to Choose the Perfect Image for Your Blog Post.
I feel
very cautious about this section because one quality I’m very aware of potentially
coming across – or being interpreted as me showing – is being ungrateful. But I
couldn’t write a ‘transparent’ blog post and not include this very honest,
genuine, and valid point; and that is around the impact that being successful
in this industry and having the level of popularity that I’m NOT Disordered has,
can have on the blogger or Influencer as a person. This is obviously an area I feel
I might be more aware of or in tune with because of my experiences with mental
illness and the fact that I’m NOT Disordered is centred around mental health.
So, I think
that one of the largest challenges to being some sort of content creator, can
be managing your workload – and I think this is particularly true for those
whose content is proving to be incredibly successful and popular. Just because
this will typically mean a larger workload which is full of more demanding and
pressurised tasks that contain a lot more expectation. And I think I can fairly
and rightly say this based on my own experience because I’m NOT Disordered
obviously hasn’t always been this popular! I mean, it took almost three years
to reach the first 100,000 readers (which I blogged about here
and here
and then I also blogged about the celebration party I hosted for it here)
and then, just four years later, it reached 100,000 within the space of five
months (which I also blogged about and linked it earlier: over
100,000 readers within five months). So, I fully recognise that difference
from when my content was less popular and had a lot less readers to now.
When I
first started blogging, it was massively about the benefits it brough to me, my
mental health, and my loved ones. Like I said, I started as a means of
documenting my recovery and to raise the awareness and improve the
understanding my loved ones had around my mental health and mental health in general.
I hoped that would better place them to both support me, support others in
their life who might be struggling, and to feel better motivated and
comfortable speaking up about their own challenges and difficulties. But over
time, my motivation for blogging has morphed a bit – not changed completely;
those wholesome, but perhaps slightly selfish(!) priorities are still massively
there, but there’s additional ones now about others too. More specifically, about
I’m NOT Disordered’s readers.
So, my
five largest reasons for creating content which are centred more around the
blog’s readers are:
1.
To
publish content that is helpful, useful, productive, comforting, and encouraging
for those readers who also struggle with their mental health.
2.
To
provide interesting, exciting, and unique content that is appealing and differs
from that which is created by other bloggers and Influencers creating content
of a similar theme.
3.
To
be some sort of inspiration or role model for others to look to as motivation and
reason to seek help and support for their mental health and to work hard at their
recovery.
4.
To
improve the knowledge and understanding readers have of different, specific,
mental health related topics e.g. Dialectical Behaviour Therapy,
hallucinations, and self-harm.
5.
To
raise awareness of subjects which so many people are reluctant to tackle, talk
about, or confront in their content creation e.g. trauma, abuse, rape, and
suicide.
The thing
these all have in common as having created, and which I now struggle with, are
expectation. Each of those five have led to a sense of not only me feeling I’m
NOT Disordered’s readers expect a great deal from both me and the content I
create, but also that in developing these motivations, I’ve created an
expectation of myself. I now seriously expect myself to meet those standards in
literally all the blog posts and social media content that I publish. It’s
incredibly difficult because I 100% recognise that I created those motivations
myself and that literally no one has expressed expecting these things from neither
me nor my content, so I’ve completely created the pressure I experience when
creating the majority of my content.
Another
impact or downside from success and popularity in this industry, is a bit of a
strange one because it stems from something which is very obviously and
understandably interpreted as being incredibly positive and productive; and that’s
the sense of achievement you can experience. For a lot of people, you might
think ‘how can that possibly become something negative?!’ Well, for me, it’s
become difficult because with every achievement comes larger criteria to define
something else as an achievement e.g. that blog post I mentioned earlier about
reaching over 100,000 readers in five months is the perfect example because
since then, if I don’t reach that number, I’m very aware and almost always, I’m
disappointed.
This can be hard because I might still be receiving a number of views that is arguably ‘impressive’ or defined by others as ‘huge,’ but it’s like my own definition of success has morphed and become more difficult for it to actually be reasonably or commonly attainable. Like, I don’t always think about the fact that perhaps in a couple of those months, I published more content than usual or there was a particular Awareness date which caused a lot of attention and curiosity for the content I create and publish. It means that I might seem complacent or – as I said at the beginning of this section – ungrateful and unmoved by instances which a lot of people might find remarkable, but I don’t because I’m comparing them to larger milestones and achievements. So, I’d like to make it expressly clear that every single time that reader count goes up 1, I’m happy and proud, and I feel lucky and incredibly fortunate. I mean, there are so many budding bloggers out there or people desperate to become defined or labelled as an Influencer and so I don’t want anyone to think that here I am with those statistics and meeting those definitions or criteria, and yet I’m not appreciating it. Well, I do. I am.