“There’s no shame in having to fight every day because if you’re still alive to hear these words or read this interview, then you are winning your war. You’re here.”
Jared Padalecki
A while ago, I eventually began using AI – mostly in the form of Chat GPT – and I’ve finally decided to do something I’ve seen a lot of Bloggers and Influencers do since AI became a thing; give it a prompt to set me some questions as an interview. In the prompt, I asked it to pick out questions related to blogging, having a large audience, and my mental health, so here are some of my favourite questions; answered…
When you first started, I’m NOT Disordered during your psychiatric hospital stay, did you ever imagine it would grow to reach over two million readers?
This is a question I’ve been asked many times in real-life too and I think it’s almost only natural to wonder this when you look at the fact that my blog now has over 2.4 million readers. But it’s 100% never something I saw coming! I mean, I had staff in that psychiatric hospital I was an inpatient of when I created I’m NOT Disordered say that my blog would ‘amount to nothing’ and that I was ‘wasting’ my time because it wasn’t going to ‘go anywhere.’ And even though I didn’t envision it becoming the popular success it now is – especially with FeedSpot ranking it number 1 in the UK for BPD Blogs (which you can see here)! – I did still fight back against their comments. I did argue that it wasn’t hopeless or worthless, but I mostly did that because it was massively helping me and my own mental health as opposed to because I thought it would make a difference to others or become as well-known as it has. So, I feel incredibly lucky to have been benefiting from it since Day One otherwise their lack of support could have very likely influenced me not to keep it up and it would have never seen its potential.
I’m honestly not 100% sure if I’d rather have suspected the popularity or not, but I do side towards wishing it had been foreseeable because I might have felt more prepared and less overwhelmed when it began happening. If I’d thought, there was a chance – if I was aiming for it or working towards it happening – then perhaps all the panic I experience with each statistical reader milestone my blog reaches, wouldn’t be as profound! And what’s the panic about? It’s typically centred around the key thought ‘what if I say something wrong and ruin everything?!’ I just feel like with each milestone, there’s maybe a new pressure to perform! A new urge or need to really be on the ball and on top of my game in all the content I create.
How did your motivations for blogging shift from initially helping yourself to eventually supporting others?
I’m not sure that it has shifted! Blogging still massively helps me too! But, I guess starting to support others came in as the audience numbers excelled – and I can even pinpoint it to when I reached my first 1,000 readers because I felt massively confident that there was absolutely no way I know that many people and so some have come from nowhere and they must have a reason for doing so. And the largest reason I can think of to read I’m NOT Disordered if you don’t know me, is if you’re looking for help, support, empathy, and advice.
That additional (because like I said, the benefits I still receive from blogging remain a motivation) motivation to blog, came as a bit of a surprise because I had felt so concentrated on the ways in which it would affect myself and my own mental health, that I hadn’t even begun to contemplate the impact on those reading it in that regard. I mean, from Day One of my blogging career, I had intended for it to help my friends and family but in so far as it bettering their understanding of my difficulties and better-placing them in offering me help and support. So, I’d made that consideration of others, I just hadn’t thought any further ahead to strangers or even to friends of friends!
Have there been times when writing for others felt like it took priority over your own mental health needs?
Yes, actually, there have been several times over the years. The first and largest time was when – a while after being discharged from the psychiatric hospital – I had a relapse. I remember feeling almost naturally drawn to blog about how I was feeling, what I was thinking, and what I was experiencing but having to think twice because I panicked that if readers saw me relapse, they would lose hope and faith in their own recovery. Professionals massively promote the idea that in recovery you’re just suddenly better forever and relapses are very rarely spoken about which I think is actually the epitome of dangerous. For me, not knowing that recovery actually isn’t linear at all and that relapses can happen and don’t have to mean you’ve totally failed or gone back to square one, would have really prevented feelings of failure. And the fact that those thoughts and feelings led to a self-harm really emphasised my point on the danger of not making service users more aware of all the possibilities.
In the end – in that instance – I did write a blog post because I recognised that if I didn’t and if I kept it all inside of me then I really would be in danger of going back to square one. I just gritted my teeth and tried to distract myself from the idea that I had made myself the poster girl for mental health recovery and was then ruining everyone’s hopes. And, instead, I turned it into an awareness moment where I took the blog post as the opportunity to promote that recovery isn’t linear and to spread the message to anyone else going through a relapse that it isn’t the end of the world and you aren’t a failure. The failure should really only be if you don’t get back up again. If you give up and see the relapse as defeat. And hopefully, being brave and prioritising the beneficial impact writing would have on me, ended up actually still helping others too.
You mentioned having only received two negative comments over the years – what do you think has helped keep negative feedback so low?
I thoroughly believe that this is 100% down to the fact that I massively stay clear of controversial topics and issues. I have this huge belief around this subject and it’s that these days, if you’re going to speak up about something; you have to be prepared for the comeback from both those who genuinely disagree and those who just want to be mean or start an argument online! It’s given me the motto to only speak up about something that I feel so passionate and knowledgeable on that I’m willing to receive abuse for talking about it. And the knowledgeable bit is key because it’d be my worst nightmare to butt into something around politics or whatever and have someone who knows more or better confront me in a way that I have no response or understanding. It’d be incredibly embarrassing, and I think it would render coping with it really difficult because I’d likely, recognise that perhaps I had been wrong to voice anything when I hadn’t understood the issue and all the alternative views and opinions around it.
One controversial topic that’s come up recently with a particular mental health/suicide charity has been around the wording using when talking about suicide and, in particular, they have confronted people (in general, not particularly myself!) using the word ‘committed’ when discussing the topic. Now, this is actually a word or phrase I use and it’s one which I won’t be changing because I feel confident and passionate about why I do use it…
Now, in case you’re unaware, the argument here is that some people feel ‘committed’ references to the days when taking your own life was actually against the law. To me, I use it – and think of it – in the same sense of a person being committed to a relationship or to a hobby and mean that the person was clearly dedicated and determined in doing it. I’d very obviously be the completely last person to have any judgement or pass any sort of opinion against someone doing it because I have hated every instance where my own attempts were judged or criticised (mostly by the Crisis Team!). So, this is something I’ll voice and stand up for myself about because I feel that I understand the issue at hand, I recognise the alternative thoughts on it, and I have personal, relevant experience that should better-place me in being an appropriate person to have a view on this.
What’s one moment or reader interaction that truly made you feel the scale and importance of your audience?
A number of years ago, I wrote a blog post about how to cope when you’re reporting abuse and rape to the Police; it was titled: ‘You Can Get Through Reporting Your Trauma’ and you can read it here. A short time after it had published, I received an email from a reader who told me that after reading the blog post, she had finally felt capable of reporting what she had gone through too and her rapist had ended up being arrested off the back of her brave report.
I honestly couldn’t believe what I was reading at first and I checked her email address to ensure it wasn’t a scam or something! I just struggled to recognise that the words I’d written from my one-bedroom Bungalow in Northumberland had basically changed someone’s entire life – well, two people’s entire lives! It was overwhelming and surprising but it really opened my eyes to the amount of power, control, and influence I – and my blog on a whole – held over readers. Fortunately, I am a bit of a control freak and because my rape and abuse were committed by a person in a position of power, I have a very keen interest in maintaining any sort of power that I can in situations. So, I think these two personal qualities have meant that I’m not overly intimidated or unhappy having these attributes in my blogging career/with my readers.
If anything, I think that recognising this power and control and establishing the influence I have, have been good things for myself, my blog, and my content because they’ve made me extra cautious, aware, and – I’d like to think – considerate. So many people put content online now that they just don’t properly think through nor consider the repercussions for their followers – I’d like to hope and think that I do the complete opposite.
Where do you most often find inspiration for your posts?
Everyday life, basically! Not necessarily current days!
When they began discussing my discharge from the psychiatric hospital, I was an inpatient of when I first created I’m NOT Disordered, I was so worried that I would have nothing more to blog about because I felt that the majority of my content for those first almost two years (I started blogging in January 2013 and wasn’t discharged until December 2014) was about my life at that time. Whether that meant writing about Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), my new medication, relationships with other inpatients, arguments and dramatic situations with the staff, self-harm, feeling suicidal, struggling with auditory and visual hallucinations… It just typically revolved around being an inpatient and being topics and things that wouldn’t happen once I was discharged.
I have therefore honestly been incredibly surprised to discover that I’ve rarely ended up short for ideas for content now that I’m an outpatient! Part of this is likely because my mental health still plays a huge part in my day-to-day life and is very much still up and down – though mostly up! – with me still having a lot of instances and experiences concerning all sorts of professionals (not just psychiatric!). I also have a lot of reflective content where I sort of look back on previous experiences in my life and will blog about what I’ve learnt from them, how I’ve prevented them happening again, and/or what I want others to learn from them.
Being an outpatient and having my mental heath be better though, means I do also get to do different types of content that I absolutely could not have done whilst sectioned, such as going to London or other cities/towns to attend and/or speak/work at events. I mean, I did attend my first event whilst sectioned but it meant I had to have a member of staff accompany me and could only attend the one that was nearby the psychiatric hospital – I would have never been allowed to just get the train to London and stay overnight in a hotel to attend an event! And it’s meant that I’ve gratefully been able to discover over the years that events make my heart sing! I love them! I often actually thrive off of how busy and hectic they can get!
I also enjoy that I’m able to do a lot more creative collaborations as an outpatient! Collaborative content is another favourite aspect of my career and I recognise that again, I did my first one (with YoungMinds) as an inpatient, but I feel I’m able to be far more creative and have more freedom in the shape they take now that I’m in the community.
You’ve said the blogging landscape is more saturated now than when you started. How do you stay motivated and distinctive in such a crowded space?
I love that Chat GPT called me/my blog ‘distinctive!’ That’s a lovely, big compliment in – as it rightly says I have previously said numerous times recently – an overly-saturated industry.
When I first created I’m NOT Disordered, there were around three well-known mental health blogs; one was by an ex-inpatient, the second was by a psychiatric Nurse, and the third was by a Police Officer with a keen interest in mental health law and call-outs related to psychiatric crises. There was nothing back then (2013) by a current psychiatric hospital inpatient or by someone with a diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) as I had back then (it has since been removed from my records and is now considered ‘historic’ and my recovery has progressed so far that I no longer meet the diagnostic criteria for it (you can read about that diagnosis review in a blog post I wrote about it, here). So, without trying, I had found a niche for my blog! And I’m a huge believer – especially now with the number of mental health blogs that are out there! – that having a unique and different quality to your blog and/or your content is essential to how successful and popular it will turn out to be. So, I feel incredibly lucky and fortunate to have almost happened across one and I recognise that it’ll be a lot harder to discover one these days.
In all honesty, I think that being so established now at almost thirteen years old, because of that niche, is the largest contributing factor to my blog standing out still, but I do recognise that my content must play some role in it too because I’m unsure that being so established is ‘enough’ to have the size of audience I’m NOT Disordered has. So, yes, I suppose the way in which I write/create content must stand out in some way and if I was going to hazard a guess at the quality of it that does that, it would be that I write very personably. That I’m very honest and open in talking about deep and personal issues like self-harm and suicide – but also about rape and abuse too. Looking at other mental health blogs, some are more measured and eloquently phrased with more technical language and/or the absence of being ‘lived.’
Also in keeping with the idea of my content playing a role, I’d say that the collaborative work I do is a lot different to partnerships I’ve seen on other mental health blogs/with other mental health Influencers. Particularly, as a big example, my work with the largest feline welfare charity in the UK; Cats Protection – that’s a nature or type of collaboration I’ve not seen anywhere else! I’d like to think that perhaps my creativity – which I’ve always been complimented on and have been told by my Mum is a quality I’ve had since I was very little and would write short stories about horses going on adventures!
If a new Blogger struggling with their mental health came to you for advice, what would you tell them as a starting point?
I really love this question – obviously not the idea of someone struggling but of them coming to me or my blog for advice! And it’s something which is actually my reality too – I often receive email or private messages on my social media accounts (@aimes_wilson on Twitter and Instagram and the blog’s account is @imnotdisorderedblog on Instagram) from new or budding bloggers who are looking for tips of some sort. Or would like my opinion on a blogging crossroads they’re at and are trying to make a decision on/regarding.
So, it usually depends on the exact situation and what they’re looking for from me, but typically, I try to get across the importance of remaining yourself, prioritising yourself, and staying true to your own morals and values. All too often, people lose who they are when their blog/online content starts to grow in popularity and become successful in whichever way you would personally define that.
I’d also, obviously recommend the blogger check out I’m NOT Disordered’s Help Directory in case there was something useful on there in terms of more professional support: Help Directory.
How do you envision I’m NOT Disordered evolving over the next few years – both content-wise and in terms of its mission?
When I first started blogging, I followed a particular blogger/YouTuber who was really one of the largest trailblazers in this industry and played a monumental part in it becoming an industry and making it possible for people to have full-time careers in content creation. Unfortunately, it seemed that once she reached a certain point in terms of popularity but – in my opinion – primarily in terms of financially(!) she took a step back and stopped being so active in the industry. Almost as though she was satisfied with how far she’d gotten and felt she didn’t need to work any harder or for any longer.
Losing her as an inspiration led me to discover Victoria Magrath – or InTheFrow – who, I’ve learnt over the years of following her content – has the same work ethic as myself (which I think I got from watching my Mum’s when I was growing up) in that she’s grateful and she recognises her achievements, but they’re never ‘good enough.’ Or never as far as she’ll go. Like, once she’s achieved one thing, she seems to look to thinking ‘what’s one better than that?’ And this is something which I’d like to think I do myself too and so for I’m NOT Disordered’s future; I’m forever thinking of how I can go one bigger and one better than whatever the previous achievement or milestone was!
At the moment, there are two huge projects in the picture – the first is due to publish January 2026 and will likely be introduced/announced/revealed soon! The second, is on its final stage of being signed off by the potential collaborative partner and if it receives that, it will be likely first be introduced/announced/revealed in November 2025! So, keep an eye out for those and, in the meantime, please get in touch if you have any thoughts or pitches for collaborative content on, I’m NOT Disordered! I’m always up for new ideas and partnerships! Check out the Contact page for more information on how to get in touch: Contact