“And one
has to understand that braveness is not the absence of fear, but rather the
strength to keep on going forward despite the fear.”
Paulo
Coelho
Having used Halloween the past two years to reveal the fact that I’m creating festive series’ of content (you can read the one announcing Blogmas Unboxed in 2023 here, and the one announcing Blogvember in 2024 is here), it almost felt natural or expected to do it again this year too! So, at the end of this blog post – when I’ve finished talking about all the reasons why I’m terrified to do so – you’ll find the title of this year’s Blogmas series as well as the logo for it! And despite my fear and reluctance, I am really excited to reveal this year’s series (which will be daily content from December 1st – 25th) and I sincerely hope you’re all looking forward to it too and that you end up enjoying it because it’s taken a LOT of hard work…
If you’re not new to I’m NOT Disordered, you’ll
know that I’m very big on creativity and that it’s actually one reason why I
enjoy being an Influencer so much because it can take a lot of creativity to
create popular and successful online content these days. And I think that this
is particularly true because of how overly-saturated the industry now is. I
feel like every new Instagram profile you find the person is described as an
Influencer or Blogger or YouTuber or – more commonly these days – is famous and
has gone viral on TikTok!
When I created, I’m NOT Disordered way back in 2013,
there were literally about three well-known mental health blogs and none were
written by a current, detained (under section 3 of the 1983 Mental Health Act) psychiatric
hospital inpatient like I was then. One was by a Psychiatric Nurse, another was
by a Police Officer with a keen interest in mental health law and callouts, and
the third was by an ex-inpatient. It meant that without even really looking for
one or having to create it, I had found a niche for I’m NOT Disordered to fill!
And I believe that fulfilling a niche online can literally be fundamental to
the popularity and success that a content creator can experience. People these
days, seem to like to see something different online – different, but which
they can still really appreciate, understand, empathise, and associate with. Something
which makes them feel less alone. Fortunately, I’m honoured to know from actual
feedback from some of my very brave readers that the content I create on I’m
NOT Disordered, does this for their loneliness and for their feelings of being
misunderstood.
I’ve always been creative in my writing – when I was
little, I used to write short stories about animals (typically horses because I
used to take horse-riding lessons) going on adventures! My Mum and my Nana would
read them, and I recently found out that on their regular phone calls, my Nana
used to always ask when the next story was coming! And I have some very small
but special memories of seeing my Nana laugh and smile whilst reading one story
which I’d made into an actual little book of cut up paper that I’d sellotaped
together! I don’t know how old I was then, but I do wonder if that really
taught me about how your writing can impact those reading it. How it can influence
thoughts and emotions in them. How it can inspire actions. Because I feel that
since Day One of blogging, it’s something I’ve always been aware of, and I think
that’s actually a really useful and beneficial quality, especially for a mental
health Influencer to have. So many content creators seem to lack genuine thought
or care for the impact they’re having on their followers and really, on the
general public. But I think that often says more about priorities than it does
about their content and them as a person. I mean, it feels fair to assume that
if someone posts something without consideration for others, they’re not
posting it for others. They’re posting it for themselves – which, admittedly, could
be for various reasons ranging from it being genuinely therapeutic for them to purely
just hoping for gifts and freebies.
I think my love of creativity really excelled when my
mental health began to deteriorate because writing creatively, doing creative
activities, reading creative books (Alice in Wonderland became a huge favourite…
and the Harry Potter series)? Well, it all became a huge form of escapism from
the dark and sad reality that my life had become – almost, out of nowhere! I
mean, yes it was two years after the rape and abuse and when that’s happened to
you then surely you should expect some eventual response or consequence of it;
but I’d come to feel it would never truly ‘hit’ me. I was fairly confident that
I could keep evading it and blocking out the memories with all these unsafe
actions and coping methods that I’d developed and was using. Because in the beginning,
I thought they were effective… I didn’t realise they were actually setting me
up for an even harder fall than if I’d accepted what had happened to me and reached
out for help for it a heck of a lot sooner.
I only discovered the most helpful tool for being
creative online in around the Summer of 2017 when I completed a Digital Marketing
Internship and was finally taught about the existence of Canva! Until that point, the graphics and
imagery on my blog were either actual photographs I’d taken which were occasionally
edited through the app Moldiv or were just totally unedited images from
Pinterest. And I honestly hadn’t realised how restrictive these things were and
how limited my creative abilities had become without/before Canva! Now, even
since 2017, I honestly feel that every time I log onto it, I discover a new
function it has! I think one of my favourite parts is that once you know what
size you need your work to be e.g. A4 or an Instagram Reel then you can type in
keywords for templates where Canva has already designed a layout and you can
edit and adjust it until your heart’s content, and it meets the aesthetic you
were going for and has the contents e.g. text and images, which you need it to
have.
Now, as much as I adore being creative, I’m no stranger
to experiencing the fear that you’ve been too creative with a piece of content –
or multiple pieces as in the case of Blogmas! I mean, what would define ‘too
creative’? I think my first thought or worry is that it’s just too different to
what you typically create and when you have popular – I’m NOT Disordered recently
reached a startling but amazing 2.5 million readers (and I don’t want to seem
ungrateful for that!) – content this can feel like a risk because surely your
content is that popular because people mostly (I’m not an idiot; I know not all
2.5 million people liked what they saw when they got onto the blog!) like it as
it is. So, it feels like a big risk to give them something new. Something where
I honestly don’t know whether they will like it or not and that leaves me questioning
how worthy it is to risk it…
I was talking to one of my Carers about this and I said
that my eventual mindset on things being too different are to prioritise myself
and my own feelings about it. Ultimately, I’m NOT Disordered is my blog and
really, from Day One it’s been about what I benefit from creating content on.
What I enjoy writing about. What helps my mental health recovery. And this
sense of identity and ownership is – admittedly and sadly – something which has
been hard to maintain over the past twelve years. There have been numerous
instances where I’ve begun to feel like I have less control or authority over
my blog and its contents because I’ve found myself prioritising the fact that others
might not like something I want to post. In the end, it’s like I said earlier
about priorities, and I managed to take back responsibility and feelings of
control by recognising that the impact it has on me is important. Of course it
matters what impact my content has on others, but ultimately; I need to happy
with it.
In September 2014, I actually ended up closing I’m
NOT Disordered down (you can read the last post here)
after receiving two horrible comments from readers and I think that the fact
they led to me closing the blog really illustrate just how much they affected
me. It also shows that they were so powerfully influential that they were
worthy enough of me ending something which I was both enjoying and having massively
therapeutic benefits from. In the end, it became the greatest thing I’ve ever
done for my blog and my career because being without it taught me just how important
it was to my life and to my mental health recovery in particular. Learning
this, at the end of October 2014, I opened I’m NOT Disordered back up (you can
read the first post here)
and I’ve literally never looked back for eleven years!
It felt natural to put this concern next because in talking about this year’s Blogmas being different, it very obviously and understandably will leave people wondering and questioning why and what I mean by that. So, this – my use of AI – is what’s so different.
I actually only started using AI – mostly Chat GPT –
this year because I hadn’t really understood what it was until one of my best-friend’s
sent me the results of a prompt he’d sent it in relation to his own blog and whilst
– annoyingly – I can’t remember exactly what it was now, it was something I wanted
to look into for I’m NOT Disordered too! So, the first things I typed in were asking
for it’s thoughts on why I’m NOT Disordered is so popular and why my content
has done so well in earning me opportunities… Here's a few screenshots of my
favourite bits:
Since that instance, I’ve began using AI more and more
in helping me to create content for social media and for I’m NOT Disordered. I’ve
also turned to it for advice and guidance for my career in general, with a specific
example of this being when I asked it for tips on writing a press release and then
I put a few ideas for titles of the press release to it, to find out which felt
more effective. And it wasn’t as though I hadn’t written a press release before
– in fact, every single one I have written has always been published! – I think
that asking Chat GPT was more about curiosity and confirming that I had the right
idea. But this experience – I think – sheds lights on two dangers I’ve
experienced by using AI:
1. If
it’s helpful and its guidance succeeds it can leave you questioning just how deserving
or worthy you are of any praise or pride!
2. It
can make you question and doubt your self-confidence by constantly checking whether
you’re on the right track with something.
And I had that ‘success’ danger with this instance
because the press release actually ended up being published on the
Northumberland Gazette (a local news outlet) website: Blyth
suicide survivor's mental health blog ‘I’m NOT Disordered’ reaches 2.5 million
followers!
Now, how have I used AI in Blogmas this year?
Chat GPT has actually almost written the entirety
of some of the blog posts within Blogmas this year, and I honestly really genuinely
worry that stating this makes me look incredibly lazy and dispassionate. So, I wanted
to take the opportunity now, to say that I have read every single word I’ve
published! I want to make it clear that I still take full responsibility for my
content and that in ensuring I’m happy with what I put out there, I have made
some edits to the AI content. But I’ve stayed honest within the posts so – if you
read them – you’ll see that I mention when a part of it was entirely written by
Chat GPT. I did this because I feel that – especially in mental health content –
transparency can be a really important quality to have as an Influencer and it’s
something that followers can massively appreciate and respect.
I’d also like to acknowledge that AI can only create
based on the efficiency, effectiveness, and – in this case in particular – creativity,
of the prompts you give it. And so, as an AI user, you’re still responsible for
the results that it comes out with and produces. It wouldn’t be able to give an
answer of great quality if you don’t give a good prompt that is of a high
quality itself. This was something I learnt – the more detailed you are in what
you type into AI, the better and more efficient the response. So, for example,
I’ve actually recently – for numerous reasons which will be discussed in
another blog post – started rebranding the Understand with IND training programmes
and I found that if I just asked Chat GPT ‘what should I include in a page of a
course overview?’ it would give me some general tips, but if I wrote what the
title of the course will be, it was so much more specific and appropriate and
useable.
One huge motivation for using AI and a reason why I
found it helpful in creating the Blogmas content was my recognition – through previous
years of creating such content – of the workload it inflicts! I mean, to put it
into perspective, I would normally and typically have published two or three
blog posts in the same length of time that I’ll have published TWENTY-FIVE!! And
it usually takes me one week to write a blog post and create the graphics for
it! And so, this is why I actually started creating the content in September! Not
only to provide me with enough time to put together twenty-five posts that I
feel happy about their standard, but also so that I can actually have the time
and be able to really enjoy doing festive activities with my loved ones throughout
November and December!
The final main – because there are a trillion and
one smaller ones – concern for Blogmas 2025 is around the standards I now hold
around my definition and understanding of ‘success.’ This is something that has
been a recent thought because after featuring on Northumberland Gazette, I wanted
to see if there was a particular increase in readers from it, and so I’ve been
a lot more observant of my blog’s statistics recently. The other day I realised
that when I first started blogging in 2013, I didn’t reach my first 100,000
readers until 2015, yet over the past three months, I’ve had over 164,000
readers!!! Now, if that’s not a sign of growth and improvement, I don’t know
what is!
When I was still an inpatient of the specialist
psychiatric hospital, I created I’m NOT Disordered in, I was talking about reaching
a milestone in my audience (I think it was my first 1,000) and a girl asked me
why I cared about ‘the numbers’ so much. Knowing the person who said this, it was
intended as a dig and a way of making me look superficial and materialistic,
but I ended up being so grateful for it because I was concerned others might
have that question or opinion of me too and being asked it, meant that I could
think about all the reasons why I care and hopefully sharing those, will help
others not to consider me as materialistic or superficial.
So, my two key reasons for caring about the size of
my audience and the statistics in terms of the impact my content has e.g. on
sales of products mentioned or on increasing the following for a collaboration
partner are:
1. Each
‘number’ represents a person! And an increase in my blog’s audience means more
people I have the potential to help in some way.
2. The
more ‘impressive’ your statistics are, the more commercial and business
opportunities you are afforded as an Influencer.
Something I’m very aware of in being an Influencer
who cares about their statistics and the size of their audience, is that when I
have a piece of content do really well in terms of popularity, this can really
contribute to raising the bar in terms of my expectations for future content. I’d
like to think this is relatable though for even those with not such a huge
following – if you get 10 likes on one post on Facebook, chances are you’ll almost
naturally end up expecting similar numbers for your next post – especially if your
next one is of a similar theme, angle, or format.
I’m very conscious that this is all starting to
sound incredibly ungrateful of my audience and the support I’ve received
throughout my blogging career. This isn’t at all the case! I’m incredibly
grateful and honoured to have so many people read my content – it does absolute
wonders for my mental health, confidence levels, creative abilities, and
general learning in the comms and marketing industry! Blogging and being an
Influencer has given me a huge sense of positive and productive purpose and has
given me the feeling that there’s a huge reason why I’ve been able to enter
mental health recovery – to be able to do all of this!
The success of my content isn’t just around the
number of readers it receives though, it’s also about the impact it has on
those readers. In that published press release, you’ll see that they mentioned
my amazement at a reader’s email I received back in 2017 after posting about
ways to cope with reporting rape and abuse to the Police. From that piece of
content, a girl got in touch and told me that as a result of reading it, she’d found
the courage and strength to report her own traumatic experiences. This was a
hugely monumental and rewarding moment for me in my blogging career and it felt
like a real turning point in terms of my absolute recognition of the impact my
content could and was having on others. But, as a result of that email, I actually
have a blog post that went up last week (you can read it here)
where my dream goal was to receive a similar message that the content has
influenced someone to report their experiences too. But how realistic is that?
How reasonable a goal or expectation or standard was that to have?
The issue however, with all of this about standards
for success etc. is that in being a Blogger or an Influencer, I obviously want
my blog and content to grow and improve over time, and I recognise that
statistics can be a hugely and widely accepted method of evidence that this has
happened. So, I think this is an element to this career where there’s a real
need for balance… Balance in recognising that having an awareness of your stats
can contribute to recognising achievements and growth, whilst ensuring it isn’t
setting you up for disappointment or unrealistic standards and expectations.
If you’re fairly new here, you may wonder; why
feature Blogmas on a mental health blog?
I’ve actually created Blogmas series the past few
years on I’m NOT Disordered for two reasons:
- I’m
most definitely a Christmassy person and...
- I
love that it’s a brilliant excuse to get really creative and basically
have a ball on Canva and Pinterest!
- Daily
blog posts at 10am December 1st - December 25th.
- One
secret to content creation every day!
- Secrets
that vary from ways to manage your own mental health and emotional
wellbeing through your content creation career as well as more technical
and practical tips!