THE ULTIMATE Q&A WITH A RAPE AND ABUSE SURVIVOR FOR THE SEXUAL ASSAULT AWARENESS MONTH'S DAY OF ACTION 2026

After everything you've done
I can thank you for how strong I have become

'Cause you brought the flames and you put me through hell
I had to learn how to fight for myself
And we both know all the truth I could tell

Ke$ha – Praying

In a huge and random scrolling session on Instagram, I came across a post about Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM) 2026 by an Actress (Sasha Pieterse from Pretty Little Liars) – which you can view here – that I shared to my Stories (@aimes_wilson). A while later, my best-friend and fellow Blogger; Martin Baker of www.gumonmyshoe.com messaged and said that it had inspired him to look back at his guest post for a project I was doing back in 2024 about supporting a survivor of sexual violence – you can read it on his blog (the project’s website it was originally published on was deleted): I Believe You. It wasn't Your Fault. You Are not Alone. Being There for a Friend Who's Survived Rape or Sexual Abuse. And from that, I began to consider ideas for creating I’m NOT Disordered content about the topic/for the awareness Month, and I came up with the idea of a Q&A. Finally, just three little side notes: Firstly, the questions below were all created by AI (Chat GPT specifically). Secondly, please be responsible when reading this post in terms of being triggered by this content and using safe coping skills. Finally, if you’re struggling with the topics discussed in this post/regarding this awareness Month, please see this old blog post which includes a ton of helpline contact details and supportive information: JOIN A RAPE & ABUSE SURVIVOR AT A HUGE GYNAE APPOINTMENT | VLOG & A COLLABORATION WITH AMAZON UK INCLUDED! | I'm NOT Disordered. Without further-ado, for the SAAM’s Day of Action, here’s the Q&A…

35: AN AGE NO ONE THOUGHT I’D REACH | HOW REPORTING MY TRAUMA WAS MORE LIFE-SAVING THAN MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES | IT’S MY BIRTHDAY TODAY!!!

“The best revenge is the massive success.”

Frank Sinatra

It sounds dramatic to say that I can’t believe I made it to 35, but when I tell you that, on numerous occasions, even the professionals – mostly Psychiatrists, but also two ICU Doctors – made comments that they couldn’t envision me making it to my ‘next’ Birthday (mostly between the ages of 18 and 23!) … perhaps now you’ll see the rationale to my surprise that I’m still here?! It meant that I was originally going to centre this Birthday blog post around reasons why I believe I managed to make it to this age, but I found out that I’d done something incredibly similar for my 28^th Birthday (you can read it here) and my 31^st (which you can read here)! In thinking about the reasons, I made it, I realised that I’d list reporting my trauma as the first one – even though I had interactions with mental health services before that which most would probably assume should getting help and support, should have been the first life-saving thing to happen. So, I decided to focus on that…

“LET’S REMOVE IT FROM YOUR RECORDS, YOU’VE CLEARLY RECOVERED FROM IT!” | HOW I HAVE OVERCOME 8 SYMPTOMS OF BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER & HOW YOU CAN TOO

With every fall, I learn to stand, In the face of fear, I take command

Through the storms that try to break, I'll rise again, for my own sake

With fire in my soul, I'll light the way, In this journey of life, I'm here to stay

Feel the power, it's building inside, With every heartbeat, I won't hide

No more chains, I'll break them free, In this moment, I am me

I'll rise up stronger, no holding back, With my head held high, I'm on the right track

Rise Up Stronger: Beat-Creative

After around fifteen years of having a diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) stuck to my records, I began questioning its validity a year or so ago and began seeing a Psychiatrist from Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust (CNTW). After around one year of appointments, on April 1^st 2025, the Psychiatrist told me he had finally concluded that I was right; I no longer meet the diagnostic criteria for BPD and that it would now be listed as ‘historic’ in all of my records! In ascertaining that I didn’t meet the criteria (which is to have at least 5 of 9 possible symptoms) we established I had just one and when I was diagnosed, it was with the determination that I had all 9! So, considering this meant I’ve recovered from 8 symptoms of BPD, I thought I would do this blog post to chat through how I managed it in the hope that it provides advice for others and also hope for those to know you can overcome BPD…

THE 12 BIGGEST MOMENTS IN MY BLOGGING CAREER & A WHOLE NEW LOOK | HAPPY 12th BIRTHDAY, I’M NOT DISORDERED!!!

I’m going to start in a very stereotypical way right now; I cannot believe I’m writing a blog post for I’m NOT Disordered’s TWELTH Birthday! Like, where did the years go?! How did they whiz by so fast that I feel like I barely even noticed them? Yet, at the same time, I remember how very hard I’ve worked and how many amazing opportunities I’ve had/done. Whilst this twelfth Birthday has me feeling quite old, I’m also very grateful for it being a chance to reflect on my blogging career and pick out twelve amazing moments that I feel have really contributed to my blog’s success and my own skills, talents, and experience. You might also notice; the blog has a whole new look and a brand-new logo! This has been in the planning for a while now and a lot of thought has gone into it, so I really hope you all like it…

THE LARGEST ‘MOVE’ I’VE MADE FOR MY MENTAL HEALTH | MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS WEEK 2024

“Wisdom comes from making mistakes, having the courage to face them, and to make adjustments moving forward based upon the knowledge acquired through those experiences.”

Ken Poirot

A few months ago, I actually sent out a ton of emails to various people regarding a series I had envisioned publishing on I’m NOT Disordered for this year’s Mental Health Awareness Week (MHAW). Despite obviously receiving replies, I’ve somehow managed to reach this Week without any content! You know sometimes when it feels like time has just snuck up on you and something you’ve been planning for ages is suddenly happening? This Week is like that! So, I debated not putting any content together at all because I was struggling to think of much to write about myself with this year’s theme being ‘movement’ – hence why I’d emailed lots of people; because they were people who would have had more to say on the topic! I was still experiencing some sort of pull towards the idea of a blog post though, and I began thinking of angles on the ‘movement’ thing that might be more apt for me… I think it’s obvious that the theme is referring to exercise and the benefits that being active can have on your mental health; but I don’t have great experiences, thoughts, or feelings about exercise, so I wanted to a be bit creative and I finally decided to put a different spin on it and talk about the largest and most recent ‘move’ I’ve made for my mental health…

ADVICE FOR BPD BLOGGERS & EVERYTHING IT MEANS TO BE IN THE TOP FIVE OF UK BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER BLOGS!! | PRETTY PERFECT PRODUCTS DISCOUNT CODE INCLUDED!!!

https://blog.feedspot.com/uk_borderline_personality_disorder_blogs/

For a while now, I’m NOT Disordered has been on the list of the top five blogs in the UK about Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), but now it’s been refreshed, and my blog is moving up (to number three), I thought I’d write a little piece about what it means to me, everything it’s making me think about, and any advice I have for other Bloggers to make the list…

“Mighty things from small beginnings grow” – John Dryden

Even over eight years later, it’s still overwhelming and startling to really consider and think about how I’m NOT Disordered started and then all that it is now!

In 2013, when I started blogging, there were about three well known mental health blogs, and none of them were written by a current psychiatric service user. It meant that I’m NOT Disordered had found a niche without even really trying; and I’m so grateful for that, because I think it’s something which has had a big impact on its popularity. I mean, why would people choose to read my blog over one with similar content?

In having this niche and the blogging market being completely unsaturated by mental health bloggers, it also meant that there was a lack of more experienced bloggers to look to for guidance and inspiration. I sort of felt as though I was learning as I went – and yes, that often meant learning through ‘mistakes’ or errors in judgment. And yes, that meant I was shedding tears of frustration and failure quite a lot, but it also meant that I was so much stronger for going through those instances. And that I now have the experience that I can use to help others to avoid having to go down the routes I did to learn these things.

A GUIDE TO DIALECTICAL BEHAVIOUR THERAPY

“If you plan on being anything less than what you are capable of being, you will probably be unhappy all the days of your life.”

Abraham Maslow

So, I was going to write a blog post about something and realised it would (as a few have recently) focus on Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) and with this I wondered whether I’ve ever published a post purely about DBT. Having created I’m NOT Disordered over eight years ago; I think it’s understandable that I can’t recall absolutely all of the content I’ve produced over the years; and this meant I had to scan through my post archives to determine whether I’d be repeating myself. It obviously turned out that the one post I’ve centred on DBT was published in 2016 (you can read it here) and I think it’s safe to say that I’ve had at least a ‘few’ new readers since then! Besides, I intended for this post to be more in depth than ‘ten things’ so here’s all you need to know about DBT…

In 2011, I moved down South to live with my Dad (I was born in Dorset) and when a few things went wrong, I found myself being sectioned under the 1983 Mental Health Act and admitted to a psychiatric hospital. Whilst in the hospital, a member of staff spoke with my Mum and mentioned DBT to her. When she asked for more information the staff were surprised that she and I weren’t aware of the Therapy which is arguably the most important treatment for someone with my diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)!

It turned out, the mental health Trust back home (Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust – CNTW) was seriously lacking in the services they provided for helping and supporting someone with a Personality Disorder. This meant that at that time, the Trust only had a handful of psychiatric professionals trained in DBT. Not only did this reflect on the physical treatment available, but it also had an impact on the attitude and approach of many of the staff when speaking with or caring for someone with BPD. As though having a lack of training and understanding was an excuse to be rude, discriminatory, and dismissive. (Fortunately, CNTW are now in a much better position in terms of their Personality Disorder services and the knowledge their staff have of the helpful attitude and response to use with someone who has BPD.)

WHAT IT’S REALLY LIKE TO BE UNDER THE CARE OF THE CRISIS TEAM

“Never give up on someone with a mental illness. When ‘I’ is replaced with ‘we.’ Illness becomes wellness”

Shannon L Alder

The Crisis Team are definitely an element of mental health which is misunderstood, and the Teams are often the ones who receive the most negative feedback. In this post, and as someone who is currently under the care of the Crisis Team, I hope to promote a better understanding of them and instil hope in others to utilise their local Team for help and support in a mental health crisis.


The first instance

My first memory of an interaction with the Crisis Team is from 2009 when I had attempted suicide through taking an overdose. Somehow my Mum knew I had done it and she tried to convince me to go to hospital for the potentially life-saving antidote treatment. I refused and she asked what she was supposed to do, and I remember telling her “ring the Crisis Team because it sounds like you’re in a crisis!” To be honest, I don’t remember actually speaking to the Crisis Team, but they came to the house and arranged for me to have a Mental Health Act assessment with two Psychiatrists and an AMHP (Approved Mental Health Practitioner). I was detained under Section 2 of the 1983 Act and the Crisis Team opened the door to allow six Police to march in, restrain me, handcuff me, and carry me out to their van.

RELATING TO QUOTES FROM THE HILLS | IN COLLABORATION WITH THE HILLS & MTV | AD

I can’t even put into words just how excited I was to discover that all six seasons of The Hills had been added to Amazon Prime Video UK! If you haven’t heard of The Hills; it’s basically a ‘fly-on-the-wall’ series that began in 2006 and which is centred around the lives of really wealthy, young people living in LA (for a proper description: http://www.mtv.co.uk/the-hills). 


I think I first started watching it because I’m definitely one of those people who enjoys gaining insight into the lives of others – not in a nosey, rude way. I wonder if it’s maybe to do with me being a mental health Blogger? Like, I put almost my entire life out there for so many people to read, and maybe I just like to get a little something back? Or maybe it’s because in the same way as I want readers to use I’m NOT Disordered to gain insight into mental health, I’m interested to gain insight into the lives of people who I maybe can’t relate to or who I don’t have much in common with. 


The Hills also puts a massive focus on fashion with the main character; Lauren Conrad securing an internship at the fashion magazine; Teen Vogue. Fashion is an area that I don’t often talk about on I’m NOT Disordered because it hasn’t been a big part of my life for a while now… I think I always loved fashion and used to design little outfits but then, in my Textiles GCSE class, my Teacher was very critical – and not in a constructive way. Her constant negativity around my work left me completely reluctant to continue with art and drawing and initially, I thought that was the only way I could be involved in fashion until I was eighteen and got a weekend job at a huge retail store. One of my duties was to arrange the displays and improve the shop’s appearance and it really sparked an interest in – what I later found out was called – visual merchandising.

TIME TO CHANGE STORYCAMP 2020 THEME TWO: THREE THINGS

Every two weeks from June 1^st until August 24^th 2020, Time To Change will be giving those who have signed up to StoryCamp, a theme to use as inspiration to create content on. This fortnight, the theme is ‘three things…’ and I couldn’t decide on one topic I’d like you to know three things about so here are thirteen…!!

Three Things You Should Know About Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)

1.       Having the same diagnosis does not mean everyone with BPD has the same symptoms.

2.       Those diagnosed with BPD are not attention seekers

3.       Even mental health staff have a stigma against those with BPD

Three Things You Should Know About Being Sectioned

1.       It feels like you have a sign on your head telling everyone you’re detained under the Mental Health Act

I’VE BEEN DISCHARGED!!! | EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES

June 12^th 2020, I was discharged from my Community Mental Health Team (CMHT) after being under their care (on and off) for eleven years! Now, I’m very aware that with my audience being so big there are readers who don’t have a lot of insight into mental health services and therefore may not appreciate just how big an achievement discharge is. And that is the aim of this blog post – to provide insight and to educate readers about mental health services…

You can be referred to Services in various ways…

I was eighteen when I was first allocated a Community Psychiatric Nurse (CPN); I was sort of lucky in the way I first came into contact with Services because I didn’t have to be referred and sit on a waiting list for months on end. However, I was definitely unlucky too, in that I was only put under the care of the CMHT because I had attempted suicide and been sectioned under the 1983 Mental Health Act, and apparently the automatic aftermath of being sectioned is that you’re allocated a CPN upon discharge.

I recognize my luck in the situation because I know of the many instances where people have been referred to their CMHT through their GP and have then had to sit on a lengthy waiting list. The saddest thing about the waiting lists is the fact that all too often, the person’s mental health deteriorates to the point where they attempt or succeed at committing suicide. This happens for a number of reasons, but the main one is that there’s often the development of feelings of hopelessness and a conviction that Services don’t care enough about the person to rush through their referral through.

QUESTIONS I’M ASKED MOST OFTEN

I’ve been working on a question and answer piece with a very special person recently and it made me wonder whether readers would be interested in me doing a little Q&A and publicly answering the questions I’m most often asked by professionals, service users, and readers…

About my blog:

Have you always enjoyed writing?

Yes, when I was younger, I was obsessed with horses and I used to write short stories about them and characters who would go for adventures with their horses or who were teaching riding lessons like the ones I was attending. They were mostly inspired by the Sheltie book series by Peter Clover (please tell me someone else remembers those?!). My Mum and Nana would read my stories and I thought that meant I was an Author. I loved watching them read my words and it was rewarding to see their reactions to something I’d put a lot of effort into. When the abuse started though, I stopped writing so much because I was so worried that I’d end up pouring my heart out and writing about what was happening to me; and for so many reasons I had to keep it a secret.

BLOGMAS 2019 – POST SEVENTEEN : A BAND OF HOPE | ETSY COLLABORATION | AD

Thanks to a poll on my Twitter back in November, my wonderful followers decided that I should publish a blog post and film a vlog every day for the entirety of December!

So welcome to December 17th…

Today is all about my collaboration with one very special brand on Etsy, in this post I’ll be reviewing the products they sent to me and on December 23rd you can enter a competition to win these products and the remaining two that I’ll be reviewing every other day this month!



Ok, so I won’t lie; I’ve annoyed myself a bit with this post so I thought maybe I’d just bluff my way through it but you know how I pride myself on being honest with you guys… So, I received A LOT of goodies from A Band of Hope but have only taken pics of some of them so to see more, you’ll just have to enter the competition!



In the meantime, though, here’s three of the various badges and what they mean to me:



‘More Than My Illness’ 

 


I absolutely love this badge because it pretty much sums up the method behind the blog’s name. ‘I’m NOT Disordered’ came from my determination to show others that I may have a diagnosis but that is not who I am. It’s a part of me, yes; but it isn’t the only part of me.


A little while ago, the powers that be changed the name Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) to Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder (EUPD) and when I first heard this, I actually laughed out loud! I mean, personally? My problem (and others have agreed) with the label is the ‘Personality’ part of it and not the part that they changed!

WHAT HAPPENS IN THE BEGINNING OF POOR MENTAL HEALTH? (AND TIPS ON COPING WITH IT)

Earlier this week I met with my Psychiatrist for a review and to make plans on my medication reductions. She told me she was proud of how I’d come and that I’d managed my safety even though my anti-psychotic and mood stabilizer medications have been decreasing over the past month or two. It got me thinking just how much things have changed since the early days of my mental health deteriorating in 2009 and I thought that it’s worth recognizing that my readers with their own poorly mental health will be at different stages in their mental health journey. Not everyone is going to be in the same place as me and I think it’s important to produce content that can be helpful for everyone. So, here’s a little post about all of the initial aspects in the beginning of a person’s mental health deteriorating:

The initial panic & other emotions:

I guess that my mental health started to deteriorate before I started hallucinating in 2009 because when the abuse began in 2006, I had suicidal thoughts and began self-harming. I would imagine jumping out of a window in the building I was abused in or swallowing tablets, because I thought that was the only way to stop what was happening to me. I had no hope that it would ever end. I started self-harming when I developed the anger. The anger at the fact that he thought he had the right to hurt my body and I believed that I should be the only person who had the right to do that. So, I harnessed that anger and used it as energy to self-harm.

MY THOUGHTS ON PERSONALITY | IN COLLABORATION WITH FUTURE LEARN & MONASH UNIVERSITY | AD

I recently started a new course with Monash University via futurelearn.com – Introduction to Psychology: The Psychology of Personality and it, inevitably, got me thinking a lot about personality, what it means to me, how it is developed and how it can become ‘disordered.’ 


A while ago now, the powers that be, renamed the diagnosis Borderline Personality Disorder to Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder. I laughed when I was told – it was just further evidence that the ultimate people to make such huge decisions don’t actually know all that much about the things they make decisions about. If they did, they’d know that, for the majority of service users, the biggest problem with the phrasing of BPD was the ‘Personality’ part and not the ‘Borderline’ bit. Yes, people unfamiliar to the diagnosis will wonder what is meant by ‘borderline’ but that can be answered. I know there are varied rationale behind the use of the word in the diagnosis; with the most common one being that it means borderline between sanity and insanity but if someone were to ask what is meant by ‘personality’ then it’s a different story – personality is subjective. Everyone has their own definition of it and their own belief on what shapes it. I mean, William Sheldon (1940) believed that personality was determined by your body shape and size (somatology)! He held the assumption that larger people (endomorphs) are more likely to be bold and assertive whereas smaller people (ectomorphs) are more likely to be intellectual and introverted. Once upon a time, I’m sure this theory was regarded very highly and agreed upon by many but these days? I know I can’t speak for anyone else, but I felt like laughing when I heard that this was a serious theory!

FIVE LESSONS MY MENTAL HEALTH RELAPSE HAS TAUGHT ME

1.     To ‘self-soothe’ more

      Self-soothe is probably one of my favourite – and most used – Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) skill. For so many years I was hard on myself and blamed myself for everything that went wrong in my life. Even the abuse. I thought that I was a bad person and had deserved all of these bad things in my life; the abuse, the bullying, the self-harm, the hallucinations… everything! For a while, I believed that I didn’t even deserve to be alive. So – perhaps – understandably, self-soothing was a particularly difficult skill for me to put into practice and even harder to eventually master. But being nice to myself felt so good that I fought the voices in my head that were trying to convince me that I should be hurting myself and not helping myself. I told them that I’d punished myself enough and that after all these years of self-harming and attempting suicide, I deserved to enjoy simple things. And that’s what my self-soothe techniques are; simple things. Like, lighting a candle, having a shower, doing my makeup or my hair, playing with my pets, spending time on The Sims, writing, reading, watching America’s Got Talent on Netflix… little things like that can sometimes make all the difference when I’m struggling with voices telling me that I’m useless and worthless and deserve to die.

2.     The importance of medication

The catalyst for this relapse has been that I stopped taking the medication I’m on for my mental health (Mirtazapine, Lamotrigine,

A LENGTHY MEDICATION CHAT

I remember in 2009 lying on my bed in my Mum’s home and listening to the whispered conversations downstairs between my Mum and – what felt like – every member of NHS staff! (Realistically, it was a few people from the Crisis Team, two Social Workers, and two Psychiatrists!) When there was a knock on the bedroom door I didn’t expect to see the six foot something Psychiatrist wearing running trainers with his suit! I sat up on the bed and he came into my abnormally, barbie-pink bedroom and sat on the futon in front of me. And then he said one of the sentences that has remained a pivotal moment in my mental health journey and you know, actually… my life! He said: “maybe it’s time we start you on some medication.”

MY LIFE IN NINE iZOMBIE QUOTES

So, last year, I was facilitating a course in ‘Recovery Through Blogging’ at the local Recovery College and the ice breaker for the group was to talk about your favourite movie or TV show. The entire class had told us their favourite movie and then we got to one girl and she said ‘I’m going to be a bit different then and talk about my favourite TV show from Netflix.’ When she said iZombie was from Netflix, I got interested; having just signed up to the incredible service myself, I’d been in search of new shows and movies. She told us that the show was about a girl who was a Zombie but she solved the murders of the people’s brains she ate. I’m into gory things like that so when I got home I added it to ‘My List’ on Netflix and ended up forgetting about it for a couple of months or so. When I finally watched it, it was one of those shows were it takes a couple of episodes to really get invested in the characters but after that, I was hooked! I recently just re-watched the entire series for the fourth time (there’s four series with about twenty episodes per season) and wondered how I could spread the word about this incredible show…

1.     “But what if there is hope? Even if it’s dim and somewhere in the nebulous future. It’s a hope I need in order to survive”

24HRS WITH... ME!

24 hours with... me!

Date: Thursday June 7^th 2018

Why have you chosen to write about today?

A ton of amazing things happened!

Good morning!



What time did you wake up?

10am


Why did you wake up at that time?

I had a support session with my worker from Richmond Fellowship at 11am



Did you have a dream?

Not that I remember.

TOP 10 UK BLOGS ON BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER

So overwhelmed and proud to announce that I’m NOT Disordered has made it onto FeedSpot’s UK TOP TEN BLOGS about Borderline Personality Disorder!

Huge thank you to everyone at FeedSpot and most importantly, to all of you guys reading this! Without my readers I wouldn’t have the incredible opportunities that I get, and my work means the world to me! You guys have given me something to be proud of and allowed me to finally find my purpose in life. And that, is something I will be forever grateful for.

https://blog.feedspot.com/uk_borderline_personality_disorder_blogs/