WHERE IS MY MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS WEEK CONTENT? | IN COLLABORATION WITH LEAPS, NATIONAL TRUST, & ENGLISH HERITAGE | AD

We all want quiet. We all want beauty… We all need space. Unless we have it, we cannot reach that sense of quiet in which whispers of better things come to us gently.

Octavia Hill, Co-founder of the National Trust

Happy Mental Health Awareness Week!

This year is a bit different; I’ve been so busy recently that I honestly didn’t have the time to dedicate to producing an entire week of content for I’m NOT Disordered AND for LEAPS (the support group for the unwaged which I am Chair of). So, when I managed to secure a bit of a last-minute collaboration with National Trust and English Heritage, I decided that rather than add to my blog’s huge roster of collaborations(!), I would use the collaboration for LEAPS. To keep you interested in still paying a little visit to www.leapsonline.co.uk I thought I’d use this blog post as a chance to tell you my favourite bits of each section of my Mental Health Awareness Week post for LEAPS (which you can read here: https://www.leapsonline.co.uk/2021/05/a-chat-about-nature-mental-health.html )…

‘Children & Nature’ – Favourite Bits:

Anyone who has read I’m NOT Disordered before or who knows me personally, will know how much I dote on my godchildren so it felt sort of obvious that I would somehow manage to incorporate them into the nature theme of this year’s Mental Health Awareness Week.

So honestly, just having the opportunity to talk about my godchildren is thrilling; but I think my favourite part of that section was when I got the chance too do a bit of research into different locations under the care of English Heritage and National Trust which are child-friendly. Finding these places has given me a lot of inspiration for activities with my godchildren.

 

‘Nature with National Trust’ – Favourite Bits:

In writing this section about National Trust, I went through their website to create a little overview of the organisation for any readers unfamiliar with them. I also went on to look up the National Trust sites I’ve visited and then listed them alongside the places I’d love to go to.

THREE WAYS TO RESIST SELF-HARM | ENGLISH HERITAGE AD

*This post is part of a partnership with English Heritage

You can buy a membership pass for free admission to all English Heritage sites across the country here: http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/join/

I wasn’t sure on the title for this post… I didn’t know whether to call it ‘commands’ or ‘urges’ but then I had a conversation with my Community Psychiatric Nurse (CPN) about how the night times are getting tough again. Unbelievably, it seems, that I’m still surprised to hear that not everyone can hear the voices that I do. When I talked to my CPN about the feelings of self-harming or overdosing I kind of assumed that she knew those feelings were because of the hallucinations. And it wasn’t about the fact that before two weeks ago I hadn’t seen her for over a year.

HOW I USED DBT AT ENGLISH HERITAGE SITE: BRINKBURN PRIORY & MANOR HOUSE | AD

I can remember when I was sectioned once whilst down south and my Mum told me about a phone call she’d had with a member of staff from the psychiatric hospital I was admitted to. During the call he’d asked whether I’d had Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) and when my Mum told him she hadn’t heard of it, he explained his surprise as it is the recommended treatment for someone diagnosed with a Personality Disorder (I had been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder). After that, my Mum questioned my Community Mental Health Team as to why I hadn’t had it yet and why it hadn’t even been suggested.