WHY I’M ABSOLUTELY TERRIFIED FOR BLOGMAS THIS YEAR!!! | REVEALING THE BRANDING FOR BLOGMAS 2025 | HAPPY HALLOWEEN 2025

“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 1^st – 25^th) 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…

TOP HALLOWEEN ITEMS | IN COLLABORATION WITH AMAZON UK

“Halloween wraps fear in innocence, As though it were a slightly sour sweet. Let terror, then, be turned into a treat.”

Nicholas Gordon

When I began considering themes and angles for content for Halloween this year, I decided to go back through previous Halloween content in my blog’s archives to find inspiration. And found that last October (2024), in collaboration with Pinterest, I published a blog post titled: HALLOWEEN MUST-HAVES | COSTUME ACCESSORIES, HOMEWARE, PARTY BITS, ITEMS FOR PETS, & PINTEREST HOME INSPO (which you can read here) and on looking at the statistics for it, I was extremely surprised to see it had actually been fairly popular. I say that this was surprising because I’m NOT Disordered is very obviously a mental health blog and so when I create and publish content that strays from this theme, I fully expect and prepare for it to not do very well in terms of views. So, why do I do that content regardless of this? Because I actually really enjoy putting together more light-hearted content like wishlists and gift guides and ultimately, this is my blog! So, as a piece of pre-Halloween content (there’ll be another post on the 31^st) I’ve partnered with Amazon UK to bring you this post which will include everything from homeware to costumes to party supplies…

THE SCARIEST MOMENTS FROM THE LAST FIVE YEARS | HAPPY HALLOWEEN 2024

For Halloween 2019, I wrote a blog post titled; Five Scariest Moments of My Life (you can read it here) and I thought that this year, I’d do an updated version. Because I would obviously still rank the moments listed in that original post as the scariest in my life, I thought that I’d just add to them with scary moments that have occurred throughout the previous five years since that post…

A SUPER SCARY PRE-HALLOWEEN REVEAL | INTRODUCING…

“Commitment leads to action. Action brings your dream closer.” 

Marica Wieder

You know, sometimes I actually hate writing titles like that – clickbait I think you’d call it – but I also recognise that it draws in readers rather than putting the announcement topic where you can see it straight away. But then that reminds me of when I first started blogging and someone asked me why I regard the number of readers so highly and celebrate the milestones; it makes me worry that people will think I’m superficial or being ingenuine. Being asked that though, led me to think about it and to develop answers for being asked it again! But my two reasons for caring about the size of my audience are actually also relevant to my thoughts on this title. The first is that the more people who read my blog, the higher the chance that my content helps someone. Then, secondly, the higher the following the more opportunities and experiences you can access or be offered. I don’t want to milk it though… So, without further ado, I’d like to introduce you to:

HALLOWEEN MUST-HAVES | COSTUME ACCESSORIES, HOMEWARE, PARTY BITS, ITEMS FOR PETS, & PINTEREST HOME INSPO! | IN COLLABORATION WITH PINTEREST

As I usually explain in posts like this; I’m NOT Disordered is first and foremost about me creating content that I enjoy creating and which I benefit from in some way. Whilst the blog’s obvious primary theme is mental health, I really like to create light-hearted, fun, and more ‘easy’ posts that are less overwhelming and emotional. With a post just like that planned for actual Halloween, I thought I’d publish something a bit lighter and more enjoyable now, so here are some must-have items from a whole range of categories and then I’ve teamed up with Pinterest to include some inspirational images of Halloween décor…

THE SCARIEST REVEAL EVER!!! | HALLOWEEN 2023 | IN COLLABORATION WITH PHOENIX COVE

This Halloween, Cleo – owner of the popular Etsy store; Phoenix Cove – and I, have decided to talk about confronting all the fears we’re facing by revealing our absolutely humongous project that we’ve been working on in secret for the past few months.

So, get ready for… Blogmas Unboxed 2023!!

So, just a quick explanation of Blogmas for new readers: Every December since 2019, I’ve created a series named ‘Blogmas’ where I’ve produced festive, daily content – in the form of blog posts – from December 1^st until Christmas Day (December 25^th).

WHY HAVING NO IDEAS IS ONE OF THE SCARIEST THINGS ABOUT BEING A BLOGGER | HAPPY HALLOWEEN 2022

Whilst I’ve decided to mark Halloween this year, with a piece about one of the elements of being a Blogger that can range on a scale of scary to intimidating to terrifying and back again(!); I still really don’t want this to put people off from joining the industry. And this is something I really want to get across, because I have benefited from blogging in so many ways that it’s left me hopeful that in encouraging others to try blogging, I might enhance the chance of more people being rewarded with those same – or similar – benefits. I just hope that you can be reassured with me telling you that as scary as things have gotten, they have all been totally worth it to mean I have experienced all that I have as a result of I’m NOT Disordered. To help with this, I’ve tried to also include how I cope with and manage when I’m scared…

“WHO ARE YOU GOING TO PRETEND TO BE?” | REALITY & MENTAL HEALTH | HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Taking your breath, stealing your mind

And all that was real is left behind

-        The Greatest show

With a key component of Halloween being that people don costumes and become someone else, I thought I’d play on that notion of an absence of reality and use it as inspiration for this year’s Halloween blog post…

IT STARTED WITH DISASSOCIATION…

The first difficulty I experienced in regards to reality, was when the abuse started in 2006 and I found myself constantly, desperately, trying to pretend it wasn’t actually happening and I think that a huge reason for this was that I’d known my abuser for two years before he started hurting me. It meant that everything I thought he was – all the things everyone else thought of him – was completely untrue. It was a lie. A cruel, deception that meant when he became the exact opposite, I was so shocked and surprised, that I questioned the entire reality of it! Partly as though he surely couldn’t be the same person, and partly because how could anyone do what he was doing to me?!

Out of panic and fear, whenever he called me or took me to his office, it was as though my eyes detached from my body and all of a sudden I was watching him hurt someone else. Some poor girl who couldn’t fight back. I just had to sit back and watch it happening from my new position on the ceiling – something which rendered my view ineffective when it finally came to reporting the abuse and the details of it, to the Police. It was kind of ironic that me detaching in that way, was very obviously a coping mechanism that my body had seemed to just naturally fall into, yet doing that, was actually hindering of me getting justice for the reason I disassociated.

ALL THINGS HALLOWEEN | PUMPKIN DESIGNS, DÉCOR INSPIRATION, & SPECIAL SNACKS & DRINKS RECIPES!

So, there’s already a blog post scheduled for Halloween Sunday, but I was scrolling through Pinterest for another project when it hit me that I hadn’t really done a blog post that was directly about Halloween… So, I thought I’d jam everything into this one! 

THE MOST MAGICAL MOMENTS OF MY LIFE | HAPPY HALLOWEEN WITCHES!!

But you can flip the switch

And brighten up your darkest day

Sun’s up and the colour’s blinding

Take a world and redefine it

Leave behind your narrow mind

You’ll never be the same

Come Alive – Greatest Showman

For Halloween last year, I published a blog post about the five most scariest moments of my life (you can read it here) and so this year, I had no clue on how to adapt Halloween into any theme other than scary! But talking about it to my Support Worker resulted in her coming up with the idea to focus on the magic element to Halloween! So, here are some of the most magical moments of my life…

THE 100,000 READERS PARTY 

In August 2015, I’m NOT Disordered reached 100,000 readers and on the 27^th I published a post giving thanks to those who I felt had helped me to reach the milestone (you can read it here). A few days later, I gave readers ten tips on ways to have the same success (you can read that one here) and then, finally, in November 2015 I was able to celebrate the achievement! I booked an event room in a fancy hotel in Newcastle, paid for a buffet, hired a photographer and a musician, had some merchandise designed, got all dressed up and invited all my favourite people – you can read more about the event and see all the photos here.

I remember being on the dance floor at the very end of the party – almost everyone had left and the staff were eager to start packing things away but the Musician was still there and one of my best-friends requested he play The Killers song Mr Brightside. She, another best friend, and I all started dancing and I just remember telling myself ‘be in this moment. Enjoy this.’ And I’ll never forget that moment and that feeling. The feeling that literally my entire body was filled with warmth, happiness, and love. I felt completely content and peaceful.

FIVE SCARIEST MOMENTS OF MY LIFE | HAPPY HALLOWEEN 2019

“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along”

Eleanor Roosevelt

Halloween is all about making people jump in shock and scaring people half to death; but no one ever really uses the opportunity to talk about how fear can be positive and beneficial too! Being afraid can be a natural reaction to a situation – think along the lines of ‘fight or flight.’ So, for this reason, I didn’t want to use this post to only discuss the really negative parts of my life; I also wanted to talk about how positive fear has been for me sometimes… How it has often resulted in something positive:

1.    The time I stopped breathing in 2008

I had a weekend job at my local Primark (a huge retail store) and had been folding clothes when I got a huge pain in my tummy and passed out. I remember paramedics coming and giving me morphine and then they took me to the local A&E where they gave me more morphine. After seeing a Doctor they decided that I needed to be transferred to the local Gynae ward at another hospital and en route, in the ambulance, they gave me more morphine and then failed to tell the new hospital how much I’d had and they gave me more.