DAY SIX MHAW | THE BLOGGING COMMUNITY: A Q&A WITH BEST-FRIEND & BLOGGER; MARTIN BAKER OF GUMONMYSHOE.COM | MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS WEEK 2025

“Good friends are those who care without hesitation, who remember without limitation, and who love even without communication.”

Philippos Syrigos

For Day Six of Mental Health Awareness Week, I’ve collaborated with one of my best-friend’s and fellow mental health Blogger: Martin Baker from Gum On My Shoe. I wanted to feature a piece with him to shed light on having each other, as an example of the blogging community. I will never be able to put into words just how much it means to me – how special it feels – to have someone in my life who truly understands one of the most important elements in my life (I’m NOT Disordered/blogging). So, we put together some questions and have each answered them, my answers are on his blog: www.gumonmyshoe.com and his are below…

LOOKING BACK OVER THE TWO YEARS WITH MY FLUFFY SOULMATE | ALSO INCLUDING MY FAVOURITE CAT BITS FROM ETSY | HAPPY 2nd BIRTHDAY, MY LITTLE RUBY | IN COLLABORATION WITH ETSY UK

“Our soulmate is the one who makes life come to life.”

Richard Bach

Even though for my two mini-Lionhead bunnies (Luna and Gracie) I celebrate their ‘Gotcha Day’ as their Birthday, I know Ruby’s actual date of birth(!), and so her Birthday is marked on March 26^th. This year, for her second Birthday, I’ll be looking over the previous two years with her, realising she’s my fluffy soulmate, reminiscing over my favourite moments together, and reflecting on some of the things I’ve learnt from loving her. I’ll also pepper the post with some of my favourite cat items and products on Etsy UK right now…

AND THE YEAR 2023 IS COMING TO AN END… | PART TWO

“She remembered who she was, and the game changed.”

Lalah Deliah

*YOU CAN READ PART ONE HERE* 

Pimkie Suede Knee High Boot: £51.00

Embellished Jumper: £40.00

Too Faced Better Than Sex Waterproof Mascara: £13.00

e.l.f Liquid Glitter Eyeshadow: £6.00

Brave Soul Cardigan: £42.00

THE TWO NEW ADDITIONS TO THE FAMILY: GRACIE & RUBY

With my calico rescue cat, Emmy, being put to sleep in October 2022, we started off the year as a family of two with just Luna (my black and white mini-Lionhead lop eared bunny) and I. But when Emmy was put to sleep, I asked the Vet what the best thing would be for Luna and almost without seeming to take the time to think about it, she replied with “get her a friend.” As the weeks went by without Emmy though, I found myself enjoying building a better bond with Luna who had always just spent the majority of her time following Emmy around and had never really been affectionate with me. Without Emmy though, she was now following me around the home (my bunnies are free-roam) and was always stretching up on her back feet to nudge me for a stroke or a cuddle. Then she started taking the cat tunnel in her mouth and running with it in circles; myself and everyone else who either saw when they visited the house or watched my videos of her doing it, laughed and thought it was really cute. But actually; it turned out to have been a form of repetitive behaviour that illustrated boredom and loneliness.

DAY TEN OF BLOGMAS UNBOXED 2023: A GIFT GUIDE FOR BEST-FRIENDS & 10 AMAZON.CO.UK PICKS FOR MY BEST-FRIEND; GEORGIE | IN COLLABORATION WITH PHOENIX COVE

PhoenixCove - Etsy UK

https://www.instagram.com/phoenixcove.co/

https://www.facebook.com/phoenixcove.co

https://www.tiktok.com/@phoenixcove.co

Welcome to Blogmas Unboxed!!

Having gotten one of my best-friend’s; Georgie, a little wooden, personalised gift tag (which you can have customised a purchase here) from Phoenix Cove, I was inspired to create this gift guide for best-friends! At the end, there’s also a little collaboration with Amazon UK where I’ve chosen ten items I thought Georgie would like, and upon seeing them she loved them all!

GUEST POST: SO YOU WANT TO WRITE A BOOK? | HERE'S SOME ADVICE BEFORE YOU START | BY BLOGGER & AUTHOR; MARTIN BAKER

I’m grateful to Aimee for inviting me to contribute an article about writing a book. In doing so, I’ll draw primarily on my experience as co-author with Fran Houston of High Tide Low Tide: The Caring Friend’s Guide to Bipolar Disorder (2016, Nordland Publishing). An extended edition was published by Kingston Park Publishing in 2021. I’ll cover some practical steps to think about in preparing to write your book. Your platform as an author, marketing and promotion, and the various routes to publication are also important, but are out of scope of this article. My suggestions are most relevant to non-fiction but many of the topics apply no matter what kind of book you want to write... 

BLOGMAS 2022 | DAY THREE: CHRISTMAS WITH... BLOGGER; MARTIN BAKER

 Welcome to Day Three of Blogmas 2022!

Today, I’ve teamed up with one of my best-friend’s; Martin Baker who blogs on:
 www.gumonmyshoe.com to bring to you a bit of insight into a typical Christmas in his life…

Do you have any Christmas Eve traditions?

Not so much these days, apart from laying out the gifts for the morning. I’m usually in bed by midnight. (Don’t want to mess up Santa’s schedule by still being up when he comes to call!)

Who will you be spending this year’s Christmas with?

I’ll be with my immediate family on the day itself. I’d like to meet up with a few local friends, if possible, in the week before to get me in the festive spirit. I’ll have video calls with friends who live further away or abroad so we can wish each other Happy Christmas and open gifts together.

GUEST POST | 10 THINGS MY FRIENDSHIP WITH AIMEE HAS TAUGHT ME ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH AND CARING SUPPORT | BY MARTIN BAKER

I’m grateful for the opportunity to write this new article for Aimee’s blog. The topic is one I’ve wanted to explore for a while. It builds on our shared belief in the value of mutually supportive friendships, and the fact that we each write in the mental health sector. Here, then, are the top ten things I’ve learned since Aimee and I met in February 2016. I’ve focused on things I think will be most useful to other people in their lives and friendships. 

1. Plans change (and that’s OK)  

Whatever health issues your friend lives with, there are likely to be times they need to cancel or rearrange plans, sometimes at short notice. Rather than becoming upset, remind yourself that any frustration or inconvenience you’re feeling is minor compared to what your friend is dealing with.  

FROM BLOGGING TIPS TO MENTAL HEALTH DIAGNOSIS | EVERYTHING YOU ASKED MARTIN BAKER & I | IN COLLABORATION WITH GUMONMYSHOE.COM

You can read Martin’s answers over on: www.gumonmyshoe.com

So a while ago I asked you all to send in questions you’d like to ask me and one of my best friends and fellow blogger, Martin Baker. Of course I was bombarded and so I had to work really hard to whittle them down to the following questions…

Do you feel under pressure to keep going with your blog? 

I used to. I think there was a point where I was really blogging for the sake of others… I recognised that I was maintaining it purely because I liked the idea of it helping others. In seeing that my recovery was giving people hope, encouraging them to reach out for help and support, and enabling them to feel less alone, I felt that I couldn’t stop blogging because it would be taking that away from them.

However, when I decided to close I’m NOT Disordered down in 2014, I found myself truly missing it. I was finally recognising that, actually, I – and my mental health in particular – were massively benefiting from blogging. In ending my blog, I struggled to really process my thoughts and feelings and to better understand my decisions, and the loss of the ability to do this meant that I became unsafe again and started to really struggle. That experience – of not blogging – has meant that I now blog completely for me but balance that with still considering how my readers would feel or think of the content I produce. And I really hope that shows.

THE FEAR OF THE UNKNOWN & MENTAL HEALTH | MY THREE DAYS IN COLDSTREAM

I’ve honestly been wracking my brains to think of a way to wangle my trip to Coldstream into a blog post and finally thought of this! So, the inspiration for this post about how the ‘unknown’ can impact our mental health, has come from the fact I’ll be travelling on a train for the first time since the UK lockdown…

I’ve seen so many people talk about their anxiety at the thought of lockdown regulations and social distancing guidelines being reduced and loosened to the point where many people now have the opportunity to do something, they haven’t for over a year. Seeing these people talk about their fear of these big changes, inspired me to consider my own thoughts on the rules being slackened and I kind of felt ‘bad’ when I realised, I didn’t have much hesitation or anxiety on this.

That ‘bad’ notion stemmed from that feeling most people get when they hear of someone struggling with something, they might not even give a second glance. Or worse still, to hear of someone actually fearful of something you/I actually really enjoy. For me, this way of thinking came from my time in psychiatric hospitals when I had the sharp realisation that there were a lot of things in my life that I’d maybe taken for granted and I learnt this because so many other inpatients didn’t have these things.

Something important to say at this point is that you’re allowed to struggle even when you begin to consider yourself ‘lucky’ in some respects compared to others… I mean, the most notable realisation I had in hospital was when I heard so many inpatients talk about their parents and difficult – or even completely non-existent – relationships with them. It left me wondering if I’d really taken my Mum’s unwavering and unconditional support for granted; and this led to the thought process I want to discourage: ‘do I have the right to struggle when I have something someone else doesn’t?’

DEAR GREYLAN | MY BEST-FRIEND HAD A BABY BOY!!!

Dear Greylan,

When I first stumbled on your Mum’s Myspace (don’t ask – it was trendy back then!) through having some mutual friends, my first thought was ‘she has such a good taste in music’ because her profile song was amazing, and I hadn’t heard it before! And how grateful am I for not knowing the name of the song or who sung it? SO grateful because it was the reason for me to actually contact Lauren and ask the name of it so I could go download (yes, we did that back in those days!) it. By the way, it turned out to be She’s So Lovely by Scouting for Girls!

When I ended up transferring to your Mum’s school to study, I remember seeing her and telling a friend I’d talked to Lauren online and my friend said, “oh she’s so rich and popular; she won’t be your friend!” Funnily enough, your Mum was told terrible things about me too, but I have this very strong belief that what happens is meant to happen for a reason. So, I believe that your Mum and I were told those things to give us a bigger motivation to become friends and now look at our friendship! Look at all it has become. All we have become, together. So please know, that you should have faith in a friendship – that you should allow it the opportunity to flourish despite what others may think of it.

And that’s what our friendship did – it flourished. When, we finished our exams at school, most of our friends went off to University but your Mum and I didn’t, and I think that brought us closer. It kind of ignited a mutual feeling of empathy and understanding. As if we were sort of on the same path. And that path definitely led to a whole ton of alcohol (I still have photos if you want to see your Mum in a mess?!), a bunch of giggles, and a lot of adventures.

24HRS WITH... LAUREN DEWAR, PERSONAL ASSISTANT & YOUTUBER

Date: 3rd April 2020

Why have you chosen to write about today?

I’ve often written off a day (particularly a bad one), and have never took the time to reflect on what I’ve done in a day, good or bad, and what i could have done differently. Today, i decided to reflect.

Good morning! Good morning. :)

What time did you wake up?

My first alarm went off at 6am, but i woke up and got out of bed at 7:45am.

Why did you wake up at that time?

I usually try and get up at 7am - at the very latest - 7:30am, but i couldn’t get to sleep till 2am last night through overthinking. Overthinking continued through to the morning and i struggled to get up any earlier.

Did you have a dream?

I did. I vaguely remember being in someone’s house but it was actually a shopping centre, and I was in the middle of a house party, but the party was a load of people dancing in a musical….

A CHAT ABOUT SELF-PROMOTION | MY BESTIE’S FIRST AD!!!

I actually squealed with excitement when one of my best-friends (Lauren) posted on her Facebook that she’d landed her very first ad with Arista Living through her YouTube channel; Green Tea, Please! Knowing that Lauren has always struggled to regularly maintain her blog, it was incredible to hear that she’d found success with the YouTube channel she turned her attention to since buying her first house (a tour of which, you can watch on her channel here) with her partner.

I first started talking to Lauren in 2007 via MySpace (remember that old site when it was the cool one to be on?!) when I came across her account and heard her profile song was Scouting For Girls’ She’s So Lovely! Months later, and we were attending the same School to study our A Levels and finally introduced ourselves to one another. Looking back, it’s one of those things where you can’t quite believe something so small turned into something as huge as the lovely friendship we now have. I mean, it wasn’t a friendship where straight away you feel like you’ve known them forever; we got closer over time, until I was calling her family my second family and her home became my second home.


Funnily enough though, our friendship really cemented when we weren’t attending the same school! I think I’d actually pinpoint it to 2011, my mental ill health had started two years before and Lauren had stuck by me the whole time. Even though we were best-friends, I kept the magnitude of my illness from her and wasn’t always honest when it came to my reasons for attending hospital, but it felt as though I didn’t need to say anything. It was as though she just… knew. I honestly felt like whilst she’d never experienced anything like what I was going through, she understood it – a greatly helpful trait in supporting someone with mental ill health.

CATS PROTECTION’S CHRISTMAS ANIMATION ADVANCED SCREENING | ALSO IN COLLABORATION WITH LNER | AD

https://www.cats.org.uk/support-us/events/christmas

Since my Christmas collaboration with the charity Cats Protection in December 2018, I’ve had the honour of working on a few more projects with them over the last year; including, two visits to their Tyneside Adoption Centre which you can read here & here, Tyneside’s Easter Event which you can read here & their Summer fayre, which you can read here and two posts for their More Than Just A Cat campaign which you can read here & here!

I’ve talked before about how important it is to stay loyal to the organizations, companies and charities that you collaborate with in blogging and Cats Protection make it really easy to do this. Obviously it helps that the cause is about something I’m passionate about (cats and the benefits pets can have on your mental health) but the Tyneside Adoption Centre staff and the team at the Cats Protection Media Office are so kind and passionate about what they do that it really helps me to invest in the collaborations.


I don’t want to seem ungrateful, but collaborations are actually really hard work and can be really important to the reputation of you and your blog. I’m so passionate about blogging and very proud of my little I’m NOT Disordered and all that it’s achieved, so I’m very wary about trusting other organizations with its name. It might not seem like it from the outside looking in but I put a lot of thought and research into organizations before I collaborate with them to ensure that myself and my blog are in line with their motivation, aims, beliefs, and general ethics, morals and decisions. So, it meant a lot to me when the Cats Protection team said that they’d support the idea of illustrating a pet’s importance to your mental health and that they agreed me and my little blog could be trusted to get that message across to readers and followers; I was honoured. Then, to be invited to the Advanced Screening of their Christmas animation?!! Such a privilege! 

WHY IT’S ALWAYS GOOD TO HAVE MORE THAN ONE FAMILY

So, the other night I went to the Birthday party (with live music from We Steal Flyers) of my best-friend (Lauren)’s Mum (Julie) and a lot about the night inspired this blog post.

The Dewars
Since our regular nights out in 2011, Lauren and I have always said her family (namely her Mum, Dad, and Brother) are like a second family because I was constantly at their house and they treat me like a second Daughter! We were all always in Lauren’s room or the Kitchen, drinking vodka and laughing at YouTube fail videos and then there were the very few nights in when we’d watch Mock The Week, drink wine, and play with the dogs!

BEST FRIENDS & MENTAL HEALTH

ps. i have so many pics with my besties that i decided to just include this one because I think it sums up friendship perfectly! 

With it recently being Best Friends Day, I was inspired to write this post all about why friendship is so important in mental health…


Growing up, I don’t think I ever paid much attention to my friendships, and that doesn’t mean I was isolated and didn’t have any. It was just that I wasn’t really conscious of the possibility that I could be friendless and that meant I wasn’t very appreciative of the fact that I had three best friends who I’d do everything with! 


I felt like this all through First School until we started Middle School and each of us found their own friendship groups. It seemed to be fairly natural and with us all being in different classes anyway it’s kind of just made sense that we’d find other friends who were in our class. A huge milestone and test in the group’s friendship came when one of my friends lost her mother very suddenly. Our other two friends had no real reaction – that I know of – but I (and my Mum!) were there for her and her family in a flash, and our friendship seemed to repair itself a little for the duration of Middle School.

DAY FIVE MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS WEEK | BODY IMAGE Q&A WITH... MENTAL HEALTH ACTIVIST, MARTIN BAKER

Name: Martin Baker 

Age: 58

Location: Newcastle upon Tyne 

Why did you agree to take part in this Q&A?

Because you asked me! Also, it's a subject I've never been asked about before. 

At what age do you think you first began to take notice of your body image?

I guess when I was in junior school, maybe eight or nine. 

What made you take notice?

I was skinny and "geeky" as a kid. I was also pretty rubbish at school sports, which at that age was mainly football and P. E. (In secondary school it included rugby, gym, and athletics and cross country running in the summer - I was rubbish at all those too!) I guess I wanted to be "sporty" and athletic, to fit in with my friends. There's a photo of me when I was maybe eight or nine, in the garden outside our house. I'm wearing the Liverpool football (soccer) kit, and football boots I can still remember having to clean and polish. I look really awkward, looking back at it now. 

Would you say that your thoughts on your body image began as positive or negative?

Pretty much negative.