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…

RELATING TO MY TWO FAVOURITE PAGES | IN COLLABORATION WITH STACEY MCNEILL, AUTHOR AND ILLUSTRATOR OF FOX UNDER THE MOON | NATIONAL READING DAY 2026

foxunderthemoon | Instagram, Facebook, TikTok | Linktree

Purchase the Book: https://foxunderthemoonart.com/pages/seasons

“That’s the thing about books; they let you travel without moving your feet.”

Jhumpa Lahiri

In November last year, I visited the Christmas Market at the Spanish City with my fellow mental health blogging best-friend; Martin Baker of Gum On My Shoe, and we met the lovely Stacey McNeill and Jamie! I spotted the subtitle of the book: ‘Seasons of Comfort and Hope’ and asked, “does this mean there’s relevance to mental health?” she nodded and said “yes.” And I was like “just the right person to meet!” and within minutes we were exchanging the stories of our creative journeys, and I’d given her my business card! Kindly, she sent me a copy of the book with a card for myself and Martin and then we emailed about collaborating and, almost before I knew it, this blog post was underway! This post will focus on my two favourite pages from the book…

JOIN A RAPE & ABUSE SURVIVOR AT A HUGE GYNAE APPOINTMENT | VLOG & A COLLABORATION WITH AMAZON UK INCLUDED!

 

I found a strength I've never known
I've been thrown out, I've been burned

When I'm finished, they won't even know your name

You brought the flames, and you put me through hell
I had to learn how to fight for myself

Ke$ha – Praying

On May 2^nd, I had to attend an appointment with Gynaecology to discuss having my smear under a general anaesthetic. I decided to film the day for two reasons: the first, was to provide empathy and advice to other survivors and those in a similar situation. The second reason was to give insight to those who judge people for not having this procedure. My general message from this? Don’t judge a person’s journey, when you haven’t walked in their shoes. In case there are people out there who are interested in this experience and don’t want to or can’t watch videos, I thought I would write a quick blog post about it too and managed to get a collaboration with Amazon UK for it! At the end, however, I’ve still also inserted the entire vlog from YouTube…

MY JOURNEY FACILITATING TRAINING IN MENTAL HEALTH WITH ADVICE TO HELP YOU DO IT TOO!!! | LAUNCHING UNDERSTAND WITH IND

“The great aim of education is not knowledge, but action.”

Herbert Spencer

A number of years ago, I was asked to co-facilitate mental health training for the new recruits of my local Police force (Northumbria Police) in partnership with Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust (CNTW). It was my first experience of doing something like that, but it remains one of the most enjoyable, influential, and educational opportunities I’ve ever had in the entirety of my blogging career! So, since then, I’ve gone to take on a number of additional, similar commitments and with those experiences and a recent decision in mind, I have created Understand with IND and its five Training Programmes. To launch it and acknowledge its feature in the brand-new pages on I’m NOT Disordered, I’ve put together this piece which is full of accounts of my experiences in facilitating training around mental health as well as things I’ve learnt from them, and advice I would give to budding facilitators…

WHEN & WHY IT STARTED, WITNESSING IT IN OTHERS, & HOW I CAME THROUGH IT | SELF-HARM AWARENESS DAY 2025

“Resilience isn't a single skill. It's a variety of skills and coping mechanisms. To bounce back from bumps in the road as well as failures...”

Jean Chatzky

This year, for Self-Harm Awareness Day, I thought I’d create this slightly(!) jumbled-up post and it is honestly, mostly a mess because I actually just found out it was this Awareness Day at about half three in the afternoon on the day of it! So, this post is basically full of bits and pieces about my experiences of self-harm, things related to self-harm which I’ve learnt and witnessed throughout my mental health journey, and advice I would give to someone who is utilising it as a coping skill…

WHY I’M PRESENTING AT THE EMTA CONFERENCE FOR THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF EMERGENCY MEDICINE & EXCLUSIVE INSIGHT INTO MY PRESENTATION! | #EMTA2025

“Be spectacularly great at what you do. Wear your passion on your sleeve and hold your heart in the palm of your hand. And work hard. Really hard.”

Robin S. Sharma

EMTA (@EMTAcommittee) / X

RCEM Events (@RCEMevents) / X

A number of years ago, I was asked to attend and blog at an event at a local University, and ever since, I’ve kept in touch with the Doctor who invited me. Then, a few weeks ago, she got in touch with me and offered me one of the largest and most prestigious opportunity that I think I’ve ever been offered – an invitation to speak at the National Conference for the Royal College of Emergency Medicine! It was one of those situations where you try to play it cool and act like things like this happen all the time… But actually, all that coolness went out the window and I just said: “oh my goodness! Are you serious?!” After a few emails with the lovely Conference and Events Officer, and confirmation of my train tickets and accommodation, I asked if I could announce my presentation on, I’m NOT Disordered and across my social media and was told “yes, please!” So, I’m going to use this opportunity to talk through a lot of the reasons why I’m doing this, to publish some feedback and comments from various professionals, and to provide some exclusive insight into my PowerPoint...

ABANDONMENT & HOW TO COPE WITH IT | IN COLLABORATION WITH CATS PROTECTION

“When you feel abandoned, don't let painful feelings fester. Instead, use them as a catalyst to grow and to become more compassionate.”

Amy Morin

So, collaboration number two with the wonderful Cats Protection – this time, however, the post is in partnership with the charity on a national level rather than with my local Tyneside Adoption Centre (the collaboration with which, you can read here). So, as I mentioned in that piece, the Winter Campaign theme for Cats Protection this year is ‘abandonment’ and the reason for this (which I don’t think I mentioned in the other post) is that cases of abandonment of cats have massively risen by over 30%! Additionally, Cats Protection have found that those cats spend on average, around 39 days in the care of the Charity before finding a ‘furever’ home. With donations of as little as £5 feeding a cat – and last year, they helped around 500 cats per day! – in the Charity’s care for 25 days (other funding equivalents are that £15 would cover worming treatment for three cats, and £20 would fund ten blankets to keep the cats warm and safe); this Winter Campaign is aimed at raising funds as well as awareness of this hugely important issue. Now, to bring this Campaign into relevance for the typical content of I’m NOT Disordered, I thought I’d use this post to write about how to cope with the largest instance of abandonment that I think a psychiatric service user can experience, feeling abandoned by mental health services…

TWO BLOGGING MOTTOS TO BLOG BY

Looking for a quote for this blog post was kind of fun, but also really inspiring because a lot of quotes about giving advice were centred around the fact that you shouldn’t be disheartened if no one takes it. A few also said to be careful because you’re basically inserting yourself into having responsibility for someone’s decisions and the outcome of them. Another said to only give advice that you’ve been asked for, so I thought it might be important to mention that I literally get about 10 – 20 emails and DMs on social media per day from Bloggers solely looking for advice on blogging and nothing around mental health and the other difficult subjects I’m NOT Disordered has content regarding. So, rest-assured I’m not just being all righteous and big-headed in assuming people will want to hear my tips. However, one thing I want to make really clear is, these ‘tips’ and ‘advice’ really only come from my own experience and they’re things which I believe have helped me and I’m NOT Disordered reach 1.4 million readers (you can read the blog post about that here), so please don’t feel disheartened if something doesn’t seem right for you and your blog because it might even be about taking something and adapting it or editing it to suit your blogging career…

HOW DID WE GET HERE? | 1.4 MILLION READERS

In planning and putting this post together, I realised that my last reader milestone was on my Instagram in February 2024 celebrating 1.3 million readers (you can see the Instagram Reel here) and that this means I’ve had over 100,000 readers in five months… Now, to put into context why I see this as such a WIN(!), when I first started blogging in 2013, I celebrated my first 100,000 (I even had a party, which you can read about here!) after TWO YEARS! These statistics got me thinking about whether this means I’m working harder than I was all those years ago and that became one of the inspirations for this blog post where I’ll be putting a lot more thought into what exactly this increase in readers means and how it has occurred…

EVERYTHING I’VE ACHIEVED SINCE BEING SECTIONED ONE YEAR AGO

On this day (February 18^th) one year ago, it was the beginning of my most recent detention under section 2 of the 1983 Mental Health Act, and so I obviously wanted to create some content to mark the date. I had a huge brainstorm of what angle to take with the blog post, and I was stuck between talking through the complaint I’d put in regarding many different instances through the admission and the polar opposite of looking at all the achievements I’ve made in this past year. Eventually, I decided to do both! But, they’ll be in separate posts because I wanted to post the achievements piece on the actual anniversary of being sectioned so as to really enhance the idea that it’s actually an achievement in itself to have not been sectioned since then too!

THE RED FLAGS IN COMMUNICATION AROUND MENTAL HEALTH | IN COLLABORATION WITH NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST | TIME TO TALK DAY 2024

This post is in collaboration with the Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (NUTH) who I’m helping and supporting in their creation of a Trust-wide Mental Health Strategy (which I’ve previously blogged about here, here, here, here, and here). Together, we’re marking Time To Talk Day 2024 which is a date where everyone is encouraged to talk more about mental health in the hope that it will tackle the discrimination and stigma held against the topic and that, in doing so, it will also improve the help and support that is offered or available for those who might be struggling with their mental health. We’ve decided to utilise the fact that whilst there is – rightly – so much content around encouraging conversations, there are too few pieces around the importance of recognising when a communication around mental health needs to be reconsidered whether by terminating it completely or changing the route it seems to be taking – something which is as equally important as starting a chat. Thankfully and admirably, it’s also something NUTH recognises to be an essential component to their upcoming Mental Health Strategy…

DAY NINETEEN OF BLOGMAS UNBOXED 2023: A Q&A WITH THE 'ELVES' BEHIND AN AMAZING CHARITY: CHRISTMAS FOR CAMHS

To donate to Christmas for CAMHS:

Making Christmas Magic For Young People in CAMHS Units (2023) - JustGiving

For the rest of Christmas for CAMHS links:

Christmas For CAMHS | Twitter, Facebook | Linktree

If you’ve been reading, I’m NOT Disordered for some time you’ll likely know that when I was fifteen, I went through a really traumatic experience that lasted six months. Across these months I turned to an unsafe coping skill and developed a really bad reputation at school with my teachers because I was angry at them for not realising what was happening to me or even, at the very least, questioning why there was such a marked change in my behaviour and attitude. Somehow though, I was referred to my local Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) and sadly, it took so long to actually be offered an appointment that by the time I was, a lot of things had changed, and I was no longer willing to engage with the professional help and support being offered. 

HOW I’VE MADE IT THIS FAR | MY NEW BOOK IS AVAILABLE TO BUY NOW!!! | PART 2 OF 4

*This post is the second of 4 which will be posted every day for the following two days!*

Buy You’re NOT Disordered NOW!!

The three most obvious, go-to answers that you seriously just expect to hear when you ask someone how they have recovered from their mental illness: hospital, medication, and therapy. Fortunately – or unfortunately, I guess, depending upon how you look at it – for me, all three are true…

When my mental health deteriorated it did so in the form of auditory hallucinations, which I somehow ‘tolerated’ for around ten days before finally making my first suicide attempt. After passing out at school I was taken to hospital in an ambulance and then I ran away. The Police were called and when they found me when I had almost reached the nearby bus station, they detained me under section 136 of the 1983 Mental Health Act and I was pretty much thrown into their car and driven back to hospital where a Mental Health Act assessment promptly took place in a little room I’d never been in before in A&E. I honestly don’t’ remember much about it, just that I was told the Police could finally go and if I continued to try and leave the hospital then the staff were now allowed to restrain me, sedate me, and force me to finish the necessary, potentially life-saving medical treatment to counteract my suicide attempt.

WHY NHS TRUSTS NEED TO BE FOLLOWING IN NEWCASTLE’S FOOTSTEPS!! | IN COLLABORATION WITH THE NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST

Our first collaboration: FROM INTENSIVE CARE TO COLLABORATIONS | IN COLLABORATION WITH NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST TO MARK THEIR BRAND-NEW MENTAL HEALTH STRATEGY | I'm NOT Disordered (imnotdisordered.co.uk)

Our second collaboration: EVERYTHING I’M LEARNING FROM MY WORK WITH NEWCASTLE HOSPITALS ON THEIR MENTAL HEALTH STRATEGY | IN COLLABORATION WITH NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST | I'm NOT Disordered (imnotdisordered.co.uk)

So, I’ve been working with the Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (NUTH) for over a year (you can read all of our previous collaboration posts above) on their upcoming Mental Health Strategy and spending so long on this project, has really opened my eyes to so much that I thought I might confront, and so much that I hadn’t even imagined would come up from doing this! The main experience and huge benefit from this project, for me though, has been the recognition that in working together, so many thoughts and feelings I’d held against the Trust for saving my life when I made a suicide attempt were completely changed; and for so many different reasons…

Going through abuse can really leave you quite vulnerable in so many ways, but particularly when it comes to your thoughts, feelings, and opinions on hatred and resentment, and this can go on to affect so many instances and relationships in your future… So, for me – in the beginning – I held a lot of anger and hatred towards my abuser and was 100% confident of both the fact that he was worthy of it and that it was completely fine for me to feel this way. I didn’t foresee anything bad arising from it. If anything, to be honest, I thought it was a good thing – a healthy thing. I thought that anyone and everyone would be full of this amount of anger and spite if they had gone through what I had.

THE SECRETS BEHIND THE POSTS, THE PROCESS OF CREATING THEM, THE STATISTICS, FAVOURITE CONTENT, ADVICE, & SO MUCH MORE!!! | AN EXCLUSIVE LOOK INSIDE I’M NOT DISORDERED IN THE MID-YEAR REVIEW

“It takes more courage to try and fail than not to try and never succeed.”

Nanette Avery

So, I was writing a blog post about my new job (Head of Marketing and Communications for a brand new Company!) and had to go through my archives to ensure I wasn’t repeating myself when I came across a Mid-Year Review from 2020 (you can still read it here) and one from 2022 (which you can also still read, here). And seeing them, has obviously inspired me to create another review from January 2023 – June 2023, but – as is the norm with my blogging ethos – I wanted to create one that was a bit different and (hopefully) better! So, I’ve decided to really delve into the nitty-gritty of the blog posts published during the last six months; to talk about the process of creating them, the statistics of them, advice and additional thoughts around them, and I’ll be including some favourite photos and reels from the last six months of content on my Instagram account (which you can follow here) and my Twitter (which you can follow here). I really hope that it provides insight into all the passion and dedication that truly goes into I’m NOT Disordered…

THE ESSENTIALS TO LIFE AFTER BEING IN A PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL

Instead of saying “I’m damaged, I’m broken, I have trust issues;” say: “I’m healing, I’m rediscovering myself, I’m starting over!”

Horacio Jones

Some of you may know, but some of you may not… On February 18^th I was detained under section 2 of the 1983 Mental Health Act and admitted to a psychiatric hospital for ten days. Whilst I have been sectioned before (the longest admission lasting for over two and a half years), it has been a long time since I was last hospitalised, and I have the distinct belief that the admission last month was so completely different to any other. Not just because it came about in a different way, but also because I was admitted to a ward I had never been on and it was literally terrible. I think the easiest, most general way to sum that up (without giving examples) is by saying that I was never listened to. I honestly felt like I had become half a person because what I said seemed to neither matter nor be believed. I felt completely dismissed and hopeless.

LESSONS LEARNT FROM I'M NOT DISORDERED'S FIRST POSTS | MARKING EIGHT YEARS SINCE BEING SECTIONED FOR 2.5 YEARS

Earlier this month (July 17^th), it was eight years to the date of me being sectioned and beginning a two-and-a-half-year long admission in a psychiatric hospital which specialised in Personality Disorders...

For the three years previously to that admission, I’d been in and out of both psychiatric and medical hospitals because my local NHS mental health Trust had no services specifically for someone with a Personality Disorder diagnosis. The lack of understanding from the professionals who – in my opinion – should have actually been the most knowledgeable people in providing help and support, contributed to a number of other reasons why I had made two suicide attempts and self harmed on a number of occasions. The lack of services in my locality was also a reasons why, when I ended up on life support after a third suicide attempt, the professionals made the decision to admit me to a private hospital over 100 miles away from home, where the ‘average length of admission, was 12 – 18 months.

After around six or seven months in the hospital, I had a really positive 1:1 with my Key Nurse and it felt like such a productive step toward recovery, that I decided I wanted to document it in some way. And so, I’m NOT Disordered was born and my blogging career began.

HOW I’M GETTING THROUGH A BROKEN WRIST, TIME IN HOSPITAL, & SURGERY

“Scared is what you’re feeling. Brave is what you’re doing.”

Room by Emma Donoghue 

Apologies for the gap between the last post and this, hopefully when you read this you’ll understand why that happened…

MANAGING THE RELUCTANCE TO EVEN GO TO HOSPITAL

You know, when my mental health was at its most poorly – when I was finding myself in hospitals two and three times a week – one key reason for me going there tended be that I had self-harmed (in a way which could have actually cost me my life, but it wasn’t always a suicide attempt) in response to auditory hallucinations. Then, when they were content with my actions and silenced, I didn’t want to die or experience pain in any way, so I would seek medical attention for whatever I had done. 

But, the professionals attitude changed toward me when they couldn’t understand the power of the hallucinations, and in their eyes; I was just wasting their time and resources. From then, I found myself being met with disdain and contempt from the moment I checked in at the A&E reception desk and that – I’d like to think, understandably – led to an intense reluctance to ever set foot in a hospital. It was like every time I entered the building, I could almost hear the eyes of all the hospital staff roll in their sockets, coupled with their overwhelming urge to comment; “it’s her again.”

HOW TO HELP SOMEONE FEEL LESS ALONE & RELEASING THE FIRST PRINT | MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS WEEK: DAY TWO | IN COLLABORATION WITH THE DESIGN PARLOUR & ETSY UK

Welcome to Day Two of Mental Health Awareness Week, today I’m collaborating with the Design Parlour from Etsy UK to bring you something very special…

A few months ago, I was searching for gifts for two of my best friend’s Birthdays, and came across this personalised illustration from the Design Parlour: Birthday Gift for H
er Best Friend Birthday Gift Birthday | Etsy UK. And from there, Ciara (the Design Parlour’s owner) and I got talking and put together a collaboration piece (THE ULTIMATE BIRTHDAY GIFT GUIDE | IN COLLABORATION WITH ETSY | I'm NOT Disordered (imnotdisordered.co.uk)) and then – as with so many things in my blogging career – it snowballed into something so much bigger…

So, this post is inspired by our first print we’ll be selling only on the Design Parlour’s Etsy store, and in honour of MHAW, we’ve kept it connected to the ‘loneliness’ theme and will be donating 10% of sales to the mental health charity: Mind. Using the phrase ‘you are not alone’ inspired me to write this piece about how you can help and comfort someone who is feeling lonely…

Relate, but don’t start a competition

When someone you know or care about – or sometimes, even complete strangers – voices a thought, feeling, or experience that you can relate to in some way, it’s incredibly hard to resist saying “I understand.” It can even be difficult to stop yourself from explaining why you believe that you ‘understand’ what they’re going through. But it’s important to recognise that one of the biggest dangers in talking about your own experiences can be a sense of competition. It can leave the person comparing what you’ve been through with their own situation and feeling somewhat minimised and unimportant.

THE TRUTH & ADVICE ON RESTRICTIVE PRACTICES | IN COLLABORATION WITH CUMBRIA, NORTHUMBERLAND, TYNE & WEAR NHS FOUNDATION TRUST

A little while ago an opportunity came up with Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust (CNTW) for someone to speak at a Positive and Safe Conference about their experiences of restrictive practices… 

Now, considering I’ve been a mental health Blogger for almost nine years, I think it’s totally reasonable to assume that I’ve talked about my entire mental health journey by now. In all fairness, I think even I thought that was true; until this opportunity came up… So when I was chosen to give the speech and first met with the lovely Lauren (who you’ll be hearing from later in the post) from the Trust’s Positive and Safe Team, I almost immediately realised two things:

1.     I have a lot of experience and a lot to say about the topic

2.     I actually haven’t talked a whole lot about it all before

In acknowledging these two points, I had a decision to make: did I want to change that? Did I want to change the fact that I didn’t talk about these things?