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…

A QUICK CHAT ABOUT NERVES, ANXIETY, & STAGE FRIGHT IN PUBLIC SPEAKING | CELEBRATING THE LAUNCH OF WAYTHROUGH

“There are always three speeches for every one that you give. There’s the one you practiced, the one you gave, and the one you wish you gave.”

Dale Carnegie

A number of months ago, I was in a Working Together Committee meeting with Richmond Fellowship – the organisation who provide my Support Workers – and we were told it would be our penultimate meeting due to their merger with Humankind. I had no clue what they were on about and since Richmond Fellowship are usually good with communication, I was so worried this meant that Humankind had already had a bad influence on things! It wasn’t long later, however, that I received an email from the Humankind Communications and Marketing team, basically saying “we hear you like comms and marketing…?!” And I’ve been involved in the merger’s creation ever since! So, I was absolutely honoured when I was asked to give speeches at two of the launch/reveal events and to even help the Vice Chair with the actual unveiling of the new charity’s identity! With both events now finished, I thought it time I write this blog post...

THE SECRET'S OUT | MY BOOK | WHEN ALL IS SAID & TYPED IS AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER!!!

Available to pre-order NOW for £1.99

Released 01.02.2019

I think that ever since I’m NOT Disordered began to show popularity and success, I’ve kind of felt like writing a book was inevitable. And there has been so many occasions when professionals, friends, family, and readers have told me I could write a book about my mental health journey.

I think I waited so long to do this because I felt like my journey was unworthy of an entire book. 

Something I’ve experienced a lot with my mental health is having a lack of memory of the times when I’ve been poorly. This is both good and bad. It’s good because a lot of terrible things happened during those times and the bad part is that my lack of memory makes for a very thin book!

Luckily, I have my blog to tackle this dilemma! 

If I hadn’t blogged half of the things that I did, from my time in Hospital, then I wouldn’t have known all the things that’d actually happened there! I remember the life support machines, Intensive Care, and Mental Health Act assessments but I don’t remember all of the dramatic therapy groups, my struggling on leave home, and the constant battles over medication.

My gratitude for I’m NOT Disordered is for more than it supplying content for a book though!

Something I’ve never said before… this blog has given me my life back.

The abuse and my poorly mental health took away so many years when I could’ve done so much more with my life than sit in Hospital beds taking medication and talking about all of the bad thoughts and feelings I was having! But I’m no longer bitter about this.

And that’s because of I’m NOT Disordered.

My blog has given me a reason to be thankful for going through all of those bad times; because without them, I wouldn’t have I’m NOT Disordered! I wouldn’t have found my passion as a Blogger and I wouldn’t have all the opportunities that I do.

So it is with great gratitude and honour that I bring to you…

BOOK DESCRIPTION:

Aimee Wilson's mental health blog; I'm NOT Disordered has had huge success across the world; with numerous media appearances, and collaborations.
When All Is Said & Typed is an archive of the entire collection of posts from I'm NOT Disordered (dated from January 2013 - January 2019) arranged into chapters and in chronological order. It can be used as a self-help guide with numerous posts featuring advice on managing your mental health or as a source of inspiration to read through the author's journey from psychiatric hospitalization to recovery.

Available to pre-order NOW for £1.99

Released 01.02.2019

THE LAUNCH: 12 CATS OF CHRISTMAS WITH I'M NOT DISORDERED | IN COLLABORATION WITH CATS PROTECTION | AD

Welcome to my new, Christmassy series; 12 Cats of Christmas with I’m NOT Disordered!

Last year, I posted a series I called ’12 Days of Christmas with I’m NOT Disordered’ where I had a different person complete some Christmassy questions every day, for the twelve days leading up to Christmas. The posts were so popular that I wanted to do another series this year but I wasn’t sure if getting others to complete those same questions again would be too repetitive and I decided to do something a little different…