Welcome, Tillie

Tillie, you arrived so small,
With snowy paws and ears so tall.
A little grey nose, soft and sweet,
Like healing sent on velvet feet.

DAY TWENTY-FIVE | THE BEST KEPT SECRET OF 2025 | A HUGE BEHIND-THE-SCENES LOOK AT MY NEW PROJECT: GRACIE’S WAY | A SECRET BLOGMAS 2025

“It is so much extra work to keep things a surprise. I need a nap just thinking about it! But it’s so worth it when you can actually pull it off!”

Taylor Swift

Merry Christmas!!! I sincerely hope you’ve enjoyed all the Blogmas content this month – well, judging from the statistics, you have! To finish A Secret Blogmas 2025 off in real style, in a very special way, and in keeping with the theme of the entire month, I thought I’d finally disclose my largest, best kept secret of 2025: the creation of Gracie’s Way! This Project, its website, and Instagram will be officially launched on January 9^th, 2026 (what would have been Gracie’s third Birthday), but I have so much content planned for that, and I wanted to make today and the final Blogmas secret, really important…

GOODBYE, GRACIE | A THERAPEUTIC POST FULL OF MY THOUGHTS & FEELINGS AFTER LOSING MY YOUNGEST BUNNY

Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye,

You were bigger than the whole sky,

You were more than just a short time,

And I’ve got a lot to pine about

I’ve got a lot to live without

Taylor Swift – Bigger Than The Whole Sky

I’ve always said that since Day One of creating I’m NOT Disordered back in 2013, the content has been about what I want to publish, what I want to create, and what I – and my mental health – benefit from writing about. So, when I found myself full to the brim of sad thoughts and feelings when my youngest bunny; Gracie, passed away on November 1^st, I immediately thought ‘I’ll write a blog post; that’ll help!’ I fully recognise that it might not ‘do well’ in terms of gaining readers but ultimately, it’s helped me to process these thoughts and feelings massively and that actually feels so much more important and worthy of publishing…

REST IN PEACE MY DARLING LITTLE CALICO; EMMY

 

There was a moment when I felt cold and dead

A moment when nothing mattered

Nothing seemed worthy of my energy and time

And then you became mine

 

You came into the home when all was at a low

Dolly had just gone

And Pixie and I were broken

Then you became our lovely, lucky token

WHY GAINING RESPONSIBILITY IS ONE OF THE GREATEST REASONS TO HAVE A FURRY FRIEND | FOUR YEARS SINCE LOSING DOLLY

“When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too”

Paulo Coelho

Four years ago on October 16th, my big, fluffy, four-year-old Maine Coon; Dolly, was put to sleep after battling kidney failure for just over a week (you can read more about her death here). Every year since losing Dolly, I’ve felt the need to concentrate on all my good memories from my four years with her, because I recognised that if I didn’t – if I allowed my head to be consumed by all of the sadness and grief – there was every chance that I would fall apart. And this is a coping mechanism I found so helpful that I actually used it in the death of my Lionhead bunny; Pixie in 2021. From doing this, and from the fact that I now have a rescue, calico cat; Emmy, and a mini-Lionhead bunny; Luna, I found the inspiration for this blog post where I’m going to talk about my top four reasons for having pets…

DEAR EMMY, PLEASE STAY ALIVE

Dear Emmy,

We had a hard day yesterday, didn’t we? When the Vet said that they need to do a biopsy with the thought that you have the ‘C word’ I felt my legs actually wobble and thought I was literally going to fall to my knees. But I looked at your beautiful eyes and found the strength to keep standing. I had to. For your sake, I had to. Because you deserve a strong Mummy. A brave Mummy who will fight for you. I’d like to think I proved that when the other Vet dismissed your sore; because, despite having always had my pets registered with them, I trusted my own feeling that something was wrong and took you to another. And when they said you needed medication, I was reassured that I’d made the right decision. That – just from instinct – I’d known your best interests.

WHY MY PETS HAVE A SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNT | IN COLLABORATION WITH FLUFFY CREATURES LTD | DISCOUNT CODE INCLUDED | AD

*This piece is in collaboration with the Etsy store: Fluffy Creatures LTD and features photos of their products which weren’t gifted, though there is a discount code below!)*

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/FluffyCreatureLtd

https://www.instagram.com/fluffycreatureltd/

Discount code (20% off when you spend £10): NOTDISORDERED

So, you may have missed it, but I got a new mini lop lionhead bunny (Luna) on September 1^st (you can read about her arrival here) and it almost felt inevitable – to me – that I created a joint Instagram account for her and my little calico rescue cat; Emmy… 

https://www.instagram.com/big.pawslittle.paws/

A FRESH START

The reason I had to make the decision to even just get Luna was because my previous lop Lionhead bunny; Pixie was put to sleep in April (you can read about her death here).

EVERYTHING LOSING PETS HAS TAUGHT ME | PET REMEMBRANCE DAY 2021 | IN COLLABORATION WITH CATS PROTECTION

This post is in memory of Saffy, Dolly, and Pixie – my furry little lifesavers.

“Death ends a life, not a relationship.”

Mitch Albom

Whether you know me personally or only through my social media or the content of my blog, I’d like to think you know that I’m the type of person who is forever looking on the bright side of difficult situations. And I think this is because I’ve experienced how it feels to allow myself to only see the difficulty of everything. To concentrate on the hardship and fail to find hope. And I now know what damage that can cause me to do to myself. I know it can leave me feeling as though I’d rather be dead than continue to experience it. And so, I’d like to take this Day as an opportunity – not to concentrate on the devastating impact of the loss of three very important pets since creating I’m NOT Disordered – but instead, to talk about the lessons I’ve learnt from the loss of Saffy, Dolly, and Pixie; in the hope that it will benefit others going through a similar hardship…

DON’T BE ASHAMED TO TALK ABOUT YOUR SADNESS

This lesson came particularly when my lop-eared, Lionhead bunny Pixie was put to sleep in April this year (you can read more about her death here). Prior to losing Pixie, both of the most notable pets passing (Saffy and Dolly) were cats and for some reason, I think that even people without pets can be more empathetic to someone who’s lost their cat than they would for the death of a rabbit. I think that with rabbits mostly being classed as a ‘small animal’ a lot of people (especially those who haven’t owned a rabbit) see them as less significant. 

When I bought Pixie in September 2017 ( you can read more about adding her to the family here), the visual hallucinations of rabbits had just come back and spotting her in my local Pets at Home, I had the impulsive idea that maybe holding her would help me. I knew that I couldn’t touch my rabbit hallucinations because every time I got closer, they moved away. So, I thought that in holding and stroking a real rabbit, maybe I’d feel more grounded. And I was right; the next day I returned, bought Pixie and took her home where she continued to help me. She continued to bring me back to earth when all my mind seemed to want to fly away and ignore all of the very really challenging moments and situations.

HELPFUL RESOURCES DURING GRIEF | IN COLLABORATION WITH ETSY UK | AD

“We don’t stop loving. We don’t forget. We don’t stop hurting. We don’t get over it. We journey forward. Living the best that we can. We hold them in our hearts. Until we’re together again”

Grieftolife.com

The loss of my bunny; Pixie (you can read more about her death here) has really shown me a lot more about grief and that has included recognising the importance of having help and support…

A huge motivation in me maintaining I’m NOT Disordered and my safety, is my hope that my experiences are helping others in some way. The notion that I didn’t go through all that I have for no reason has been massively reassuring and a positive step in my mental health recovery. It has given me hope. Hope that all those hard lessons I’ve had to learn, were worthwhile. Like they were thrown at me for a reason.

So, similarly to my mental health, I want to use my experiences around grief, loss, and bereavement to help others safely navigate (in my opinion) one of the most difficult emotions you can go through. Having lost Pixie almost two weeks ago, I’ve turned to numerous things to help and support me to cope with my grief in a healthy way, and I thought I’d share what I have found the most beneficial for my mental health:

So firstly, practical items – chosen from Etsy…

SELF-SOOTHE:

Learning the Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) skill of self-soothe in the section of the Therapy labelled ‘Distress Tolerance,’ I was initially kind of reluctant to tell people how helpful I found it because I was so worried it would give others selfish, materialistic connotations about me. As though hearing that washing my hair could help my mental health meant two things:

1.       I can’t have been that unwell if something so simple could make a difference

2.       I must be really shallow and self-obsessed if I felt I had to do something for me to help me

Gradually, though, I began to warm to the idea of telling others what I found helpful because I found that sometimes, when I was in a mental health crisis, I needed to be reminded by others of the coping skills and mechanisms that were helpful. As though my head was so focused on being unsafe that there was no room to entertain healthy thoughts like those around what I could be doing to keep myself safe. So, telling the hospital staff, and then the professionals who would continue my care in the community after being discharged, was pretty necessary and in recognizing that, I had to just swallow my pride and ignore any concerns as to what others would think of me.

“SHE’LL BE MISSING HER BESTFRIEND” | LOOKING AFTER A GRIEVING PET | IN COLLABORATION WITH CATS PROTECTION | AD

in memory of Pixie

‘Although grief in animals is not well understood currently, you may recognise changes in behaviour in your cats, which may be attributed to grief.’

Cats Protection

So a little while ago, my cat’s best-friend, my lop-eared Lionhead bunny; Pixie, was put to sleep (you can read about her death here). Since losing her, Emmy – my cat – has become more and more upset and distressed. I wanted to take this horribly painful situation and somehow turn it into something that was – in some way – positive. So, I thought that talking about what happened might help others to feel less alone and that collaborating with Cats Protection, could provide professional advice for anyone confronted with a similar instance…

A taste of life without Pixie…

It started almost as soon as Pixie was first admitted to Critical Care on the weekend; at night-time Emmy sat outside the door to the room (the Kitchen) Pixie slept in, meowing over and over again until I called on her to come lay with me in bed.

When Pixie was allowed home, the Vet recommended keeping her and Emmy apart, but I explained how upset Emmy had gotten and voiced my belief that if anything, it would distress each of them further if they hadn’t seen one another. The Vet agreed it would be ok to just show them one another so that they knew they were sort of together again. So, I put Pixie in her carrier onto the bed where Emmy was lying, and they sniffed each other before I quickly put Pixie back into the Kitchen.

It ended up being quite challenging to get into the Kitchen without Emmy either already being sat there meowing at the door or her hearing me open the Kitchen door and coming running to it! There was one time where I’d gone in and hadn’t shut the door behind me, so I had turned around to see Emmy edging gradually and gently toward Pixie who was huddled in a corner under the dining table. I got the immediate impression that Emmy wanted to say ‘hi,’ but that she also knew that Pixie was poorly, so she was being cautious.

The absence of goodbye…

SOME OF THE COMMENTS MADE IN LOSING MY BUNNY | IN LOVING MEMORY OF PIXIE

Wrapped up, so consumed by all this hurt

If you ask me, don’t know where to start

Anger, love, confusion

Roads that go nowhere

I know there’s somewhere better

‘Cause you take me there

Came to you with a broken faith

Gave me more than a hand to hold

Take Me Home – Jess Glynne

 

If you follow my social media accounts, (particularly my Twitter: https://twitter.com/aimes_wilson) this post probably seemed inevitable and just a matter of time before it was written and published! I guess it’s fairly obvious that I find blogging soothing and therapeutic so it’s probably a given that I was going to use it as a coping skill in the death of my beloved lop-eared Lionhead bunny, Pixie.

 

“I said that I had a bad feeling!”

For a long time, my poor mental health meant that I was really out of touch with having accurate and fair instincts around my physical health. I think this largely stemmed from the abuse and how much pain I experienced from it because I found myself cutting myself off from that harsh, painful reality. It meant that once my mental health started to improve through hospitalisation, medication, and therapy, I found that actually; I could be in tune with my body and not fall apart in doing so.

Becoming more aware of my health, also meant that I found myself to develop very good instincts where my pets were concerned too. One key example of this was with Pixie. It was only early afternoon one day a few years ago so Pixie had only really been exhibiting symptoms (no appetite and no passing of poop) for the morning, but I had a bad feeling, so I called the Vets. The Vet was reluctant to give me an appointment for Pixie because she believed she should be given longer at home to check if she really was poorly. I remember telling her that I knew my bunny better than anyone and I knew something was wrong. Fortunately the Vet agreed to do an examination and within five minutes of it, she said it had been very lucky I’d insisted on the check-up because Pixie had Gut Stasis; which can be fatal for rabbits.

AFTERMATH & MENTAL HEALTH

"The world breaks everyone and afterward, many are strong at the broken places."

Ernest Hemingway

With Christmas becoming extra special this year for lots of people seeing it as a huge cheer-up through the lockdown and coronavirus pandemic, it’s sort of been inevitable that more people will experience a ‘Christmas Come-down!’ Realising this, I thought I would blog some tips for making it through that time, and then my thinking sort of snowballed into me thinking about aftermaths in general. And aftermaths can be so connected to a person’s mental health that it feels worth talking about the entirety of them…

aftermath

[ˈɑːftəmaθˈɑːftəmɑːθ]

NOUN

The consequences or after-effects of a significant unpleasant event.

 

SELF-HARM

If I’ve labelled the aftermath of self-harm difficult or bad in any way, I’ve sometimes found people surprised by this because they’ve assumed that if I’m self-harming it’s to help myself in some way and so surely, I should consider the aftermath of it to actually be pleasant. And that if I didn’t think of it as enjoyable, why would I continue to self-harm? My response to this is an attempt to get across the desperation that a person usually feels when they self-harm. Especially where it isn’t the first time…

You can become so desperate to escape the motivations to hurt yourself that you don’t stop for even a moment to consider how awful any previous aftermaths have been. And it isn’t really about denial and blocking out those memories, it’s just that… Well, personally, I have the mindset that no matter what the aftermath, it’ll be worth that very short, momentary feeling of relief that I experience immediately after self-harming. So, it’s not as though all those memories about unhelpful responses in the aftermath of self-harm aren’t in my head; just that in the grand scheme of things, they mean nothing. Honestly, in the past, there’ve been times when a professional’s response to my self-harm has left me saying ‘I’m never going back to that A&E!’ or ‘I’ll never speak to the Crisis Team again!’ Yet, those instances don’t change my decision to self-harm.

HOW TO COPE WITH FEELINGS OF ABANDONMENT

‘Do you have an intense fear of being left alone, which causes you to act in ways that, on reflection, seem out of the ordinary or extreme, such as constantly phoning somebody (but not including self-harming or suicidal behaviour)?’

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/borderline-personality-disorder/diagnosis/

When I was first diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) in 2009, the diagnostic criteria were that you answer experience five out of nine symptoms. These symptoms are unstable relationships, losing a sense of self, engagement in impulsive activities, suicide attempts or self-harm, severe mood swings, feelings of emptiness, intense anger, hallucinations or ‘disordered thoughts’ and finally, a fear of abandonment. (Note: Please don’t use that list to self-diagnose, always seek professional advice.)

I rarely blog about my family because I respect their privacy, but my Father is a huge reason why my fears of abandonment are so overwhelming and intense. It’s actually a bit cliché though; my parents divorced when I was a baby, and when my Mum and I moved away my Father never once tried to contact me. I would never say that I missed out on anything though – I mean, you can’t miss something you’ve never had(!), but I do wonder what it would have been like. What my life would have been like. 


At the same time though, I am full of admiration for my Mum being a single-parent and raising me the way that she did, and I hope to one day be as good a Mum as her!

MARKING ONE YEAR WITHOUT DOLLY

When I think Back On These Times,
And The Dreams We Left Behind,
I'll Be Glad 'Cause I Was Blessed
To Get To Have You In My Life.
When I Look Back On These Days,
I'll Look And See Your Face,
You Were Right There For Me,

In My Dreams I'll Always See You
Soar Above The Sky,
In My Heart There'll Alwys Be A Place For You
For All My Life,
I'll Keep A Part Of You With Me,
And Everywhere I Am There You'll Be

Faith Hill - Everywhere I Am

[the advert photo from pets4homes] 

I’m going to be so cliché right now and say that I can’t believe it’s been a year since Dolly was put to sleep and almost a year since I adopted Emmy because it feels like just yesterday that it all happened!


I’ve recently had a friend on social media have to go through a similar experience of deciding whether to have her cat put to sleep. Initially, it was really triggering of the memories of being stood in the clinic room at Robson and Prescott Vets and having to agree to lose my best-friend forever in order to end her pain and suffering. After a little while, though, I realized that instead of allowing my friend’s suffering to trigger the memories, maybe I could use my experience to help her through this difficult time. I remember in the first few days after Dolly was put to sleep and I said to a friend that it was the hardest decision I’d ever had to make before correcting myself and realizing that I was probably only saying that because it’s what everyone says in these situations. But actually, it wasn’t ‘hard;’ it was easy. There was no debating whether to put Dolly through one final battery of tests and treatments – that might not even have worked - just to give myself an extra day with her. The decision just wasn’t nice or fair.

THE TEN BIGGEST IMPACTS ON MY PERSONALITY | IN COLLABORATION WITH FUTURE LEARN AND MONASH UNIVERSITY | AD

I wrote recently (here) about my thoughts on personality after beginning the Monash University course (via futurelearn.com); Introduction to Psychology: The Psychology of Personality. On completing week two of the course, I got thinking about all of the things that can impact a person’s personality. I mean, I talked in my first post about how I believe that ‘personality’ is who you are but that doesn’t mean that I think it’s ingrained in you – that it’s natural or always stable throughout all kinds of circumstances and situations. I 100% believe that your personality can be shaped by external events and how you internalize these, how they change your views on the world and the way you react in different situations. 

WHY WE PUT THINGS IN BOXES

“Are you ready to talk about that yet?”

The inspiration for this post came when I was speaking with my Community Psychiatric Nurse. A little while ago she asked me for a list of the things in my life that have had an impact on my mental health. I listed things like the hallucinations, when I was bullied in High School… and the death of my cat; Dolly. We’re using each appointment to go through the list by discussing one thing at a time and at each appointment I’m asked if I’m ready to talk about Dolly yet! At yesterday’s appointment I had a realization; I wasn’t reluctant to talk about Dolly because I was worried that doing so would make me unsafe (that it would trigger thoughts of self-harm etc). I didn’t want to talk about the loss because I didn’t want to cause myself the upset. I wasn’t afraid of what that upset might cause; I was just reluctant to face the grief and sadness.

CAN I DISTRACT MY WAY THROUGH CHRISTMAS? | GRIEF AT CHRISTMASTIME

“Just because I stopped blogging about it, doesn’t mean it went away!”

I recently wrote a blog post on ways to look after your mental health at Christmastime and I talked a little about what a festive person I am and that I didn’t want to come across as not knowing what I was talking about. Like many blog posts, it made me think a lot afterwards and I realized that actually, this year, I can, sort of, identify with some people struggling at this time of year. And whilst the cause for my struggle might seem lesser than others, it’s important to recognize that grief is grief. A person’s turmoil shouldn’t depend on how close the relative was or whether the loss was a human or animal; because it isn’t always about who you’ve lost but what you’ve lost.

This year will be the first Christmas without my Cat, Dolly. This week it will have been two months since she was put to sleep. If you don’t have a clue what I’m talking about then here’s the posts I wrote at the time: here and here because this post isn’t for going through the whole story again; it’s about having to move on.

LEARNING THE LINE BETWEEN DENIAL, DISTRACTION & ACCEPTANCE

Losing Dolly has got me thinking about how one of the key reasons for my two-and-a-half-year admission in the Psychiatric hospital Cygnet Bierley, was so that I could be taught Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) – the recommended support for those diagnosed with a Personality Disorder. When I was first admitted to the hospital my only coping skills were through several different methods of self-harm so being unable to do that yet still only learning the healthy, safe coping skills DBT teaches you; was more than challenging. It felt impossible.

Our group DBT facilitator would have us keep a diary of which skills we’d used on which days and under which circumstances. She told us that we’d know that we had mastered the skills when we could no longer remember which skills we’d used during the day because they’d just come naturally. Something I wasn’t told, however, was that even when the DBT lessons were done and I was discharged, I would still be learning about it. I’d still be developing my skills, favoring different ones and using them in different ways. Where I’d once loved distraction techniques, and hated mindfulness, I’ve now learnt that sometimes I use distraction to an extreme, unhealthy and unsafe level and have found that mindfulness is massively helpful in grounding me when I’m overwhelmed by hallucinations or thoughts of self-harm.

"DON'T TELL ME HOW TO GRIEVE" | WHY THE 'FIVE STAGES OF GRIEF' DON'T MEAN A THING

IN MEMORY OF DOLLY I'VE SET UP A JUSTGIVING PAGE TO RAISE MONEY FOR HER VETS BILLS. IF YOU CAN CONTRIBUTE ANYTHING AT ALL IT WOULD BE HUGELY AMAZING!

https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/dollywilson

So once upon a time, there was this fantastically clever lady called Elisabeth Kugler Ross who came up with a theory. She thought that there are five stages of grief that a person can experience.

As you’ll know – if you read one of my most recent posts – I recently lost my four-year-old cat (Dolly). Some of you might read this and think “oh my God it’s just a cat. She’s grieving over a cat?!” but I’d like you to continue reading and see if you feel the same by the end.