THREE MILLION READERS!!!

“Believe in yourself. You are braver than you think, more talented than you know, and capable of more than you imagine.”

Roy T. Bennett

When I’m NOT Disordered reached around 2,950,000 readers I realised I should start deciding/planning/preparing to write a celebratory blog post and then I made a bit of a mistake of asking AI (namely Chat GPT) for ideas on a theme or angle for it… Why was it a mistake? Because I loved almost all of its ideas! So, in this post, I will be chatting through a whole mix of bits and pieces about this achievement; reasons why I started, reasons why I temporarily quit, reasons why I kept going and the lessons I learned throughout those moments...

DAY ONE | A SECRET BLOGMAS 2025

“Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got.”

Janis Joplin

Welcome to A Secret Blogmas 2025!

Today is Day One and the very first Secret of the Series is all about authenticity, honesty, and transparency. It’s about the importance of being yourself – truly yourself. Being you 100% of the time that you spend online – but especially when you’re creating content – can be so important and influential upon the popularity and success of your content and/or the platform on which you publish it! Keep reading to find out why this happens and how you can put it into practice with your own content creation…

EVERYTHING BLOGGING HAS DONE TO ME | CELEBRATING TWO AND A HALF MILLION READERS!!!

"What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals."

Zig Ziglar

In a recent career opportunity, I found myself having a lot of moments where I was thinking ‘I know that because of my blogging’ or ‘I learnt how to do that through blogging!’ And it is these moments and in celebration of I’m NOT Disordered reaching two and a half million readers, which have inspired this blog post where I’m going to chat through all the influences and the ways in which blogging has impacted me and changed my life…

THE ULTIMATE GUIDANCE TO WORKING WITH AN INFLUENCER

“No one else knows exactly what the future holds for you, no one else knows what obstacles you've overcome to be where you are, so don't expect others to feel as passionate about your dreams as you do.”

Germany Kent

A little while ago, I wrote a blog post titled: The Most Transparent Blog Post I’ve Ever Written (which you can read here) and in it, I talked about being given – numerous times now – the label of ‘influencer’ by others. I decided to do some research at the beginning of the post, in the hope that it would provide me with evidence to fight me meeting the definition of the label, but instead, I found (in this article) that due to the following of I’m NOT Disordered (2.3 million readers) I’d be deemed a ‘Mega-Influencer!’ And on talking to my Waythrough Recovery Worker, I agreed that my blog is at a standing in terms of both popularity and reputation, that I can no longer demean or deny it. So, here I am(!) agreeing to be an Influencer! Now, this blog post was actually inspired by a recent meeting with a few of Waythrough’s Communications and Marketing team, where the idea of the organisation working with Influencers was discussed. The Manager said that I was the ‘perfect person’ to have involved because of my ability to bring actual, lived insight into this world, and so, here’s the blog post which provides guidance to working with an Influencer…

THE MOST TRANSPARENT BLOG POST I’VE EVER WRITTEN

“Transparency fosters a sense of trust and provides serious motivation.”

Billy Boughey

Now, I’m very uncomfortable referring to myself as an Influencer but having the number of readers that my blog has (there’s over 2.3 million of you lovely people!), the fact others have labelled me it, and that I’ve been working with the Celebrity and Influencers Relationship Manager of Cats Protection – and I’m certainly not a Celebrity! – I think it’s perhaps time I try to accept it and own it! So, in a conversation I was in recently, there was talk about the fact that so many people can form opinions of an Influencer’s life, without recognising or realising that the content they see, is what the Influencer has chosen to let you see. It’s not their entire life. Their entire story. I’d like to think my mental health blog and the content I produce on social media (particularly I’m NOT Disordered’s brand-new Instagram: @imnotdisordered) is more balanced, transparent, and honest. So, in this post, I’m going to chat through more about that conversation and the thoughts and opinions within it, my thoughts on being deemed an Influencer, why I think my content is different, a ton of transparent insight into blogging and social media. As a sort of sidenote: I’ll be creating another ‘most transparent blog post…’ about mental health soon…

THANK YOU FOR 2 MILLION!!! | HERE’S THE LARGEST REASON FOR I’M NOT DISORDERED’S POPULARITY & ALL MY SECRETS BEHIND IT!

I came to win, to fight

To conquer, to thrive

I came to win, to survive

To prosper, to rise

To fly

Nicki Minaj ft. Rihanna – Fly

If ever there was a time for a stereotypical beginning, it’s here(!) – because I literally and honestly cannot believe that I’m writing this! My little mental health blog has over two million readers?! Like, what?!! Where did that come from? It’s the strangest thing; that I’ve very obviously known it was coming – I mean, you know I like to celebrate my reader milestones; so, it’s obvious I keep an eye on my blog’s statistics… But it still feels like it just caught me by surprise and stole the ground out from under me! It’s like when you’re about to get an injection and you know it’s coming but you still get a shock… Except, much less painful! So, to celebrate this enormous milestone, I’ve created this blog post – and a reel over on my Instagram (@aimes_wilson) – revealing all my stories and tips around the largest reason for I’m NOT Disordered’s popularity: publicity…

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…

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…

HOW TO INCREASE YOUR BLOG’S AUDIENCE | TIP 4 OF 4

“Be worth knowing, not just well-known.”

Melissa Bolton

*This is the final part of a four part series

You can read Part One: https://www.imnotdisordered.co.uk/2024/04/how-to-increase-your-blogs-audience-tip.html

Part Two: https://www.imnotdisordered.co.uk/2024/04/how-to-increase-your-blogs-audience-tip.html

Part Three:  https://www.imnotdisordered.co.uk/2024/04/how-to-increase-your-blogs-audience-tip.html *

Originally on thinking of this blog post, I was so sure that I would have written something like this before that I went right through my content archive! I found a ton of posts that will be really useful in referring back to in this post; but nothing even remotely similar to everything I’m hoping that this one will be. Upon making this discovery, I started to wonder why I hadn’t written something like this before. I didn’t have to think on it for too long though, before the self-doubt and fear of judgment surrounded my head and, before I knew it, I was questioning what right I had to write a post like this. I mean, who do I think I am telling others how to do something like this?! But I’ll be honest; I just keep coming back to the fact that I’m NOT Disordered has over 1.3 million readers now and shouldn’t that count for something? So, I’m swallowing the low self-esteem, pushing away the nerves, and desperately hoping people will deem this piece to be genuinely helpful and a useful resource… Here goes nothing…

HOW TO INCREASE YOUR BLOG’S AUDIENCE | TIP 3 OF 4

“Be worth knowing, not just well-known.”

Melissa Bolton

*This is Part Three of a Four Part Series being published daily

You can read Part One: https://www.imnotdisordered.co.uk/2024/04/how-to-increase-your-blogs-audience-tip.html

Part Two:  https://www.imnotdisordered.co.uk/2024/04/how-to-increase-your-blogs-audience-tip.html *

Originally on thinking of this blog post, I was so sure that I would have written something like this before that I went right through my content archive! I found a ton of posts that will be really useful in referring back to in this post; but nothing even remotely similar to everything I’m hoping that this one will be. Upon making this discovery, I started to wonder why I hadn’t written something like this before. I didn’t have to think on it for too long though, before the self-doubt and fear of judgment surrounded my head and, before I knew it, I was questioning what right I had to write a post like this. I mean, who do I think I am telling others how to do something like this?! But I’ll be honest; I just keep coming back to the fact that I’m NOT Disordered has over 1.3 million readers now and shouldn’t that count for something? So, I’m swallowing the low self-esteem, pushing away the nerves, and desperately hoping people will deem this piece to be genuinely helpful and a useful resource… Here goes nothing…

HOW TO INCREASE YOUR BLOG’S AUDIENCE | TIP 2 OF 4

“Be worth knowing, not just well-known.”

Melissa Bolton

*This is Part Two of a Four Part Series being published daily

You can read Part One: https://www.imnotdisordered.co.uk/2024/04/how-to-increase-your-blogs-audience-tip.html *

Originally on thinking of this blog post, I was so sure that I would have written something like this before that I went right through my content archive! I found a ton of posts that will be really useful in referring back to in this post; but nothing even remotely similar to everything I’m hoping that this one will be. Upon making this discovery, I started to wonder why I hadn’t written something like this before. I didn’t have to think on it for too long though, before the self-doubt and fear of judgment surrounded my head and, before I knew it, I was questioning what right I had to write a post like this. I mean, who do I think I am telling others how to do something like this?! But I’ll be honest; I just keep coming back to the fact that I’m NOT Disordered has over 1.3 million readers now and shouldn’t that count for something? So, I’m swallowing the low self-esteem, pushing away the nerves, and desperately hoping people will deem this piece to be genuinely helpful and a useful resource… Here goes nothing…

HOW TO INCREASE YOUR BLOG’S AUDIENCE | TIP 1 OF 4

“Be worth knowing, not just well-known.”

Melissa Bolton

*This is Part One of a Four Part Series being published daily*

Originally on thinking of this blog post, I was so sure that I would have written something like this before that I went right through my content archive! I found a ton of posts that will be really useful in referring back to in this post; but nothing even remotely similar to everything I’m hoping that this one will be. Upon making this discovery, I started to wonder why I hadn’t written something like this before. I didn’t have to think on it for too long though, before the self-doubt and fear of judgment surrounded my head and, before I knew it, I was questioning what right I had to write a post like this. I mean, who do I think I am telling others how to do something like this?! But I’ll be honest; I just keep coming back to the fact that I’m NOT Disordered has over 1.3 million readers now and shouldn’t that count for something? So, I’m swallowing the low self-esteem, pushing away the nerves, and desperately hoping people will deem this piece to be genuinely helpful and a useful resource… Here goes nothing…

AN INSIDE LOOK INTO I’M NOT DISORDERED’S READER MILESTONES | CELEBRATING 1.2 MILLION READERS!!!

“Create in the dark, only then can you recognise the light.”

Jyrki Vainonen

` It took me quite a while to figure out what angle to choose in writing this post – which I really wanted to use to mark I’m NOT Disordered reaching 1.2 million readers on July 15^th. In the end, I’ve decided to do a bit of an in-depth look into the milestones my blog has achieved in so far as its reader statistics over the entire ten years of its existence…

I want to start off by saying something that I’ve spoken about before (particularly in this post celebrating half a million readers: HALF A MILLION READERS!!! | LESSONS LEARNT, ADVICE & MORE! | I'm NOT Disordered (imnotdisordered.co.uk)) – but with the number of readers growing so rapidly so quickly, it’s probably worth saying it again… Another inpatient of the psychiatric ward I was on when I created, I’m NOT Disordered who had a blog, asked me why I cared so much about ‘the numbers.’ Now, rather than this being a genuinely curious question, knowing the girl; I recognised it was a bit of a dig and an accusation or nod towards thinking that I was being somewhat superficial. In all honesty though, in seeing/knowing that the girl’s blog had a good few thousand readers less than mine, and it had been going for a good few years already by that point, I wondered if some of the spite in that question was born out of jealousy or competitiveness.

EVERYTHING ALL OF YOU MEAN TO ME | I’M NOT DISORDERED’S 10TH BIRTHDAY PARTY

For the third time in my blogging career, I hosted another party to celebrate a milestone I’m NOT Disordered and I have reached (the previous two were for reaching 100,000 readers and then reaching 1,000,000), and I have to admit, I think it was actually my favourite one of them all! With the previous two events being quite large and formal, I wanted to do something more informal and intimate. I mean, at the 100k party, I had 100 guests and a few were merely plus one’s for the people who I did know! And then not many people were able to come to my one million party because of the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent lockdown. So, keeping in mind that nothing ever goes perfectly, I decided to host this party at a local café (Dolly Dimples) for nine of the most important people in my life and it’s that which has inspired this post about how much all of the party attendees, and you (as my readers) mean to me…

CELEBRATING ONE MILLION READERS!!!

Having been a Blogger for almost nine years, you’d think I would never run out of words – that I would never become speechless. And I think this should be especially true considering I’m a mental health Blogger, which is arguably the most challenging topic to communicate to others effectively enough to stir compassion and empathy. However, seeing that I’m NOT Disordered has reached over one million readers?!

As with a lot of the milestones I’ve celebrated over the years of my blog, I wanted to use reaching one million readers in a way that would help others. I think it’d be fair to say that usually, my means for helping others has meant advising readers on ways to safely manage their mental health or how to navigate upsetting situations. So this time, I wanted to do it a little bit differently, and considered all the occasions, situations, and stages I wish I’d been advised on during my own blogging career…

NEW BLOGGERS:

The most obvious and first step to advise on, are for the early days of your blog… When I created I’m NOT Disordered in 2013, there were three well-known mental health blogs – one by an ex-service user, one by a psychiatric nurse, and one by a Police Officer who was really passionate and interested in mental health law. 

Whilst this meant that there was a niche for a blog written by a psychiatric hospital inpatient (as I was then), it also meant I had no one to turn to for relevant and actually experienced advice and guidance. And the absence of this meant I got a very terrified and intimidated feeling that almost filled me with a sense that I had to learn things the ‘hard way.’

1.     Don’t be embarrassed to read/watch online tutorials

2.     Utilise hashtags on social media to connect with other Bloggers

3.     Trust your heart as well as your head – don’t second guess yourself

4.     Consider pros and cons to keep your worrying productive and reasonable

5.     Never stop being yourself – no matter how different that may be

PLANNING AHEAD & MENTAL HEALTH | BLOGMAS, ONE MILLION READERS, TRIPS AWAY, ONE YEAR FREE OF SELF-HARM, & ANOTHER GOD-CHILD!!

So, I have a few really important things coming up in my life and they’ve meant that I’ve had numerous conversations with a whole variety of people who have given a mixed response when told that I’m making plans and putting these things into consideration now…

When I was younger, I always felt like there was a plan to things… Like my Mum and I would plan what we’d do the following day – or week(!) – and I almost knew exactly what to expect. And then the abuse happened…

In the beginning – when I first met my abuser – I expected the complete opposite of him starting to hurt me. I had just been attacked on my way to school and my abuser offered to be a source of support for me in volunteering to make himself constantly available to me should I become upset at some point during my school-day. But it was only the third time I utilised that suggestion of support, that it turned into his opportunity to begin hurting me.

I was caught so completely off guard by the abuse – to the point where I considered whether I’d imagined the entire thing – that I instantly began going to extreme measures to avoid spending any time alone with him. But all that initial support and kindness, and the fact he had already held the respect of so many people, meant that when it all twisted and turned into him requesting time with me, no one questioned things!

“IT FEELS SO SURREAL” | EVERYTHING I’M THINKING ABOUT ON THE WAY TO ONE MILLION READERS!!!

Some people may think I’m a bit eager with this blog post, but I think that it’s in my head a lot at the minute because if my daily statistics continue at the very lowest, I’m NOT Disordered should reach one million readers before the end of the year. And figuring this out, meant that I’ve began organizing a private event to celebrate the milestone. Which, again, has drawn my attention to the fact it’s going to happen… When I was telling someone what the party was for, I was asked how it felt – the notion of having one million readers – and I told her it was surreal. But that’s not all that’s in my head around this momentous occasion…

Small beginnings should be recognized and remembered…

Instances like this – getting closer and closer to one million readers – make me so grateful that I can remember the very beginning of I’m NOT Disordered. For those who don’t know the story…

It was January 6^th, 2013 and I had been a psychiatric inpatient since summer 2012 after a suicide attempt left me on life support. I had just had a 1:1 with my Key Nurse and we’d decided that I would start writing a little bit about the abuse I’d experienced when I was younger every night. Agreeing to do this felt like a massive step forward into recovery and it inspired a sense of wanting to document it. So, when I got back to my room from the 1:1 and saw my laptop lying on the bed, I realized that rather than document my progress in one of the many notebooks I wrote in, it might be a better idea to do it online.

I thought that at least that way, my loved ones – family, friends… could join me on the journey and be better placed at understanding what I was experiencing. I hoped that in doing this, they would be able to be even more supportive, they’d be able to help others struggling with their mental health, they’d feel more confident in speaking up about any difficulties they have too, and they’d be better educated in mental illness so as to dispel any stigmatized thoughts and opinions (because even your loved ones can have them!).

9 SPECIAL BLOGGING MOMENTS FOR 900,000 READERS

“To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.”

Anatole France

Going to start this post in the most predictable way by saying that I can’t believe I’m typing a piece about having 900,000 readers on my little mental health! In all fairness, it was only three months ago that I was blogging about reaching 850,000 readers, it’s so obviously surreal and surprising. So, to mark this occasion, I thought instead of talking about the special moments from my personal life and my recovery, I’d talk a bit about some of my most favourite moments in my blogging career from the beginning in 2013…

 

1.    My first blog post

http://www.imnotdisordered.co.uk/2013/01/youve-got-safety-net-dont-snap.html

I always love looking back at this first blog post on I’m NOT Disordered because I still find it so surreal to remember how little my expectations were for my blog. I mean, my initial target audience were my friends and family on my private Facebook account so I couldn’t have ever imagined I would one day be blogging about reaching 900,000 readers!

Honestly, in writing that first post, I couldn’t imagine even just maintaining I’m NOT Disordered and remaining so passionate and dedicated to it over eight years later. I started blogging as an inpatient in a psychiatric hospital so I think it was fairly obvious – at least to me – that it probably wouldn’t continue for very long because chances would be that either a suicide attempt would be ‘successful’, or I would get better and be discharged from hospital.

Not appreciating the potential of I’m NOT Disordered really meant that my first blog post wasn’t all that amazing; it didn’t reflect the importance it has ended up having. It wasn’t particularly special; it wasn’t an announcement or an opportunity or event… it was just me talking about my situation in an honest way. And do you know what, maybe that is a true reflection of all the blog has become eight years later.

Either way, after all that I’ve gone through, I’m someone who doesn’t wince at the thought of looking back at the beginning of something. It’s taken a number of years to develop this mindset because there have been several times that I’ve come close to deleting that first blog post. Then I realised, to do so would be like pretending it hadn’t happened. Pretending I’m NOT Disordered hadn’t begun in the small, naïve way that it did. And beginning in that way, is something I’ve become so proud of and so appreciative of. Something which I’d like to think will give other Bloggers or prospective Bloggers hope to see that a blog can go from that small beginning to this…

50 OF MY FAVOURITE I’M NOT DISORDERED BLOG POSTS | CELEBRATING 850,000 READERS!!

It feels like just yesterday that I was writing the post celebrating 800,000 readers (you can read it here) and now, just over three months later, we’re on 850,000!

I’ve had so many ideas for this blog post, and very quickly realised that I was going to struggle to decide on one particular theme or format for it. I decided that to be celebrating this milestone, the post really should just be about I’m NOT Disordered…

 

THE MONUMENTAL POSTS FOR MY MENTAL HEALTH

RECOVERY:

 

Saturday, 19 January 2013

The Bad Tribunal

www.imnotdisordered.co.uk/2013/01/i-genuinely-believe-she-would-kill.html

 

Thursday, 28 February 2013

The AWOL Procedure

www.imnotdisordered.co.uk/2013/02/and-why-are-you-in-there-because-shes.html

 

Sunday, 14 April 2013

The Photographic Reminder

http://www.imnotdisordered.co.uk/2013/04/be-brave.html

 

Wednesday, 1 May 2013

Psychotherapy Began!!!

http://www.imnotdisordered.co.uk/2013/05/im-only-anxious-because-of-you.html

 

Wednesday, 8 May 2013

I Came So Close

http://www.imnotdisordered.co.uk/2013/05/again.html

 

Monday, 20 May 2013

And Then I Told the Whole Story

http://www.imnotdisordered.co.uk/2013/05/im-going-to-need-lot-of-prn.html