DAY ELEVEN | A SECRET BLOGMAS 2025

“Leadership is about empathy. It is about having the ability to relate to and connect with people for the purpose of inspiring and empowering their lives.”

Oprah Winfrey

Welcome to A Secret Blogmas 2025!

Today is Day Eleven and this eleventh post is all about the beneficial impact there is if you – as a content creator – publish content that is empathetic towards your audience or followers.   I’ll discuss writing trigger warnings and self-care advice and other strategies of showing empathy as a result of the recognition as to how beneficial it can become. Keep reading to find out why and how being validating of your audience can impact the success and popularity of your content and/or your platform…

BUDGET BLOGMAS | DAY TWENTY-TWO: BUDGET SELF-CARE GUIDE | IN COLLABORATION WITH PRETTY PERFECT PRODUCTS | AD

Hello and welcome to I’m NOT Disordered’s Budget Blogmas!

So, we’re almost done! And I honestly can’t believe it! With Christmas just days away, I wanted to share some items that will help with the importance of self-care over the potentially very stressful holiday period…

 

La Jolie Muse Candle: £18.99

Neom Diffuser: £25.00

Christmas Colouring Book: £5.99

This Works Gift Set: £9.00

Christmas Blanket: £21.99

 

BLOGMAS 2020 WITH I’M NOT DISORDERED | RECOMMENDATION FIVE: SELF SOOTHING | IN COLLABORATION WITH SUPERDRUG & MADE BY GEORGIA MAI | AD

Hello and welcome to recommendation number five of Blogmas 2020 with I’m NOT Disordered!

Today, I’ll be talking about the importance of self-care for your mental health and how vital it has been to stabilise my own. This post is in collaboration with Superdrug, so I’ll also be recommending some bits I’ve picked out from their website!

In 2011, my Mum and I found out about Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) after a Psychiatrist mentioned that it was the recommended treatment for someone with my diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). She and I were baffled as to why I’d had the diagnosis for two years and had spent those years in and out of psychiatric hospitals, self-harming, and attempting suicide, yet we’d never even heard of DBT!

Unfortunately, the mental health services in my locality were very limited in supporting someone with BPD and there really wasn’t anyone specialising in treating someone with the diagnosis through DBT. It meant that when a suicide attempt left me on life support in intensive care, the professionals were sort of forced to transfer me to a specialist psychiatric hospital over 100 miles away from my home and my loved ones. It wasn’t that infuriating until a member of the hospital’s staff commented that if I’d lived in their locality, I would’ve had the treatment so much sooner. Postcode lottery.

MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS WEEK 2020 POST FIVE | ACTS OF SELF-CARE AS KINDNESS

self-care

[sɛlfˈkɛː]

NOUN

1.       the practice of taking action to preserve or improve one's own health

 "autonomy in self-care and insulin administration"

2.       the practice of taking an active role in protecting one's own well-being and happiness, in particular during periods of stress

"expressing oneself is an essential form of self-care"

There are so many forms of self-care that I had considered separating them onto each day of Mental Health Awareness Week (MHAW) but then I had my other ideas so here they all are in one post. One post about how important each act of self-care is, how I practice and benefit from them, and tips for you to utilize them too!

Sleep

I don’t know about anyone else, but my sleep pattern has gone to complete… poo since lockdown began! I guess because I’ve felt as though I’ve not had any real need to be up and to go to bed and a specific time. Before lockdown, my sleep wasn’t the greatest, but at least I had commitments to motivate me to wake up and go to bed at an acceptable hour! Reasons to set my alarm. Now though, it really doesn’t matter if I sleep through the daytime and have all my energy at night. I think that as long as I can be awake when I need to – like for my phone call appointments with my Community Psychiatric Nurse (CPN) and Support Worker, then that’s all that really matters.

MY TOP TEN SELF-CARE PRODUCTS TO GET YOU THROUGH THE LOCKDOWN | ASOS, BOOTS, AMAZON, B&M & DISNEY

 So, there’s been a lot of tweets recently of people sharing their Amazon Wishlist’s for complete strangers to purchase items for them… I think it’s not just an incredibly kind and generous (no matter the price of the item) gesture, but it’s also illustrating the power and influence that material items can have on your mental wellbeing. I’ve been called ‘materialistic’ a number of times over the years and at first, I would argue against the label which seemed so offensive; and then I realized that the fact I appreciate material things and find that they benefit my mental health shouldn’t be an insult!

So, with that in mind; I’ve put together a little list of self-care products that I think could help you through the Coronavirus Lockdown…

1.       Anatomicals Cruisin’ For A Snozzin’ Sleep Kit £8.50