WHY THERE’S NOTHING WRONG WITH PRIORITIZING YOURSELF | 10 FEEL-GOOD BUYS | IN COLLABORATION WITH COMFY FOX CO. | AD

https://www.instagram.com/comfyfoxco/

https://www.facebook.com/comfyfoxco/

Originally, this was going to be a Valentines post but there’s now something VERY special planned with Cats Protection (if you’re a cat owner and would like to be involved in the collab, drop me an email or message on any of my social media!) so that’s V Day sorted! So, instead, I decided to use this post as the perfect opportunity to collaborate with another amazing organization; Comfy Fox Co.


I first came across this store a few weeks ago when the owner; Kerene, added me after a friend of my best-friend saw she was struggling with her mental health and told her about I’m NOT Disordered. Firstly, I was honoured that this friend felt my blog was good enough to advise someone check it out; and when I found that Kerene had a shop (Comfy Fox Co.) and saw some of her amazing products, I was even more grateful for the recommendation!

“YOU’LL NEVER WALK ALONE” | WHY TEAMWORK IS SO IMPORTANT IN MENTAL HEALTH | IN COLLABORATION WITH LIVERPOOL FOOTBALL CLUB | AD

So, the other day was special for two reasons, firstly; it was Time To Talk Day (you can read my post about it here) and second, it was my Mum’s Birthday!



After deciding that we should have a day out somewhere, we finally decided on Liverpool because Mum has always supported Liverpool Football Club (you can leave your hate and trolling here, it isn’t welcome on this blog!) and has never visited their Stadium; Anfield. So we booked some first class train tickets with Transpennine Express (who we weren’t particularly impressed by) to travel down early in the morning, and requested tickets for the Anfield Stadium tour later in the afternoon.

TIME TO TALK DAY 2020

https://www.time-to-change.org.uk/get-involved/time-talk-day

This year, for Time To Talk Day I’ll be celebrating my Mum’s Birthday so I’ve had to reject all of the event invitations for the day and decided instead to schedule this post in advance so that I can really dedicate my day to my Mum!


Note: For 2020’s Time To Talk Day, Time To Change have chosen to base the theme around the popular game; ‘Would You Rather?’ so this blog post will be in keeping with that…


Would You Rather is a bit of a controversial topic in mental health I think because a lot of people are very – and rightly so – defensive of their actions and decisions where mental health is concerned and particularly where self-harm is involved. I guess that a lot of that comes from the feeling that self-harm isn’t very often a ‘decision’ because it can sound as though a person is choosing to self-harm rather than feeling that it isn’t an option. Of course, if it were, then they wouldn’t choose self-harm and all of the negative consequences that come from it! Another reasoning for some finding the idea of mental health being a choice is the thought of what has led them to be struggling the way that they are. For me, if I could have made any decisions around the trauma, I went through which triggered my ill mental health, then I would have most definitely opted to have not experienced any of it! Or would I?! And here’s where Would You Rather comes in!

TWENTY-NINE HIGHLIGHTS FOR MY TWENTY-NINETH BIRTHDAY!!

To go from having mental health professionals predict that you won’t make it to your nineteenth Birthday; to turning twenty-nine, is a bit of a shock to the system, so excuse me while I take a deep breath before I start this post!

This is one particular time of the year where I’m really thankful for I’m NOT Disordered because it’s meant that I’ve got a record of each of my Birthdays for the last seven years: 


When I turned Twenty-Eight last year, I talked about the 28 things I was looking forward to. For turning Twenty-Seven, I blogged  27 things I was thankful for. For my Twenty-Sixth, I wrote about the things my Birthday had made me think about. When I turned Twenty-Five, I talked about the 25 reasons why I was glad I had made it to that age. On turning Twenty-Four, I blogged about the 24 lessons I had learnt over the years. Turning Twenty-Three in 2014 I wrote about what I’d done to celebrate the day. Then, for my first Birthday on I’m  NOT  Disordered, when I turned Twenty-Two, I talked about how it felt spending my Birthday in a psychiatric hospital over 100 miles away from home. 


This year, for me, is a lot about reflection and appreciating how far I’ve come in my life and particularly with my mental health. So, I thought I’d go through each post and pick out 4 highlights from each and talk about them a bit more below (and number 29 will be something special)…

LYING & EXAGGERATING IN MENTAL HEALTH

“Things come apart so easily when they have been held together by lies”

Dorothy Allison

The inspiration for this post came when I was in Accident and Emergency (A&E) after my EPL tendon repair snapped (to read about the surgery, go here) and after being given painkillers and an emergency appointment at the Plastic Surgery Trauma Clinic, I was on my way out when I overheard a conversation… A girl had told her friends and the Doctors that she’d taken an overdose but – to one side of the waiting room – the Doctor told her that her blood tests had proven that she hadn’t; and after admitting to the lie, the Doctor asked her to leave the hospital. Outside the doors, her accompanying friends then promptly ripped her to shreds (verbally!), shouting that she was a liar and that they had wasted their time sitting with her in A&E.


Now, I feel like there’ll be three schools of thought on this one… There’ll be people who agree with those friends and think that the girl is disgraceful for lying about something like that. There’ll be others who think that the focus shouldn’t be on the lie; it should be about why she told that lie and the attention put into supporting the girl. Finally, there’ll be people who are balanced and can see the truth in both of the previous two thought processes. Me? I think I’m going to be pretty balanced on this one – something which might surprise some of you who know that overdosing is something I have experience of. Maybe that makes me more entitled to be angered by the lie; the fact that I have actual experience of the horrors of overdosing – the shame in telling others what you’ve done, the physical side-effects of anti-dote treatment, the subsequent mental health reviews…