WHERE IS MY MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS WEEK CONTENT? | IN COLLABORATION WITH LEAPS, NATIONAL TRUST, & ENGLISH HERITAGE | AD

We all want quiet. We all want beauty… We all need space. Unless we have it, we cannot reach that sense of quiet in which whispers of better things come to us gently.

Octavia Hill, Co-founder of the National Trust

Happy Mental Health Awareness Week!

This year is a bit different; I’ve been so busy recently that I honestly didn’t have the time to dedicate to producing an entire week of content for I’m NOT Disordered AND for LEAPS (the support group for the unwaged which I am Chair of). So, when I managed to secure a bit of a last-minute collaboration with National Trust and English Heritage, I decided that rather than add to my blog’s huge roster of collaborations(!), I would use the collaboration for LEAPS. To keep you interested in still paying a little visit to www.leapsonline.co.uk I thought I’d use this blog post as a chance to tell you my favourite bits of each section of my Mental Health Awareness Week post for LEAPS (which you can read here: https://www.leapsonline.co.uk/2021/05/a-chat-about-nature-mental-health.html )…

‘Children & Nature’ – Favourite Bits:

Anyone who has read I’m NOT Disordered before or who knows me personally, will know how much I dote on my godchildren so it felt sort of obvious that I would somehow manage to incorporate them into the nature theme of this year’s Mental Health Awareness Week.

So honestly, just having the opportunity to talk about my godchildren is thrilling; but I think my favourite part of that section was when I got the chance too do a bit of research into different locations under the care of English Heritage and National Trust which are child-friendly. Finding these places has given me a lot of inspiration for activities with my godchildren.

 

‘Nature with National Trust’ – Favourite Bits:

In writing this section about National Trust, I went through their website to create a little overview of the organisation for any readers unfamiliar with them. I also went on to look up the National Trust sites I’ve visited and then listed them alongside the places I’d love to go to.

BLOGMAS 2019 – POST TWENTY : BRINGING LIGHT TO MY LIFE | CHRISTMAS AT CRAGSIDE | NATIONAL TRUST | AD

Thanks to a poll on my Twitter back in November, my wonderful followers decided that I should publish a blog post and film a vlog every day for the entirety of December! 

So welcome to December 20th…

I really struggled to come up with content for this post with me never doing the basic ‘today we went here, and we did that’ kind of posts so I enlisted the help of fellow Blogger; Martin Baker!

Cragside, a National Trust site in Northumberland, was the first home to be lit by hydroelectricity which made the Victorian House years ahead of its time with its ingenious gadgets and modern conveniences. This has inspired my post – featuring photos from my visit there – to be about what brings light to my life when things get dark! I won’t lie, I struggled to avoid saying the same things as in post nineteen about what makes me happy, so I’ve been a bit more general…



Love

When my mental health was poorly, I didn’t - for one minute - think that I had the capability to love someone the way I knew that my Mum loved me; I’ve always been very lucky in that way - that I’ve always felt loved by someone special. My Mum has always said that she’d walk over hot coals for me, and I’d always nodded and smiled and felt all warm inside, but I’d never really understood that feeling or felt it towards another person. Of course, I love my Mum and my family but when I was poorly it felt as though I couldn’t love them properly. It was as if there was a range of 0 to 10 but my love could only reach 7 and not because I chose to, but because that’s the most I was capable of. And it wasn’t just love, it was happiness, excitement… all of the positive emotions; as though my mental health had deteriorated so much that I could only experience negative feelings to such an overwhelming degree as a ‘10’.

BLOGMAS 2019 – POST EIGHTEEN : A QUICK GUIDE TO CHRISTMAS DÉCOR | CHRISTMAS AT WALLINGTON HALL | NATIONAL TRUST | AD

Thanks to a poll on my Twitter back in November, my wonderful followers decided that I should publish a blog post and film a vlog every day for the entirety of December! 

So welcome to December 18th…

Once again, it took me so long to come up with content for this post; especially since I have a ton of pictures for it because that made me think that I needed to write something quite lengthy… but it was when I was looking through the pictures that I came up with the inspiration for this post… ‘A Quick Guide to Christmas Décor!’ You see, I’ve been to Wallington Hall before so going there this time was literally just about seeing how they decorate the National Trust site for Christmas time!


I find that Christmas décor can be very controversial and even competitive! Some stores will sell a few different ranges/styles of decorations whilst others retail one main design; all competing against one another for the value of their products through quality and price. But it isn’t just about retailers competing; I don’t about anywhere else but - it seems that in my estate – each house wants to have the most garden lights or the biggest ‘Santa Stop Here!’ signs and the bushiest Christmas trees peeking through their curtains!


I grew up having a massive Christmas tree with my Mum and each year we’d buy a new, special decoration for it. In my later teenage years, I got my own tree for my bedroom; a little neon pink one with built-in lights from W H Smith and mini decorations from Paperchase. I think that even though it was an incredibly youthful one, I still felt grown-up having my own Christmas tree!

24HRS WITH... EMMA THOMAS, GENERAL MANAGER OF NATIONAL TRUST SITE: SEATON DELAVAL HALL | NATIONAL TRUST

24 hours with... Emma Thomas, General Manager, Seaton Delaval Hall

Date: 7 August

Why have you chosen to write about today?

It’s the Seaton Delaval Hall staff and volunteer Bake Off today and hopefully a busy day with lots of visitors enjoying the hall and gardens and taking part in our illusion themed week of family activities.



The Bake Off today is the return match, when staff bake, and volunteers judge. At the start of the summer, volunteers baked and staff judged. It’s organised by 1 of our volunteers and always good fun.


Good morning!

TWO WAYS TO SURVIVE WITH NO SIGNAL | WALLINGTON HALL | NATIONAL TRUST | AD

As you may have guessed by the title, on a recent trip to Wallington Hall (a National Trust site) I was distraught, to discover that being so far out in the countryside meant I had no signal!

1.     UNDERSTAND YOUR ANXIETY

My family made a joke about whether I would survive this situation and whilst, yes – I laughed along; I also found myself feeling anxious at the thought of being unable to tweet.

That sounds bad. But no, it was also about my longstanding phobia of letting people down because I’d promised my followers that they could come along with me for the day and then I was unable to deliver that. I guess it became about the importance that ‘keeping your word’ has for me; when I was poorly I was regularly let down by a lot of people (mostly

MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS WEEK WITH I'M NOT DISORDERED | POST FIVE | COLLABORATION WITH THE NATIONAL TRUST | HOW TRIPS OUT CAN HELP MANAGE YOUR STRESS LEVELS | CRAGSIDE | AD

https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/campaigns/mental-health-awareness-week

As much as I enjoy my work/what I do – and I know I’m incredibly lucky to have this – sometimes I need a break. A little time to myself or to do something fun and exciting and interesting.

I try to have at least one day a week completely to myself to spend time in my home with my pets (I have a cat called Dolly and a bunny called Pixie). I’ll sleep in, watch Pretty Little Liars on Netflix, plan on The Sims(Freeplay), eat, and have a little pamper session with nail painting, face masks, pore strips, and a shower. And obviously finish the day off with a cold Baileys!!

HOW I LEARNT TO REPLACE BAD MEMORIES ON MY VISIT TO NATIONAL TRUST SITE; SEATON DELEVAL HALL

When I reached 100,000 readers, I threw a party. There was a moment, during the celebrations, when I was on the dance floor; the Kaiser Chiefs – Mr Brightside was playing, and I was surrounded by my best-friends… I remember standing, arms outstretched, eyes closed, and taking in that moment. Letting it sink into my soul. And to this day (two years later), it remains THE greatest night of my life.