EVERYTHING I’VE ACHIEVED SINCE BEING SECTIONED ONE YEAR AGO

On this day (February 18^th) one year ago, it was the beginning of my most recent detention under section 2 of the 1983 Mental Health Act, and so I obviously wanted to create some content to mark the date. I had a huge brainstorm of what angle to take with the blog post, and I was stuck between talking through the complaint I’d put in regarding many different instances through the admission and the polar opposite of looking at all the achievements I’ve made in this past year. Eventually, I decided to do both! But, they’ll be in separate posts because I wanted to post the achievements piece on the actual anniversary of being sectioned so as to really enhance the idea that it’s actually an achievement in itself to have not been sectioned since then too!

AND THE YEAR 2023 IS COMING TO AN END… | PART ONE

“She remembered who she was, and the game changed.”

Lalah Deliah

So, I began putting together this blog post, the graphics for it, and the reel for my social media accounts that will be added to the end of this piece, and I found myself feeling somewhat comforted and reassured when I realised that there have been some really really amazing moments this past year. In all honesty, my mental health has been in tatters a few times in 2023 (especially recently) so I was pleasantly surprised to find that despite how it feels, actually, that hasn’t been ALL that this year has really been about! So, I feel a lot more eager and excited to get into this blog post which – due to the popularity of it – is actually going to be very similar to the 2022/2023 piece (which you can read here) in terms of it having very little order and I’ve even picked out some of the headings to write about again as well as adding some brand-new bits…

HOW I’VE MADE IT THIS FAR | MY NEW BOOK IS AVAILABLE TO BUY NOW!!! | PART 2 OF 4

*This post is the second of 4 which will be posted every day for the following two days!*

Buy You’re NOT Disordered NOW!!

The three most obvious, go-to answers that you seriously just expect to hear when you ask someone how they have recovered from their mental illness: hospital, medication, and therapy. Fortunately – or unfortunately, I guess, depending upon how you look at it – for me, all three are true…

When my mental health deteriorated it did so in the form of auditory hallucinations, which I somehow ‘tolerated’ for around ten days before finally making my first suicide attempt. After passing out at school I was taken to hospital in an ambulance and then I ran away. The Police were called and when they found me when I had almost reached the nearby bus station, they detained me under section 136 of the 1983 Mental Health Act and I was pretty much thrown into their car and driven back to hospital where a Mental Health Act assessment promptly took place in a little room I’d never been in before in A&E. I honestly don’t’ remember much about it, just that I was told the Police could finally go and if I continued to try and leave the hospital then the staff were now allowed to restrain me, sedate me, and force me to finish the necessary, potentially life-saving medical treatment to counteract my suicide attempt.

HOW I’VE MADE IT THIS FAR | MY NEW BOOK IS AVAILABLE TO BUY NOW!!! | PART 1 OF 4

Buy You’re NOT Disordered NOW!!

*This post is the first of 4 which will be published every day for the following 3 days!*  

If you’ve read I’m NOT Disordered for a while or have seen the cover graphic to the left of the blog posts, then you’ll probably know that I released a book a few years ago called Everything Disordered (which you can also buy on Amazon - just click on the cover!) and I was honestly worried that having already written a book, the importance and meaning would be taken away in publishing another. Fortunately, the entire process of YND – from having the idea for it to the publication party and everything in between! – has (for so many reasons) felt massively different from that which I experienced with my first book. And one of the largest differences has been the sense of achievement and the notion that it really is a true testament to the progress I’ve made; both in my blogging career and in my mental health recovery journey…

WRITING THE FOREWORD FOR MY FRIEND'S BOOK BY MARTIN BAKER | 7 DAYS UNTIL YOU'RE NOT DISORDERED PUBLISHES!!!

Foreword /ˈfɔːwəːd/ 

Noun: a short introduction to a book, typically by a person other than the author. 

 

Would you mind writing a foreword for me?  

I was happy and proud earlier this year when my friend Aimee Wilson invited me to write the foreword for her new book You’re NOT Disordered: The Ultimate Wellbeing Guide for Bloggers. It was a great honour and responsibility, and something I took very seriously. I remember when Fran and I were looking for someone to write the foreword for our book High Tide, Low Tide: The Caring Friend’s Guide to Bipolar Disorder. It was important to find someone we trusted, who also had relevant experience and standing. For Aimee to extend me that degree of trust meant a great deal, not least because I knew how important her writing in general — and this book in particular — was to her.  

MOST NECESSARY ITEMS FOR WRITING A BOOK | 25 DAYS UNTIL YOU’RE NOT DISORDERED IS PUBLISHED!!! | IN COLLABORATION WITH AMAZON UK

Earlier this year, in January, I published a post celebrating the tenth Birthday of I’m NOT Disordered and at the end of it, I finally announced that I had been working on a new book (you can read the post here). I set the publication date at April 20^th (the anniversary of the abuse ‘ending’) but in February, I was sectioned and hospitalised for ten days and that really ate into my valuable writing time and left me having to write a blog post (which you can read here) that explained my decision to delay the publication to November 18^th (the anniversary of the start of the abuse). After finally being discharged from the psychiatric hospital, I decided to publish a post (which you can read here) revealing the title for the book: You’re NOT Disordered: The Ultimate Wellbeing Guide for Bloggers. Finally, in June 2023, I revealed my book’s cover in a post (which you can read here) that talked about why I care what you all think. And now, with just 25 days until the publication of You’re NOT Disordered (or YND), I thought I’d tell you the five items I think are most needed for writing a book…

WORLD MENTAL HEALTH DAY 2023 | IN COLLABORATION WITH RICHMOND FELLOWSHIP

I won’t lie, I kind of failed to think about the fact that not everyone has Twitter (X) or Instagram and so, if I don’t share my World Mental Health Day content with Richmond Fellowship on I’m NOT Disordered, you guys might not ever see our content!

So, over on their Twitter account was this…

RE-EVALUATING MY ENTIRE LIFE

“Evaluate yourself and your calling worthily enough, and be proud of it.”

Sunday Adelaja

Even if you only really ‘know’ me through, I’m NOT Disordered or via my social media (@aimes_wilson on Instagram and Twitter), then you will likely be aware of the massive mental health relapse I’ve been going through for around a month. What you likely won’t know – because even those who actually ‘know’ me don’t all know! – is that this relapse is the result of a ‘psychotic episode’ that has mainly evolved around me having these two ‘delusional beliefs’ that have massively impacted my safety on far too many occasions and to far too great a degree of severity. In the last three weeks alone, I’ve had to attend my local A&E several times, have ended up in resuscitation, have been sedated, I’ve also even required surgery because my conviction of these beliefs has been so great, powerful, and overwhelming. These instances – and numerous other situations I’ve found myself in recently – have resulted in me engaging in some very difficult conversations with a variety of people, and it was one of these, that has led to this blog post…

WHY I CARE WHAT YOU THINK | YOU’RE NOT DISORDERED COVER REVEAL!!! | IN COLLABORATION WITH DINKY DESIGNS FROM ETSY UK & INCLUDING A DISCOUNT CODE!!!

This post is in collaboration with the Etsy store: Dinky Designs who created the board of You’re NOT Disordered’s front cover that is featured below. In celebration of You’re NOT Disordered’s cover release, they’ve kindly created a 20% discount code for any of their products, just type the below in at the checkout:

YND20

So, for well over a year now, I’ve been working on a new book; You’re NOT Disordered: The Ultimate Wellbeing Guide for Bloggers (I revealed the title here). I actually originally had the idea way back before I published my first book: Everything Disordered (which you can buy here) in 2021, but I decided to work on the brainwave for that one first! So, it feels like You’re NOT Disordered has been a long time coming and that has become especially true since having to push back the publication date this year from the original date of April 20^th to November 18^th due to my mental health relapse and hospital admission in February (you can read more about that decision here). So, this post just in itself actually feels like it’s been in the works for forever too because since the moment I felt content with the cover design (a good few months ago now), I wanted to reveal it to you all!

Eventually, it’s here though; the cover (on a board which you can buy here from Dinky Designs) and a little chat on why your thoughts, feelings, and opinions matter so much to me…

MASSIVE PROJECT TITLE REVEAL!!!

“Without leaps of imagination or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning”

Gloria Steinem

So, my last blog post was kind of quick, wasn’t it? I thought of it as literally a little note to explain why I wasn’t able to blog so much, because I really didn’t want to lose any of you guys by being silent for so long. So, to show my gratitude and appreciation for your loyalty and support, I wanted to create this very special post. Having mentioned numerous times across my social media and in the last blog post that I’m doing a ‘huge project’, it’s finally time to reveal what that is…