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 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…

THE 12 BIGGEST MOMENTS IN MY BLOGGING CAREER & A WHOLE NEW LOOK | HAPPY 12th BIRTHDAY, I’M NOT DISORDERED!!!

I’m going to start in a very stereotypical way right now; I cannot believe I’m writing a blog post for I’m NOT Disordered’s TWELTH Birthday! Like, where did the years go?! How did they whiz by so fast that I feel like I barely even noticed them? Yet, at the same time, I remember how very hard I’ve worked and how many amazing opportunities I’ve had/done. Whilst this twelfth Birthday has me feeling quite old, I’m also very grateful for it being a chance to reflect on my blogging career and pick out twelve amazing moments that I feel have really contributed to my blog’s success and my own skills, talents, and experience. You might also notice; the blog has a whole new look and a brand-new logo! This has been in the planning for a while now and a lot of thought has gone into it, so I really hope you all like it…

RELATING TO DEFYING GRAVITY LYRICS FROM THE MUSICAL: WICKED

“Happy is what happens when all your dreams come true.”

Stephen Schwartz, Thank Goodness, Wicked: The Musical

If you have a social media account, you’ll likely agree with me when I say that Wicked is everywhere right now! The release of the new movie, starring Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo, is based on the original musical and it seems to be really trending right now – especially their skit for Jimmy Fallon (which you can watch here). And so, I decided to jump on the bandwagon with this blog post where I’ll be picking out some lyrics (you can read all of them here) from the Wicked song; Defying Gravity and illustrating how I relate to each bit…

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…

MY BLOGGING GAME-CHANGER: CANVA | IN COLLABORATION WITH CANVA

“When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not yet ready. The challenge will not wait.”

Paulo Coelho

When planning another blog post, I was looking through my archive and came across a post from way back in 2015 where I talked about all the things which had contributed to changes in my blog and blogging career in general (you can read it here). On reading it, obviously a lot has changed since then and because the post had actually proven to be fairly popular, I started to think of an updated version, and the first game-changer that came to mind was Canva, and so, this post is in collaboration with the incredible online design and publishing tool that has really helped me to bring so much more to I’m NOT Disordered…

*There's also an FAQ with Canva on my Instagram: @aimes_wilson*

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.

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…

WHY COLLABORATIONS CAN BE ALL ABOUT LEARNING AS YOU GO | IN COLLABORATION WITH EDINBURGH BUS TOURS | AD

“Those who do not understand the power of collaboration always struggle for growth”

Anuj Jasani

In June, I took a trip to Edinburgh and decided to go on one of the Edinburgh Bus Tour routes (the Majestic option) and I enjoyed it so much we’ve decided to collaborate again (you can read our first collaboration here). So, whilst this piece is inspired by my recent visit back up there and the photos are from my experience of another of their routes; I’ll be chatting more about the fact this is our second time working together. So, here’s my thoughts on the fact that landing collaborations can be a ‘learn-as-you-go’ kind of process…

FROM BLOGGING TIPS TO MENTAL HEALTH DIAGNOSIS | EVERYTHING YOU ASKED MARTIN BAKER & I | IN COLLABORATION WITH GUMONMYSHOE.COM

You can read Martin’s answers over on: www.gumonmyshoe.com

So a while ago I asked you all to send in questions you’d like to ask me and one of my best friends and fellow blogger, Martin Baker. Of course I was bombarded and so I had to work really hard to whittle them down to the following questions…

Do you feel under pressure to keep going with your blog? 

I used to. I think there was a point where I was really blogging for the sake of others… I recognised that I was maintaining it purely because I liked the idea of it helping others. In seeing that my recovery was giving people hope, encouraging them to reach out for help and support, and enabling them to feel less alone, I felt that I couldn’t stop blogging because it would be taking that away from them.

However, when I decided to close I’m NOT Disordered down in 2014, I found myself truly missing it. I was finally recognising that, actually, I – and my mental health in particular – were massively benefiting from blogging. In ending my blog, I struggled to really process my thoughts and feelings and to better understand my decisions, and the loss of the ability to do this meant that I became unsafe again and started to really struggle. That experience – of not blogging – has meant that I now blog completely for me but balance that with still considering how my readers would feel or think of the content I produce. And I really hope that shows.

LESSONS LEARNT FROM I'M NOT DISORDERED'S FIRST POSTS | MARKING EIGHT YEARS SINCE BEING SECTIONED FOR 2.5 YEARS

Earlier this month (July 17^th), it was eight years to the date of me being sectioned and beginning a two-and-a-half-year long admission in a psychiatric hospital which specialised in Personality Disorders...

For the three years previously to that admission, I’d been in and out of both psychiatric and medical hospitals because my local NHS mental health Trust had no services specifically for someone with a Personality Disorder diagnosis. The lack of understanding from the professionals who – in my opinion – should have actually been the most knowledgeable people in providing help and support, contributed to a number of other reasons why I had made two suicide attempts and self harmed on a number of occasions. The lack of services in my locality was also a reasons why, when I ended up on life support after a third suicide attempt, the professionals made the decision to admit me to a private hospital over 100 miles away from home, where the ‘average length of admission, was 12 – 18 months.

After around six or seven months in the hospital, I had a really positive 1:1 with my Key Nurse and it felt like such a productive step toward recovery, that I decided I wanted to document it in some way. And so, I’m NOT Disordered was born and my blogging career began.

BUDGET BLOGMAS | DAY TWO: WHY MONEY IS SO IMPORTANT IN BLOGGING & SOME ADVICE ON IT | IN COLLABORATION WITH PRETTY PERFECT PRODUCTS | AD

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

I thought that after the introductory post yesterday I should start off the real content with a bit of a typical and perhaps predictable piece about money and why it’s important enough to be a theme for an entire series of Blogmas…

I think it’d be really plain for me to sit here and talk about how I was raised around money and budgeting. To tell you that whilst I don’t remember ever wanting or being deprived of anything; I also wasn’t spoilt and never revelled in pocket money or being given gifts when it wasn’t even a special occasion! It meant that I was taught to respect and appreciate money and was always so aware (whilst not being made to feel ungrateful or indebted) that not everyone had the same abilities where money and budgeting was concerned. 

Like I said, that’s the plain side of this; now for a different look at the same issue…

When I first created, I’m NOT Disordered in 2013, blogging wasn’t really a ‘thing’ especially on a mental health theme. At the time, I knew of three well-known mental health blogs and none of them were written by a psychiatric hospital inpatient (as I was then). Whilst this was mostly beneficial because it meant that I had instantly found a niche for my blog and that has probably contributed to its popularity, it was also kind of scary. I felt like there was no one’s footsteps to follow in. No one to guide the way. No one to give me the heads up on the challenges I might face in blogging.

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

FIVE OF THE MOST ESSENTIAL REMINDERS FOR BLOGGERS | IN COLLABORATION WITH PRETTY PERFECT PRODUCTS | AD

So I’ve spent a fair amount of time recently working on my blog posts for Blogmas (I’ll be publishing one post each day from December 1st to Christmas) and I began considering ways to remind you all that there’s still a discount code (it’s at the end of this post!) valid with my Blogmas collaborator; Pretty Perfect Products! On thinking up ways to do this, I had the realisation that ‘reminders’ - in general - are actually very important and with my collaboration centring around their Christmas Planner, I thought it would be a really relevant topic…

I met someone new the other day and he asked me what I do for a living and I talked about blogging and he asked if I made any money from it, and I was like; “no… I could but no,” and then he said “why do you do it then?!” And I told him: “because I love it!”

When I first created I’m NOT Disordered In 2013, I was a sectioned psychiatric hospital inpatient and my reasons for starting to blog were largely centred around the inclination to better the knowledge and understanding of mental health in my friends and family. 

Even though no one in my life had ever made any derogatory comments around mental health, I felt ashamed and embarrassed to talk about my own experiences around the subject. But after a suicide attempt left me on life support in Intensive Care, and I came round from the coma to be told I’d be going to a psychiatric hospital over 100 miles away where the ‘average length of admission’ was 12 - 18 months; I realised I couldn’t lie my way out of that. I mean, I did think about it - I wondered if I should say I was going to University there or something(!) but I realised that I’d probably want to talk about what was happening throughout my hospital admission. And I finally found myself at a point where I felt robust enough to talk about my mental health without allowing any negative comments to impact me.

EVERYTHING YOU WANT TO KNOW | MY FAQ’S

It would probably come as no surprise – given you can see my number of readers (those numbers on the right hand side) – to tell you that I get a vast number of emails and messages across my social media every day. In all honesty, when it first escalated, I would stress myself out trying to give an efficient, speedy response to absolutely everyone. I pressured myself and thought that if all these people had taken the time it sit down and write a message for me, the least I could do was reply! I noticed this mindset wasn’t helpful for my mental health and decided that I would acknowledge the emails and occasionally give a brief response where necessary. But I soon got the distinct impression that I was repeating myself. A lot. So, here are my answers to my more frequently asked questions…

Mental Health:

What’s your diagnosis?

I was firstly diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) in 2009 and then I had a secondary (though recently it has become primary) diagnosis of Transient Psychosis. 

You can learn more about BPD: https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/conditions/borderline-personality-disorder/diagnosis/

And Transient Psychosis: https://www.dynamed.com/condition/brief-psychotic-disorder

Why do you have hallucinations?

So, initially my auditory and visual hallucinations were defined as being caused my the traumas I have experienced. The thought some professionals had was that since I disassociated during the abuse, maybe I’d kind of separated parts of myself off and they had formed the individual voices I used to hear. Then, the visual hallucinations which were primarily of rabbits, were thought to have been caused by the fact that when I was little I had two rabbits who killed their babies.

THE REALITY OF INEQUALITY IN BLOGGING | WORLD MENTAL HEALTH DAY 2021

You swore and said we are not

We are not shining stars

This I know, I never said we are

Fun – Carry On

With this year’s theme for World Mental Health Day being ‘mental health in an unequal world’ I’ve toyed with a number of ideas for creating a blog post with it in mind. No matter which angle I attempted to write from though, I found myself always talking about the inequality I’ve experienced in the blogging world. Whilst I realise this might seem completely different, superficial, and irrelevant to mental health, my blog has had an enormous impact on my mental health…

When I first created I’m NOT Disordered in 2013, I’d only heard of three mental health blogs: one was by a psychiatric nurse, another by an ex-service user, and one from a Police Officer with a keen interest in mental health law. 

This lack of mental health themed content, firstly meant a distinct absence of inequality because there was no real competition. I don’t really like to use the word ‘competition’ because I don’t agree with the feature of it in the blogging world, but the post is titled ‘the reality’ and competitiveness is definitely real in the industry!

To me, bloggers should be supportive of one another rather than competitive and determined to ‘one up’ someone else. And I believe they definitely shouldn’t be blogging purely to compete with another blogger. To me, that says they’re in this for all the wrong reasons – similarly to when someone creates a blog with the expectation and only drive being that they might receive freebies! Having bloggers like that out there, actually ends up setting a poor example for the rest of us who are in it for the more meaningful gains e.g. psychological or emotional benefits, or sheer enjoyment.  

EVERYTHING 800,000 READERS HAS MADE ME THINK ABOUT

WHY IT’S SO SPECIAL

I was talking to my Mum today about this one… As you probably all know, I’m already working on the Christmas content for I’m NOT Disordered (if you’re wondering why, read this post) and a huge reason for that is because my mental health is so much more stable that I feel more excited and happy for things in life. And 800,000 readers are obviously one of those things!

I worried that it’d seem weird celebrating reaching a sort of random milestone in my reader counter. I mean, the more obvious ones were 100,000, half a million, and then three quarters of a million… and you’d probably think the next celebration would be reaching one million but here I am, emotional and typing about 800,000!

And it isn’t necessarily that this feels any more of an achievement; just that I feel more able to really soak it in… It’s like my head seems clearer; no longer occupied by hallucinations so that it’s fully mine and mine alone. And having the opportunity to really feel like myself, really gives me the ability to work so much harder and be so much more dedicated to the content I create.

Before, when the voices seemed to control over half of my head, it was almost as though all my energies went into either fighting to silence them, or doing what they were commanding and self-harming or attempting suicide. I had no motivation left to produce unique and imaginative content. I was unable to chase my dreams because I wasn’t all too sure whether they were even mine. I began to lose understanding of which thoughts and feelings I actually owned and what had been put there by the hallucinations. I mean, even if I felt suicidal, I wasn’t sure if it was coming from me or them! And I almost felt like a fraud. Like I was pretending to be a person and that actually, I was just this hollow body full of these voices with beliefs and personalities of their own.

EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE MEDIA & MENTAL HEALTH | IN COLLABORATION WITH TIME TO CHANGE STORYCAMP 2020

The latest theme for Time To Change StoryCamp 2020 is mental health and the media and I thought it might be a good opportunity to talk about my own experiences with the topic, the positives and negatives I’ve discovered, and my advice on dealing with those negatives of the media…

My first memory of the media

I guess that my first real recollection of the media and the impact it could have on the world was when my cartoons were paused to break the news of the death of Princess Diana in 1997 – when I was just six years old! I guess this meant that the first thing I learnt was that horrific stories could put a stop to fun and laughter. They could over-rule them, take priority and become the focus for everyone. I also saw how media can influence your feelings in projecting emotions appropriate to the content. Finally, with the circumstances of the Princess’s death being around photographers chasing her car (I realise this is debateable!) I saw the impact the media can have on a more practical level and that once you’re in the ‘spotlight’ you can almost completely lose any sense of privacy.



The lack of content on some topics

My next thoughts on the media have come through the abuse I experienced when I was 15. In 2006, when the abuse started, I felt that there weren’t a whole lot of stories in the media about abuse and rape. The lack of this content meant that the only reason I suspected what was happening to me was wrong was because it hurt so much! The absence of these stories also meant that I felt so alone in my experiences and thought I was literally the only person in the world who had ever been raped or abused. Feeling lonely with something like that can be so debilitating because you’re thinking that you can’t talk to someone as they won’t be able to empathise, understand, or identify in any way.

There was also a huge lack for content on mental health, suicide, and self-harm back then which meant that I was absolutely terrified when I started experiencing hallucinations and thoughts to self-harm and attempt suicide. I think that it stemmed from the fact that without any information to the contrary, I thought if I told anyone what I was experiencing and feeling I’d be locked away in a psychiatric hospital and medicated! I also didn’t know who I would even talk to in terms of professionals. Like, I didn’t realise you could speak to your GP or even that you could have therapy on the NHS.

THREE QUARTERS OF A MILLION READERS!!! | EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT BEING A BLOGGER

Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try

John F Kennedy

I cannot believe my little blog has reached three quarters of a million readers! I mean, from starting this thing in my hospital room over 100 miles away from home, to now having over 750,000 readers?! Reaching this milestone, I wanted to use it as an opportunity to give people a look into the life of a Blogger, what it means, and my tips on how to succeed in this industry…

Starting off small

I’ll never forget the day I started I’m NOT Disordered; January 6^th 2013. I had been an inpatient in a specialist hospital for over a year and had just had a 1:1 with my Key Nurse, Debbie. She asked if every evening, I would start writing little bits about the abuse I had gone through when I was 15. I agreed that I would show a member of staff the writing to give them all a better insight into what I’d been through and why it has affected me so much. 


Making this plan felt like a really big step toward recovery and I wanted to document my progress for myself and my friends and family who were so far away that I think it was really hard for them to understand what was going on for me. My decision to use a blog to document that progress was completely random – in fact, it wasn’t really a decision! I just… did it!


So, in the beginning my target audience was literally about ten people, which meant that when I reached 100 readers, another inpatient and I screamed with joy and excitement. We screamed so loud that the hospital staff came running down the corridor pressing their assistance alarms because they thought someone was ‘kicking off!’

HOW I FEEL ABOUT ADVICE

I was recently out with some friends and we got talking about someone we know who recently flashed off her CV in a seemingly desperate bid to illustrate her entitlement to her position in teaching. Later in the conversation, one of my friends was praising my use of social media – namely Twitter - and asking for my thoughts on an online project; seemingly deeming me to be an ‘expert’ in the field! It made me think though, about whether I’m comfortable being thought of in that way and looked to for that kind of advice…


When I first started I’m NOT Disordered in January 2013, my only technical abilities were to manage my own social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. I think that in starting to blog, my priorities were more about it being therapeutic for myself to reflect, to provide my friends and family with insight into my life in the psychiatric hospital over 100 miles away from them, and to encourage others to talk more openly about mental health. It was never about improving my technical ability, getting so many readers, free gifts, and event invitations. I think that the fact I didn’t start off with these intentions makes me feel slightly like a fraud and that it is wrong to accept any recognition for my ‘skills’ in achieving such opportunities.