EXCLUSIVE INSIGHT INTO THE HISTORY OF TIME TO TALK DAY ON I’M NOT DISORDERED | TIME TO TALK DAY 2026

‘Time to Talk Day 2026 will be held on 5 February 2026. This event is a significant initiative aimed at promoting open conversations about mental health and wellbeing, encouraging individuals to listen and share their experiences. It is a day for everyone to come together to break down stigma and support one another's mental health.’

Time to Talk Day - Mind

You won’t believe how stressful this post has been! So, it usually takes me about a week to create a blog post of a decent length and the graphics to accompany it, but it wasn’t until February 3^rd that I realised Time To Talk Day was coming up very soon and I had no content for it! At first, I messaged fellow mental health Blogger Martin Baker (of www.gumonmyshoe.com) and I said it was only two days – but when I started writing content that was about prioritising and the fact that my Mum’s Birthday is the same day of Time To Talk Day I realised that’s actually three days (Mum’s Birthday is February 6^th). Then, I googled and it turns out Time To Talk Day is just the first Thursday of February and that yes, this usually lands on the 6^th but this year it is actually the 5^th – so my maths ended up, sadly, being correct and I was back to not only rushing the content but also, finding a new topic because it is, in fact, not on my Mum’s Birthday(!). So, with two days’ notice, the best I could do was to run through the archive of previous Time To Talk Day posts and providing some insider, exclusive insight into each one…

EXCLUSIVE INSIGHT INTO THE REVAMP OF GUM ON MY SHOE | GUEST POST BY MARTIN BAKER

“I’ve discovered that in order to make big changes in the world, we have to begin at home.”

Ann M. Martin

I feel like I’ve been waiting a long time to publish this guest post by my best-friend and fellow mental health Blogger (on www.gumonmyshoe.com), Martin Baker. This is mostly because over recent years, he’s actually mentioned a couple of times the idea of making changes to his blog, particularly, in terms of the layout, design, and content of the pages etc but obviously hasn’t acted upon those considerations… Until now! Just two days ago – on January 24^th – Martin finally revealed the huge revamp he’d been working on for what feels like a lifetime! And I’m so incredibly proud of him for taking this huge step and risk, for putting so much time, energy, and thought into blogging. I’ve always said that whilst I don’t have a whole of ‘friends’ I do feel a special connection between Martin and I because he’s my only best-friend with a blog and with blogging and content creation in general, being such a huge and important part of my life, it really matters to have someone who appreciates and understands all that it can entail. So, wishing Martin the most massive of luck for the response he receives from his blog’s readers and an equally massive well done for the dedication, determination, and commitment it took to do the revamp! Now, over to Martin…

DAY EIGHT | A SECRET BLOGMAS 2025

“Statistics: The only science that enables different experts using the same figures to draw different conclusions.”

Evan Esar

Welcome to A Secret Blogmas 2025!

Today is Day Eight and this eighth post is all about the beneficial impact social media insights and statistics can have for content creation. In this post, I’ll discuss the different stats you can look at and use in your content creation strategy to evaluate how successful and popular your content is, as well as how you can use them to inspire and shape the content you create next. Keep reading to find out why and how insights and statistics can impact the success and popularity of your content and/or your platform…

I’VE BEEN DISCHARGED!!! | EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES

June 12^th 2020, I was discharged from my Community Mental Health Team (CMHT) after being under their care (on and off) for eleven years! Now, I’m very aware that with my audience being so big there are readers who don’t have a lot of insight into mental health services and therefore may not appreciate just how big an achievement discharge is. And that is the aim of this blog post – to provide insight and to educate readers about mental health services…

You can be referred to Services in various ways…

I was eighteen when I was first allocated a Community Psychiatric Nurse (CPN); I was sort of lucky in the way I first came into contact with Services because I didn’t have to be referred and sit on a waiting list for months on end. However, I was definitely unlucky too, in that I was only put under the care of the CMHT because I had attempted suicide and been sectioned under the 1983 Mental Health Act, and apparently the automatic aftermath of being sectioned is that you’re allocated a CPN upon discharge.

I recognize my luck in the situation because I know of the many instances where people have been referred to their CMHT through their GP and have then had to sit on a lengthy waiting list. The saddest thing about the waiting lists is the fact that all too often, the person’s mental health deteriorates to the point where they attempt or succeed at committing suicide. This happens for a number of reasons, but the main one is that there’s often the development of feelings of hopelessness and a conviction that Services don’t care enough about the person to rush through their referral through.

COMPLETE A WELLNESS RECOVERY ACTION PLAN WITH ME

“When the group developed WRAP, I was so impressed that I went home and wrote one for myself!”

– Mary Ellen Copeland

As someone who regularly puts almost her entire life out there for the general public to consume, I’m so interested in hearing/reading about the lives of others and seeing inside the most mundane of things! As someone who really struggles with completely mixed feelings of loneliness - sometimes all I want is to be surrounded by people and other times I can only tolerate the company of my pets – I mostly enjoy the YouTube ‘Get Ready With Me’ videos or ‘Speed Clean My Flat’ or ‘Come Shopping With Me’ because they enable me to have control over the company and how long it lasts! The important thing is the impact loneliness can have on a person’s mental health and so, in a desperate bid to help others experience the same positive things I feel when I watch similarly formatted videos. Though, of course I had to make my version mental health themed… Ever since I was discharged from the specialist psychiatric hospital in 2014, I’ve heard so many good things about Wellness Recovery Action Plans, but it wasn’t until recently that I – and my Community Psychiatric Nurse (CPN) – realized that I’ve never done one! And as with most documents in mental health, it has the chance of triggering negative thoughts and feelings by making you think back to hard times so I thought that maybe it’d also be helpful to me to feel that I sort of have someone with me while I complete it... 

A LETTER TO YOU | I’M NOT DISORDERED’S UPCOMING BIRTHDAY!!

With I’m NOT Disordered’s seventh Birthday just around the corner (January 6^th), and the blog post to celebrate scheduled, it felt only right that I write a little something for you all!

To those who use my blog to feel less alone,


I’m so, so, sorry that you’ve felt alone in the first place – I know what an awful feeling that can be, so I really appreciate that I’m NOT Disordered helps you to feel understood and validated.


Loneliness in mental health is – sadly – a common feeling because our thoughts often lead us to believe that no one else has ever experienced what we are going through and in doing so, we’re left thinking that no one could ever understand how we feel.


When I was abused in 2006, there was very little in the media about rape and sexual abuse and the little sexual education I’d done at School, had been the traditional teaching of how-to-put-a-condom-on-a-banana! So, when the abuse began, I didn’t even know what it was called; never mind know that anyone else had ever been through it! And not knowing others had experienced abuse, meant that I didn’t know it could be survived – that you could come out of it ‘ok’. I didn’t realize that it would end; never mind that it could impact your mental health – let’s be honest, there wasn’t a whole lot in the media about that either – or that you could also come out of it stronger than ever! Perhaps if I’d known this, I might have felt better placed in speaking up against the abuse and reporting it the second it started and not two years later!