HAPPY NEW YEAR 2025!!! | FAVOURITE BLOG POSTS & COLLABORATIONS, BEST ADVICE & BIGGEST LESSONS, TOP PURCHASES ON AMAZON & ASOS, MOST WATCHED & LISTENED TO, GREATEST MOMENTS & ACHIEVEMENTS, & HOPES & PLANS FOR 2025

“I came to win, to fight. To conquer, to thrive. I came to win, to survive. To prosper, to rise. To fly.”

Fly, Nicki Minaj ft. Rihanna

Yes, here comes another year on I’m NOT Disordered! To celebrate the start of 2025, I thought I’d write this piece about a collection of things from this past year! The post will include favourite blog posts and collaborations from 2024, advice I’d give from the biggest lessons I’ve learnt this past year, as well as my top purchases (from Amazon and ASOS), my most watched TV Shows, Movies, and YouTube videos, and even my top five most listened to on Spotify! Then, I’ll be wrapping up this jam-packed post with my greatest moments and achievements from the entire year, some of my hope for 2025, and a bit of exclusive insight into a few exciting, upcoming plans…

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

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

Lalah Deliah

*YOU CAN READ PART ONE HERE & PART TWO HERE*

Lola Design Organiser: £14.99

Milan Pen: £10.87

iPad Touchpad Keyboard Case: £35.00

Canvas Tote Bag: £21.99

W7 HD Foundation: £4.00

SOMETHING HUGE THAT I’VE BARELY BLOGGED ABOUT

My mental health has been really poor these past few weeks or months, and so I’ve had to talk to a lot of professionals and there’s something we keep talking about and I was shocked to realise I actually haven’t said much about it on I’m NOT Disordered! There’s one post (which you can read here) that says the most about the fact that on February 18^th 2023, I was sectioned under section 2 of the 1983 Mental Health Act.

GOODBYE 2022, HELLO 2023

Happy New Year!

You’re probably inundated with blog posts celebrating the New Year; and they’re probably all from a very similar angle – as is probably the case with my doing a whole new logo and theme for I’m NOT Disordered… So, this year, to mark the beginning of 2023, I’ve decided to do something a bit different (hopefully!) on here; and I’ve picked out a few random – but memorable – bits and pieces from throughout 2022. There’s no real order to it, I wanted it to be kind of similar to opening a memory box in that everything is in a bit of a jumble, and you just ruffle through it to pick bits out and talk about them…

22 THOUGHTS FOR 2022 | HAPPY NEW YEAR!! | PART TWO

Part One:

http://www.imnotdisordered.co.uk/2021/12/22-thoughts-for-2022-happy-new-year.html

12. MEDICATION PLANS & GOALS

During a short – but still dangerous – relapse, a few months ago, my GP spoke with a Psychiatrist and agreed to increase my antipsychotic medication. They decided that it would be for a few months so I’m kind of expecting the GP to contact me in the next month or so to reduce it. 

Thing is, having seen just how terrible and unsafe I felt before the increase, and to now experience a sensation of positivity and to have found passion for maintaining good health; I don’t know if I’m going to want the dose to go back down. I mean, how could I possibly want to put my own safety at risk? And I think that the fact I’ve ended up on life support and in Intensive Care twice as a result of suicide attempts,  has really shown me just how unsafe things can get. The thought of going back to those feelings, thoughts, and behaviours has me terrified because I honestly believe that I won’t make it through it all a second time round. 

When I was in hospital in December for my first smear, the Anaesthetist was asking me all these questions and going through my medication when he commented that I was ‘on quite a lot!’ And it made me think about when it all got to the point where I now take 22 tablets per day… I realised that almost all of them were prescribed whilst I was in the specialist psychiatric hospital for two and a half years. That realisation worried me that maybe it meant that I’d been in a place that’s a bit prescription happy. Like, maybe they just prescribed medications more easily than a GP would…? And did that mean that I didn’t need to be on as many medications as I am?

22 THOUGHTS FOR 2022 | HAPPY NEW YEAR!! | PART ONE

So, I’ve spent quite a while thinking up a title and format for this blog post; because I think there’s a lot of pressure for the first piece of content of a New Year. It’s like you’re setting the tone for the rest of the year. Like, this one post is giving readers an idea of the quality of the content they can expect for the rest of the year. As though a reader will take one look and decide – based on that one post – whether or not to continue reading. So, with that in mind (and hoping that this isn’t a the wrong decision and a complete disappointment!) , I finally settled on ’22 thoughts’ so that I could include all the bits and pieces that have come to my mind when I considered what I wanted to write about in this post...

1.   BLOGMAS WENT KINDA WELL, DIDN’T IT?!

It’s taken me a long time to learn how important it is to have insight into some of the biggest things in my life. I mean first it was with my mental health… A year or so after my mental health first started to deteriorate, professionals had started labelling me as an attention seeker and deemed me a waste of their time and resources. I really struggled with feeling so misunderstood, but I also had a sense of appreciation for their opinions on me. I mean, I recognised that if I didn’t have even a remote sense of insight into my own thoughts, feelings, and behaviours, then how could I expect anyone else to have the ability to make sense of them?! I get that, as mental health professionals, a lot of those who treat me with disdain and a lack of respect shouldn’t have done that; regardless of whether there was insight or not! But the point is, I can appreciate their struggle.

A YEAR LATER | HAPPY NEW YEAR 2021

So many people are pleased to say goodbye to 2020 since so many terrible events have happened during it. Aside from the pandemic and UK lockdown, I personally, lost quite a few loved ones this year. Yet I still struggle to view it as entirely ‘bad…’ Since my Aripiprazole (an antipsychotic medication) was restarted and increased, I’ve not experienced a single hallucination and therefore, haven’t self-harmed since August. I’ve also achieved quite a lot this year relating to I’m NOT Disordered (particularly reaching 800,000 readers), so I feel torn between being thankful that the year is ‘over’ whilst also having the ability to look back at it with some level of fondness…

So, I was looking at last year’s blog post (which you can read in full here) and thought I’d include updates and new thoughts around each of the 20 points I’d discussed.

One

The first was about saying a thank-you to Richmond Fellowship who have provided me with a support worker (the worker has changed a few times over the years) since my hospital discharge in 2014. But I wasn’t really thanking them for that support, I was actually acknowledging the amount of opportunities they’ve given me through events and meetings. And that still stands! Over the last year, the lockdown has prevented so many face-to-face meetings and pretty much every single event; but I’ve still felt included in being a member of the Working Together Committee – who have a huge influence on the general way in which Richmond Fellowship is ran. I’m enjoying have the ability to speak up on behalf of service users and being treat with respect that regards my views, thoughts, and feelings on different topics, as important. However, I’d also like to thank my support worker this year! Since the beginning of the UK lockdown, our face-to-face appointments have been scarce and that has meant using the phone to get support… I used to struggle with audio calls because it reminded me of the auditory hallucinations in that I could hear them but couldn’t see where – or who – they were coming from. Being almost forced to do calls though, has gotten me used to the sensation and I find myself ringing my support worker and speaking to her even more than when it was just normal appointments! And she’s been brilliant with this.

20 WISHES, GOALS, THOUGHTS, & PLANS FOR 2020 | HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

I’m always a little hesitant writing new year’s posts because I know you’re probably all snowed under with resolutions in blog posts, so I tried to do something a bit different… This is going to be a real random mix of things that are both about the year that’s just gone and for the year to come!

1.    Thanks to Richmond Fellowship

I’ve collaborated with a number of different organizations through 2019, but I really wanted to pick one that has completely stood out for me as providing me with some incredible experiences and trusting me with a lot of responsibilities. The number of events and meetings I’ve attended this past year with Richmond Fellowship has been huge and the number of roles I’ve played at them is overwhelming and has taught me a lot about myself. Richmond Fellowship have also been so instrumental in my personal mental health recovery and it means so much to me that they trust me with opportunities.

2.    Goodbye CMHT!

The plan this year is that I’ll be discharged from the Community Mental Health Team (CMHT) in February! I’ve had various Community Psychiatric Nurses (CPN) from the CMHT and been under their care for the best part of ten years now so it’s about time that discharge was discussed never mind actually planned! The idea of discharge came when my newest CPN devised a care plan as she took over my care following my mental health relapse about six months ago. Having my psychiatric medication increased really stabilized my mental health and has greatly contributed to my safety (it’s been about six months since I last self-harmed!).