HOW TO COPE WITH THE TRICKIEST MOMENTS FOR YOUR MENTAL HEALTH WHEN YOUR PET IS POORLY | IN PARTNERSHIP WITH GRACIE’S WAY

“The kindness one does for one animal may not change the world, but it will change the world of that one animal.”

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Wondering where the content has been for almost one month? My youngest bunny; Evie, who I literally just got in November 2025 after Gracie died on November 1^st (you can read my blog post about Gracie’s death here and the post about getting Evie, is here), was diagnosed with Gut Stasis (the disease that has taken both my first rabbit; Pixie – whose death you can read about here – and Gracie from me) at the beginning of the month. In a bid to raise awareness of Stasis, I published a piece of content over on the website for my pet bereavement project: Gracie’s Way (which you can read here) and on its Instagram (which you can view here). In creating that content, I started to think about myself and how my own mental health had been affected, and it is those thoughts that have inspired this post in which I’ll list the most difficult moments for your mental health when you have a poorly pet and I’ll obviously also add some advice and tips on ways to cope with those instances…

MY SPEECH AT THE NORTH TYNESIDE WORLD MENTAL HEALTH DAY 2024 EVENT IS NOW LIVE!!

 

WHY HOSPITAL CAN BE STRESSFUL & HOW TO GET THROUGH IT | NATIONAL STRESS AWARENESS DAY 2023 | IN COLLABORATION WITH THE NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST

 

To mark Stress Awareness Day 2023, I’ve teamed up with The Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (NUTH) to talk to you about how their upcoming Mental Health Strategy can help to tackle why it can be so stressful to visit or be admitted to hospital. I’ll also be providing some tips and advice for both those struggling with anxiety in this way and those staff who are caring, helping, and supporting these people…

How Do You Define Stress If It’s Different for Everyone?

WHY MENTAL HEALTH IS TAKING A BEATING WITH THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC | IN PARTNERSHIP WITH CUMBRIA, NORTHUMBERLAND, TYNE & WEAR NHS FOUNDATION TRUST

This post is in partnership with the wonderful mental health NHS Trust for my area; CNTW (Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust) so at the end I’ll be including all of their links and one of their most important articles produced during this Pandemic.

I’d like to think I’m a pretty fair and balanced kind of person in that I can usually see a disagreement from both sides, so when I write blog posts and posts on social media I try to imagine the other side to it… You know, in my last post: ‘WHAT I WANT YOU TO KNOW DURING THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC,’ I talked a little about how people are feeling that they can’t talk about how the pandemic is affecting them because they’re sure that there’s someone ‘worse off.’ And I absolutely get it; I mean, there’s tweets about Grandmas dying alone because visiting in hospitals is suspended and people having their lives genuinely turned upside down to coincide with the UK lockdown regulations (which you can read here).

I think that the one common impact that the Coronavirus Pandemic is having on at least the majority of people, is on our mental health. People often make the mistake of thinking that to be struggling with your mental health, you must have some sort of diagnosis, but this isn’t true. Everyone has mental health in the same way that everyone has physical health, and you can struggle with your thoughts and feelings without it being you must have an official ‘label’ or disorder. Someone can feel sad without having a formal diagnosis of Depression. You can feel anxious without it needing to result in a panic attack for it to be worth talking about. And you can struggle with your mental health without needing to feel suicidal for it to be deserving of asking for help and support.

HOW TO STOP SELF-SABOTAGING | WITH A FUTURE LEARN DISCOUNT CODE!! | AD

So I was having a ‘Bloggers Day Out’ with Marty from gumonmyshoe.com in the Life Science Centre and he mentioned that he’d taken some online courses with one being about self-sabotaging and it got me thinking about the topic…

As someone who has been known to regularly mess up good things in her life, I think I might be qualified in giving you all my own two top tips that’ve helped me to stop the behavior of self-sabotaging.

I learnt these skills after reaching the lowest point in my mental health; in the years after being admitted to Intensive Care following an overdose. Spending two and a half years in Cygnet Hospital Bierley meant that I had professional support in learning these skills so in writing this post, my hope is that it’ll avoid others having to reach that point too before they can learn these:

MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS WEEK 2018 WITH I'M NOT DISORDERED | POST SEVEN | EVENTS | AD

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

So, I spent DAY ONE of Mental Health Awareness Week with a couple of organisations who were hosting a night of stand-up comedy, live music, and poetry. And it was such a hilarious, interesting, inspiring, and insightful night with great company, and plenty of drinks!

MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS WEEK 2018 WITH I'M NOT DISORDERED | POST SIX | COLLABORATION WITH NORTHUMBERLAND, TYNE & WEAR NHS FOUNDATION TRUST | A REVIEW ON THEIR SELF-HELP GUIDE FOR STRESS | AD

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

I was meeting with the Head of Communications for Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust (NTW) when she began telling me about the re-design of their self-help guides when she offered me a box with the entire collection in! It was such a kind gift and I agreed to write a review on the ‘Stress’ self-help guide for Mental Health Awareness Week.

This particular guide was written by Dr Lesley Maunder and Lorna Cameron, Consultant Clinical Psychologists for Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS WEEK 2018 WITH I'M NOT DISORDERED | POST FOUR | HOW DO YOU COPE WITH STRESS?

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

How do you cope with stress?

@loydall_stefan

I manage stress by going for walks around places I have never been so it occupies my mind when I get a little lost

@RichSpecials

I manage stress by talking to my family who are able to give me advice & a different view on things








anonymous
I confide in friends

MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS WEEK 2018 WITH I'M NOT DISORDERED | POST THREE | THREE WAYS TO COPE WITH STRESS

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

1.     BREATHE

There are some wonderful breathing exercises out there that are designed to stop people from getting overly stressed, as this may lead to panic attacks. There’s an exercise that I was once taught in the Mindfulness component of Dialectical Behaviour Therapy. I often use it and find it helps relieve my levels of stress. You start by sitting still, letting yourself feel

everything that is touching your skin, your jumper, your leggings, the fabric of the seat beneath you… And then – on both feet – scrunch up your toes and feel all of the muscles tighten in your feet, and then relax them. Move slowly up each of your body parts, tensing each muscle, being aware of it, and then releasing it. I find that it really helps to slow your breathing and bring yourself to the present when you’ve been stressing about what is coming – or what might be coming!

MENTAL HEALTH AWARENEESS WEEK 2018 WITH I'M NOT DISORDERED | POST ONE | MY THOUGHTS ON STRESS

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

STRESS
(noun)

pressure or tension exerted on a material object.

"the distribution of stress is uniform across the bar"

a state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or demanding circumstances.

"he's obviously under a lot of stress"

synonyms:		trouble, difficulty, distress, trauma, suffering, pain, grief; informalhassle "he's obviously under a lot of stress"
antonyms:	Relaxation

o    something that causes a state of strain or tension.

plural noun: stresses

"the stresses and strains of public life"

Yes, I know; I cheated and copy and pasted the definition from Google, but I thought it might be nice to have the official one alongside my own idea of stress…

MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS WEEK 2018 WITH I'M NOT DISORDERED | INTRO/WHAT TO EXPECT

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

Welcome to Mental Health Awareness Week (MHAW) 2018 with I’m NOT Disordered!

This year, the focus of MHAW is stress, so for every day this week (14^th – 20^th May) there’ll be a post on this topic!

I’ve been toying with the idea of whether to tell you all what to expect from I’m NOT Disordered during this time, and whether to keep it a total secret and let you see day by day… But I couldn’t face publishing a post so short!

STRUGGLING IN RECOVERY IS NOTHING TO BE ASHAMED OF | MY THOUGHTS ON MY RECENT SECTIONING

So I’ve talked recently about my mental health deterioration.

It kind of started on March 19^th with an overdose (that I’ve talked about here) and ever since I’ve been under the care of the Crisis Team.

From early April I started to feel much better and began having less thoughts to overdose, with the voices quietening down and the visual hallucinations lessening. I decided that it’d be positive, and rewarding to complete my planned work for Cygnet Healthcare at their National Service User Awards 2018 (#NSUA2018 on Twitter) and made the decision to travel to Coventry for the event on April 11^th.

I still wouldn’t say that was a mistake. That I got sectioned being there… it could’ve happened anywhere. At any time. If anything; I think it was probably overdue!

It’s difficult to fully talk about the situation that led to me being in A&E from the Awards, but it was basically due to a health reason and because of the result of that, my mental health deteriorated once more.