A TRUE INSPIRATION FOR ORGANISATIONS: EVERYTHING WAYTHROUGH COMMS & MARKETING DO TO KEEP CO-PROUDUCTION AT THE HEART OF THEIR WORK | THE COMING TOGETHER MAGAZINE RE-LAUNCH

“There are people who make things happen, there are people who
watch things happen, and there are people who wonder what
happened. To be successful, you need to be the person who makes
things happen.”

Jim Lovell

I’m incredibly proud and very honoured to announce the re-launch of the completely refreshed Waythrough magazine; Coming Together (which you don’t have to be a service user or staff of the organisation to subscribe to, you can subscribe here: Sign up to newsletter - External or learn more about it here: Coming Together - our community magazine - Waythrough and if you have a story to submit: coming.together@waythrough.org.uk). I’m also very privileged and I feel incredibly fortunate to say that I’m now the Volunteer Lead Content Creator with the Waythrough Communications and Marketing team! In around 2023, I was given the opportunity to work with a local NHS Trust (Newcastle Hospitals) to create their Mental Health Strategy and in that partnership, I created a piece of content around why organisations should be following in their footsteps (you can read it: WHY NHS TRUSTS NEED TO BE FOLLOWING IN NEWCASTLE’S FOOTSTEPS!! | IN COLLABORATION WITH THE NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST | I'm NOT Disordered). The blog post proved to be fairly popular and so I wanted to take that sort of angle for this too and discuss the qualities that the Waythrough Communications and Marketing Department exhibit and use to ensure that co-production is at the heart of everything they do – a massive achievement for a ‘behind-the-scenes’ team to accomplish in mental health services…

DAY THREE: YOUR EXPERIENCES | 5 THINGS TO TAKE ACTION WITH | MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS WEEK 2026

“You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control the way you think about all the events…”

Roy T. Bennett

Welcome to Day Three of the Mental Health Awareness Week (MHAW) series; 5 Things to Take Action With. Today, I’m going to provide a number of resources to help you to take action your experiences…

35: AN AGE NO ONE THOUGHT I’D REACH | HOW REPORTING MY TRAUMA WAS MORE LIFE-SAVING THAN MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES | IT’S MY BIRTHDAY TODAY!!!

“The best revenge is the massive success.”

Frank Sinatra

It sounds dramatic to say that I can’t believe I made it to 35, but when I tell you that, on numerous occasions, even the professionals – mostly Psychiatrists, but also two ICU Doctors – made comments that they couldn’t envision me making it to my ‘next’ Birthday (mostly between the ages of 18 and 23!) … perhaps now you’ll see the rationale to my surprise that I’m still here?! It meant that I was originally going to centre this Birthday blog post around reasons why I believe I managed to make it to this age, but I found out that I’d done something incredibly similar for my 28^th Birthday (you can read it here) and my 31^st (which you can read here)! In thinking about the reasons, I made it, I realised that I’d list reporting my trauma as the first one – even though I had interactions with mental health services before that which most would probably assume should getting help and support, should have been the first life-saving thing to happen. So, I decided to focus on that…

THE ULTIMATE SIGN TO REPORT YOUR TRAUMA: FIVE REASONS WHY I’M GLAD I REPORTED MY RAPE & ABUSE TO THE POLICE & HOW DBT CAN HELP YOU TO REPORT YOUR OWN

It’s a goddamn blaze in the dark,

And you started it,

You started it,

So yeah, it’s a war

It’s the goddamn fight of my life

And you started it

Taylor Swift – Ivy

At first, this blog post was just going to be a post on the blog’s Instagram (@imnotdisordered) but, in all honesty, I found that I had too much to say than would fit on Instagram! So, I wanted to talk through the story behind me reporting my experiences of six months of sexual abuse and – during that time and by the same perpetrator – one instance of rape to the Police and then I’m going to share why I’m so glad that I did that. Reporting crimes like these can be controversial and can lead to a lot of mixed feelings for survivors, but I think one key concern for those who are yet to report their experiences, is that they’ll regret it. So, I want to properly answer the question I’m often asked when people hear that despite reporting the rape to the Police, CPS made the decision not to prosecute him (with the claim that there wasn’t enough evidence) … I have no regrets and – if anything – it’s the exact opposite because the impact reporting the rape and abuse has had on me, has actually given me motivation to encourage others to report their own experiences…

I’M TURNING 33!!!

*This post is a bit of a follow-in from my previous post where I picked apart some of my Birthday blog posts, you can read it here*

Unfortunately – or fortunately, depending on how you look at it – there’s a huge mental health awareness date (Time To Talk Day) taking place on my actual Birthday of February 1^st, and since I have a really special piece of content already lined up to mark that date; I thought I’d post my Birthday blog posts beforehand. Now, a genuine ‘unfortunately,’ is that due to a new commitment (which I can’t quite talk about just yet) I’m unable to complete the thought behind my Birthday posts which was to split all my Birthday blog posts up and go through each of them talking about the bits that stand out, what has changed, what’s stayed the same… So, in addition to the previous blog post I’ve linked at the beginning of this one, I managed to write about my 26^th Birthday blog post and then I’ve put together a little reel at the end of the post…

AN INTERRUPTION TO BLOGMAS UNBOXED | TW: DISCUSSION OF SUICIDE

I honestly can’t believe what I’m about to blog about… I mean, it happened over a week ago, but it still feels surreal. And I still find it extremely difficult to actually even just say the words because they continue to feel dramatic and unbelievable. I mean, a little while after I first became poorly – and right around the time I was given the Personality Disorder diagnosis! – I was labelled an attention-seeker and dramatic countless times by mental health professionals. And in all honesty, the sentence I’m about to say feels like I’m fulfilling all those remarks… In the early hours of Friday 8^th December 2023, I jumped from a bridge…

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…

THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO INTERACTING WITH ABUSE SURVIVORS | PART TWO

You can read the first part of this series: http://www.imnotdisordered.co.uk/2023/04/the-ultimate-guide-to-interacting-with.html

‘Cause you brought the flames and you put me through hell,

I had to learn how to fight for myself,

And we both know all the truth I could tell

I’ll just say this is ‘I wish you farewell’

Kesha – Praying

BLOGMAS 2022 | DAY TWENTY: A CHAT ABOUT LOSING TIME | YORK CHRISTMAS MARKET | IN COLLABORATION WITH VISIT YORK

Welcome to Day Twenty of Blogmas 2022!

Today, I’ve teamed up with Visit York (all of their links are at the end of the post) to bring you some photos from their Christmas Market which I attended at the beginning of the month, as well as some links for the items I bought at it. The actual content of this post about acknowledging when you’ve lost time and making up for it; was inspired by the fact that I went to the Market with my Mum, and after my experiences with my mental illness, we’ve both voiced the need to ‘make up for lost time’ by wanting to be together more often...

HOW I’M GETTING THROUGH A BROKEN WRIST, TIME IN HOSPITAL, & SURGERY

“Scared is what you’re feeling. Brave is what you’re doing.”

Room by Emma Donoghue 

Apologies for the gap between the last post and this, hopefully when you read this you’ll understand why that happened…

MANAGING THE RELUCTANCE TO EVEN GO TO HOSPITAL

You know, when my mental health was at its most poorly – when I was finding myself in hospitals two and three times a week – one key reason for me going there tended be that I had self-harmed (in a way which could have actually cost me my life, but it wasn’t always a suicide attempt) in response to auditory hallucinations. Then, when they were content with my actions and silenced, I didn’t want to die or experience pain in any way, so I would seek medical attention for whatever I had done. 

But, the professionals attitude changed toward me when they couldn’t understand the power of the hallucinations, and in their eyes; I was just wasting their time and resources. From then, I found myself being met with disdain and contempt from the moment I checked in at the A&E reception desk and that – I’d like to think, understandably – led to an intense reluctance to ever set foot in a hospital. It was like every time I entered the building, I could almost hear the eyes of all the hospital staff roll in their sockets, coupled with their overwhelming urge to comment; “it’s her again.”

MENTAL HEALTH & DEDICATION | INSPIRED BY THE PLATINUM JUBILEE

I’m invincible

I win every single game,

I’m so powerful,

I don’t need batteries to play,

I’m so confident

Yeah, I’m unstoppable today

Sia - Unstoppable

Her Majesty The Queen, has this year, become the first British Monarch to celebrate a Platinum Jubilee which marked 70 years of her reign for the people of the UK, the Realms, and the Commonwealth. This enormous achievement and – in my opinion – a true sign of dedication, has really inspired this post about dedication and the impact mental health can have on it…

Dedicating my time to destroying him…

During the six months of abuse that I went through when I was younger, I remember feeling almost constantly angry and frustrated. Like, if someone gave me a pillow, I’d be able to scream into it for days on end without stopping – even just to take a breath! And I think the majority of that came from the fact that for so many reasons, I couldn’t tell anyone what was happening to me and so I put a lot of effort into my frantic and desperate attempts to somehow ‘show’ people instead. But no matter the height of the gravity behind my desperation, all the ‘signs’ I exhibited were either ignored, dismissed, or misinterpreted.

MENTAL HEALTH & FRIENDSHIPS | IN COLLABORATION WITH THE DESIGN PARLOUR | DISCOUNT CODE INCLUDED!!!

So, this post has been a long time in the making! Its inspiration actually came when I was gift hunting for the Birthday of three of my five best-friends who were all celebrating in the same month (March!). So, I found some lovely customisable prints on Etsy from The Design Parlour, and we decided to team up to bring you this blog post of a chat about the impact mental health can have on friendships, and we’ve even thrown in a huge discount code…

WHY IT’S AN ACHIEVEMENT TO MAKE FRIENDS WHILST EXPERIENCING TRAUMA

“A best friend is the only one that walks into your life when the world has walked out”

Shannon Alder

The best friend I met first was Sophie in 2006/2007. Now, if you’ve read, I’m NOT Disordered for a while now, you’ll know that the abuse I experienced started in 2006 so meeting Sophie around that time was pretty special and important. I mean, whilst the years my mental health was at its most poorly were horrific and challenging, the time during the actual abuse was the most overwhelming and difficult in my life. I was so full of anger and hatred towards almost everyone who mattered in my life because no one recognised what was happening to me and so, no one stopped it.

Meeting Sophie during that really frustrating time meant I felt a whole lot less isolated and alone. I mean, she didn’t know about it either, but to see that I was capable of building a new friendship whilst feeling the way I did and thinking the things I did? Well, that gave me hope. It left me thinking that if I could challenge those lonely thoughts and emotions by adding someone to my life, I might just get through it. I might just survive. Sophie made me feel stronger and more positive at a time when it felt like I had been feeling the exact opposite for forever!

DBT, PRACTICAL ITEMS, & BRAVERY IN HOSPITAL ADMISSIONS | MY FINAL TENDON SURGERY

So, I was recently admitted to the Royal Victoria Infirmary (RVI) – a hospital under the Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust – for a final surgery on my thumb and it made me think and realise all the different elements you need when being admitted to hospital. And that they don’t have in evolve around packing a toothbrush and chargers for your phone!

Why I was admitted…

Unfortunately, I broke my wrist in November 2019, and apparently that injury can lead to what happened with my thumb on Boxing Day (December 26^th) 2019. I was using my thumbs to try to wiggle the cork of a bottle of Prosecco loose when all of a sudden, I couldn’t move my right thumb (you can read my first post about the injury here)!

It wasn’t as though it was sore, and I couldn’t move it because it’d hurt, I just genuinely couldn’t move it. It was so frustrating because I could feel my brain telling my thumb to lift up, but it just hung there, powerless, limp and lifeless. It was definitely one of those things where you don’t appreciate what you’ve got until it’s gone! I really hadn’t recognised just how important my thumb was to my general movement and ability to do things until I couldn’t use it.

PART THREE OF THREE | EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT ABUSE

Having thoroughly enjoyed writing the ‘everything-you-need-to-know’ style posts in the past, when I checked through previous posts about abuse, I noticed they all seem to be in pieces… Bits of information, parts of my experience, a few tips; all just separated into so many different posts. Of course, they are that way because up to the date they were published, they were the things I knew. The things that had happened. And I’m not suggesting that I’m at a point where I now know absolutely everything about the subject, but I do feel that I’m at a pretty good stage in my mental health recovery to feel I am now able to collate all that I have learnt, and all that I know. Unfortunately, abuse is a subject where I’d argue you will never fully understand unless it’s something you’ve experienced, so posts like this – media content by survivors – can be the best resource for those who want to learn more…

PART ONE: http://www.imnotdisordered.co.uk/2021/02/everything-you-need-to-know-about-abuse.html

PART TWO: www.imnotdisordered.co.uk/2021/02/part-two-of-three-everything-you-need.html

 

What Are Triggers?

A trigger is defined as being a ‘cause to function’ but in mental health, I fully believe it can have a completely different definition to each individual. I was once in Accident and Emergency (A&E) and I told a Doctor he was triggering me, and I remember him saying ‘what does that mean?’ I couldn’t understand how he didn’t know and then he corrected himself with: ‘what does that mean to you?’

EVERYTHING THE ABUSE ANNIVERSARY HAS MADE ME THINK ABOUT

You can take everything I have

You can break everything I am

Like I’m made of glass

Like I’m made of paper

Go on and try to tear me down

I will be rising from the ground

Like a skyscraper

Demi Lovato – Skyscraper

 

So, November 20^th this year, marks fourteen years since the abuse I experienced when I was younger, ‘began.’ Being in such a good place with my mental health has really meant that I can think about the anniversary and still feel safe. And, of course, I’m not the only abuse survivor to remember the dates it ‘began’ or ‘ended’ so I thought that writing this post would not only give those without this experience, insight and make them more knowledgeable when supporting someone, but that it would also show other survivors they aren’t alone in remembering these anniversaries and in the impact the dates have on them…

 

WHAT’S HELPFUL FOR ME TO BE ABLE TO COPE WITH THE ANNIVERSARY

Since the Pharmacy made a mistake with my antipsychotic medication and the hallucinations came back with vengeance, I really saw just how helpful medication is for my mental health and I appreciated how lucky I am to be able to say that. Before I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) the mental health professionals – namely a few Psychiatrists – prescribed antipsychotic medication, but once BPD started being thrown about in conversations, everyone became unconvinced that medication was the right treatment. Of course, every illness (mental or physical) will have a recommended treatment and for BPD, it’s Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT). In fact, professionals have gone so far as to say that medication – and hospital admissions – are something to be completely avoided when treating someone with BPD.

BUILDING BOUNDARIES IN MENTAL HEALTH

“We need to have a talk on the subject of what's yours and what's mine.”
― Stieg Larsson, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

So, I had Martin Baker (of gumonmyshoe.com) over to my house and we got talking about people who message people that they’re feeling suicidal and it got us onto talking about boundaries and I realized I have a lot to say on the subject; so here’s a post on the topic!


I also talked to my Richmond Fellowship support worker (from their Tyneside floating support service) about how I felt that I’m not the right person for this person to be texting and telling that they feel suicidal. This topic also came up a little while ago because obviously, writing such a huge blog about mental health I do receive emails daily from people saying similar things about feeling suicidal and struggling with their mental health; regardless of my blog’s disclaimer! 


At first, it was overwhelming and upsetting to hear people saying such negative things partly made me feel reassured that I wasn’t alone, but mostly made me feel hopeless because there’s other people feeling the way I do. Then, after a while, I started to view it as… heartwarming, maybe? That people feel and think that I’m a good person to talk to about their mental health and that they trust me with the most vulnerable side of themselves. These days? Well, I still see all these sides to it, but I also think that it’s important to stress that I’m just not the ‘right’ person to talk to. Some may argue and say that they’d rather speak to someone who understands than a professional who thinks they do because they have a degree. I get that. But you have to consider how it would be to tell someone like me that you feel suicidal and to then go ahead and do something…?! I mean, there’s only so much I can do… like I said; I’m not the right person!

THE ULTIMATE ADVICE POST | 50 TOP TIPS ON MENTAL HEALTH FOR SERVICE USERS, PROFESSIONALS, FRIENDS & FAMILY

Yes, you read that right; fifty! I’ve enjoyed writing posts around tips, advice, do’s and don’ts so I thought the ultimate one would be to put 50 of them in one big post!

Please don’t take this post as condescending and think that just because I’m in recovery I think it makes me an expert on mental health. I don’t, think that; I just hope that my experiences can provide others with the advice that might spare them from going through some of the same hardships. I also don’t want people to think that these tips don’t recognize the strength it takes to do some of them; anyone who knows me – and my blog – will know how important I think it is to acknowledge a person’s bravery and courage in mental health.

WHY RAPE & SEXUAL ABUSE ARE SO TABOO

ta·boo

[təˈbo͞o, taˈbo͞o]

NOUN

1.       a social or religious custom prohibiting or forbidding discussion of a particular practice or forbidding association with a particular person, place, or thing.

synonyms:

prohibition · proscription · veto · interdiction · interdict · ban · restriction · boycott · nonacceptance · anathema

ADJECTIVE

1.       prohibited or restricted by social custom.

"sex was a taboo subject"

synonyms:

forbidden · prohibited · banned · proscribed · vetoed · ruled out · interdicted ·

[more]

VERB

1.       place under prohibition.

I don’t think I talk about LEAPS a lot on here because we have a very strict confidentiality agreement – but for those who don’t know, Listening Ear And Positive Support (LEAPS) is a support group for people who are unemployed. The nature of the organization means that there’s a lot of private and personal things discussed at the weekly meetings, but this was something I said so I guess it’s my decision to make it public…. A while ago, I secured Lottery funding for LEAPS with one of our budgets being to fund a group session on Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT). So, the other day at the CBT session we were talking about ‘errors in thinking’ and I gave a personal example about how – for a long time – I blamed myself for the abuse I went through. I’ve known this group of all men for over two years now and it made me wonder why I feel like I can talk to them about this…

THE THINGS I COULD SAY

Step one, you say we need to talk

He walks

You say sit down, it’s just a talk

He smiles politely back at you

You stare politely right on through

The Fray – How To Save A Life

I toyed around with a lot of different titles for this post and I worried that some of them gave the wrong impression… initially, it was ‘THE THINGS I WISH I COULD SAY’ but I don’t want people to think that I’m wishing I could see the person who abused me. Actually, what I meant by it was that I was I were ready to say those things. I wish I was ready to see him, and I wish I was ready to say these things when I did. But when I thought about my fear of people misinterpreting this, I thought that maybe there are other abuse survivors out there who have also thought about what they’d say to their abuser if they could and I really didn’t like the thought that they were sitting there thinking like I was; ‘I can’t say this to anyone because they won’t understand.’ If someone else told me they were having these thoughts and feelings, then I would support them in finding the courage and bravery to speak up regardless of their worries about others. I’d tell them that if it’s going to help them to talk about it, you shouldn’t care what anyone else might think. So why should I be any different? Why shouldn’t I take my own advice?!

WHEN SHE | A POEM | BY AIMEE WILSON

When she fought, he won

When she stole, he caught her

When she looked, he hid

When she bent, he broke her

When she hurt, he caused it

When she ran, he gave chase

When she saw, he missed it

When she heard, he ignored

But when she died, they revived her

When she cut, they mended

When she swallowed, they treat

When she cried, they soothed

When she ran, they caught

When she lost hope, they showed her the way

She won back what he’d taken

She mended what he had broke

She stabilized what he had moved

She finished what he had started

She lived