ALL MY THOUGHTS ON BEING ‘THE BOSS’ | WORLD MENTAL HEALTH DAY 2024

This year, the theme of World Mental Health Day is ‘it’s time to prioritise mental health in the workplace.’ Because of this theme, I decided to prioritise the news article for the Shake My Hand Campaign website before writing one for I’m NOT Disordered. Over on Shake My Hand, you’ll find a piece full of advice on managing your mental health in the workplace, and if you scroll back through the Campaign’s social media (Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram) from Monday (the 7^th), you’ll find daily quotes from my Volunteers about how they manage their mental health alongside their volunteering. So, I wondered what was left to write about for I’m NOT Disordered, and realised that my blog is really all about providing insight into my life and perhaps into mental health in general sometimes too, so I thought I’d write about all my thoughts surrounding me being ‘the boss’ at the Campaign and give you some thoughts and tips on managing your mental health when you’re in a senior role…

THE FIRST THREE MONTHS OF THE SHAKE MY HAND CAMPAIGN

You might remember, I wrote a blog post launching my brand-new media campaign; Shake My Hand on the date of its website reveal; June 17^th (if you missed it, you can read it here), and now – over two months later – I thought I’d give you all an update. I actually really enjoyed myself when I was going through all the social media posts, website articles, emails, and documents that have evolved and been created in the time since that blog post on the 17^th! It was pretty amazing to see just how much has been done and accomplished in that space of time, so this feels like a nice little post to hopefully highlight the power of hard work, passion, dedication, and determination…

RE-EVALUATING MY ENTIRE LIFE

“Evaluate yourself and your calling worthily enough, and be proud of it.”

Sunday Adelaja

Even if you only really ‘know’ me through, I’m NOT Disordered or via my social media (@aimes_wilson on Instagram and Twitter), then you will likely be aware of the massive mental health relapse I’ve been going through for around a month. What you likely won’t know – because even those who actually ‘know’ me don’t all know! – is that this relapse is the result of a ‘psychotic episode’ that has mainly evolved around me having these two ‘delusional beliefs’ that have massively impacted my safety on far too many occasions and to far too great a degree of severity. In the last three weeks alone, I’ve had to attend my local A&E several times, have ended up in resuscitation, have been sedated, I’ve also even required surgery because my conviction of these beliefs has been so great, powerful, and overwhelming. These instances – and numerous other situations I’ve found myself in recently – have resulted in me engaging in some very difficult conversations with a variety of people, and it was one of these, that has led to this blog post…

THE IMPORTANCE OF EMPLOYMENT, TEAMWORK & ADVICE ON SUPPORTING LONELY COLLEAGUES | MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS WEEK: DAY FOUR | IN COLLABORATION WITH ST OSWALD’S HOSPICE

“There is immense power when a group of people with similar interests gets together to work toward the same goals”

Idowu Koyenikan

Welcome to day four of Mental Health Awareness Week, today I’m collaborating with St Oswald’s Hospice to bring you this piece about how colleagues and working as a team can help with thoughts and feelings of loneliness…

My first real ‘job’ was with a huge high-street retail store and in all honesty, it was a really bad first impression of working life (hence why I’m not naming them!). I originally started as Christmas temporary staff but was kept on when the season ended and in deciding to renew my contract, they decided to train me to do a specific role in the store. It was a role where – on a good day – it would take three staff to maintain it… But most days weren’t ‘good’ and I was often left to man the position alone. So that it was just me doing the job of three.

The other challenge I experienced in the role, was that all the staff on the tills had a bell where you could ring a specific number of times and it would signal something different to the rest of the staff. The third option for the number of rings would signal the security guards and the ability to do this was something I didn’t have because there was no bell at the place, I worked in. This obviously wouldn’t have bothered me if I didn’t think I needed it anyway; but I did. I mean, the number of complaining and abusive customers I got… Well, I would have felt a whole lot more reassured and comfortable if I’d been able to call for help!

MENTAL HEALTH & APPLYING FOR A JOB: FROM HOURS TO INTERVIEW TIPS | MY NEW STAFF ROLE WITH ST OSWALD’S HOSPICE

“Try not to become a person of success, but rather try to become a person of value”

Albert Einstein

If you’ve been reading, I’m NOT Disordered for a while you’ll know that whilst lots of things go on behind-the-scenes, you guys get a huge amount of insight into my life (and sometimes the lives of those who I collaborate with!), so imagine how hard it was when I had to keep something a secret for OVER A WEEK!!!

On the 4^th February, a member of the lovely Communications Team; Emma, told me there was a vacancy for the position of Kickstart Project Co-ordinator. She told me straightaway that it was neither heavy in mental health nor communications (the areas I’d like to work in) but wondered if I’d be interested. I read the description and some words stood out to me and I thought; ‘this could totally work!’

The Importance of The Hours:

The other aspect of the job which stood out to me was that it was for just 15 hours a week. For a while now, I’ve been saying that getting back into work is going to be so difficult because I knew going from nothing to part-time or full-time would be a huge shock to the system! Which is why I’ve been taking on various voluntary roles – such as my Chair position with the support group, LEAPS, and my role as a Digital Volunteer with St Oswald’s Hospice. I wanted to get used to having a commitment like that, to having some sort of regular routine to my days, to aid my mental health in getting ready for employment. I mean, I’d like to think that from my recent content and especially my social media posts (Twitter and Instagram: @aimes_wilson), it’s obvious that my mental health recovery is very stable, and it has been for a while now (almost six months of no self-harm).

Five Ways to Manage Your Time:

1.      Set yourself deadlines where possible

2.      Utilise the alarm app on your phone to remind you when to switch tasks

3.      Create a routine

WHY I’M A FAN OF JUMPING IN AT THE DEEP END | MY DIGITAL MARKETING INTERNSHIP WITH DOCERE | LAUNCHING THE BEHIND-THE-SCENES PROJECT | AD

Since my first day (over a week ago!) of my Digital Marketing internship with Docere, I’ve been toying with the idea of writing a blog post about it because it’s become such a huge part of my life that I just obviously want to share it with you all. So, I’ve been trying to think of ways to… wangle it into I’m NOT Disordered, and the inspiration came when I talked about the internship with my Mum…


I first found the vacancy on the Indeed site and it was just one of those jobs where I applied… just for the hell of it to be honest! I thought I’d apply on the off chance that I’d get an interview and get some more experience in interviewing. I think that realistically, I didn’t believe I was in any way ready to work but it felt nice to feel like I was giving myself the opportunity. When I got an email from Docere and it began ‘we’d firstly like to apologize’ so I just sighed, but then I read on ‘for the delay in responding to your application…’ And I had a little cheer when I read that I’d been shortlisted for an interview! I’d applied for so many positions in one night that I had to look back through the job description on Indeed! When I discovered that it was one I was actually interested in so far as to that I wished I was ready to take it on.


Why did I decide to go for it?