Blyth suicide survivor's mental health blog ‘I’m NOT Disordered’ reaches 2.5 million followers

I’m NOT Disordered chronicles Aimee Wilson’s journey through mental illness and her recovery from rape and abuse.

Aimee fought off her traumatic memories for two years before her mental health finally deteriorated to a point that she made her first suicide attempt in 2009.

On her second hospitalisation, she finally reported the rape and abuse to police. But after three years of her records showing more than 60 admissions to both medical and psychiatric hospitals, she made another suicide attempt in 2012

Aimee was transferred to a specialist psychiatric hospital over 100 miles away from her home in Blyth, and after six months, she agreed to begin writing about the abuse as a means of providing insight for the staff.

In 2013, Aimee this inspired her blog I’m NOT Disordered, which over the following eleven years, has gone from strength to strength as Aimee collaborated with various organisations and charities.

These range from Cats Protection to promote the positive impact pets can have on a person’s mental health and emotional wellbeing, to solo facilitating a Suicide Awareness Training Session for the Newcastle sector of the British Transport Police.

One of Aimee’s most favourite collaborations though, was working jointly with her local mental health NHS Trust: Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust and Northumbria Police a number of years ago to facilitate Mental Health Training for the newest recruits.

Aimee said: “The police played a huge role in saving my life through instances of mental health crisis, and it meant a lot to be able to shape their response and attitude to help others too.”

In 2017, after publishing a blog post titled ‘You Can Get Through Reporting Your Trauma’ which detailed coping with reporting rape and abuse to the police, Aimee received an email from a reader.

Aimee recounts what it said: “It was from a lady who said that as a result of reading that blog post, she had found the courage to report her own experiences of rape and abuse and the person responsible was actually charged and imprisoned.

"I couldn’t believe that my words had such a life-changing impact on someone else’s journey and recovery from trauma.”