Blogs are a great way to spread the Time to Change message and share the experiences of a range of different people.

It can be pretty scary putting your story out for the world to see, particularly if your self esteem and confidence has taken a bit of a battering throughout the course of your mental health problem. But actually, the whole act of writing a blog and releasing it into the internet wilderness can be so liberating, empowering, and most of all therapeutic.

It helps you to relate to your experiences in a different way, and ‘let go’ to things that you have perhaps been holding too close and private for too long. But the best thing by far is reading the replies from readers telling you they are truly grateful for your honesty and that your story has given them hope.

Remember, you are the expert on your experience, and no one can tell your story better than you. Here are some tips to help you on your way:

1) Start anywhere – the opening paragraph is always the hardest part to write, so don’t feel the need to start there. Write whatever pops into your head first and you can go back and write some opening text later if need be.

2) Embrace your own style – everyone has their own way of writing and explaining things. The most powerful blogs are often the most natural, informal, and personable. You don’t need to conform to a particular style, just think about the topic you want to write about, and jot down your train of thought. You may find it easier to write as if it was a diary, a letter to someone, or a short story.

3) It doesn’t always have to be a chunk of writing – you can write in whatever format suits you best. It could be a passage of writing, a paragraph of text with some bullet points, or a collection of quotes. Or, you may want to use other forms of communication, like pictures or videos.

4) Don’t worry if you don’t feel like it reads well – as long as you have the content you want, you don’t have to worry too much about the writing flowing or being grammatically correct. We have staff at our end who can go through and edit the blog so that it reads better. We’ll always check that you’re happy with the edits before publishing the post.

5) Look at our guidelines for safe blogging – if you are writing about issues surrounding self harm or eating disorders, check out our guidelines for ensuring that content is non-triggering to readers. We can always edit these out, but it may help you to understand the type of content that we’re looking for.

Find out how to blog for Time to Change >>