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Don’t know how to do quotes here but:
“Any community always ends up attracting downvotes and trolls, and the conventional resources such as the suicide hotline chat are only meant to keep you talking and don’t help discuss chronic problems.”
This is pretty much it right here. It boils down to qualifications, money, and the anonymous nature of the internet. It’s hard to give real and useful advice to someone based off of only a couple of internet posts.
Offline, are you gonna run into shitty therapists who deserve to have their license revoked? Yes absolutely. But the people who can help have qualifications and charge a lot of money for their time. They’re not gonna come on the internet and dispense useless or generic advice to strangers. It would be a waste of everyone’s time, not to mention the whole issue with separating work from life.
Adding to this thought: Covid opened up more therapists to the idea of online services.
That might be an option for you. I tried to use one, but didn’t have great success. I found the level of therapists was sub par compared to in-person. But with your already not great experiences, this may be successful for you.
This is it, and it’s really a broader issue with online communities for a lot of professional services in general, whether it be mental healthcare or medicine or legal services, etc. I’d argue it’s not just difficult to give real or helpful advice through these communities, but also irresponsible and potentially negligent, and that’s not even going into professional ethics issues like patient confidentiality or attorney client privilege or a whole host of other ethical concerns.
Professional services generally fall into a bucket of “above the internet’s pay grade.” You really need a licensed professional, but a licensed professional isn’t going to be distributing advice over a community forum, both because it’s typically a paid service and because they really can’t even if they wanted to.
Options are at least expanding for remote professional services, and I’d recommend looking into those options if you need specific help. I’m also not saying communities are bad and they can be great for general support and community, but they’re not a replacement for licensed professional services when those services are needed.
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Hmmm I’m not sure I agree. As a gay man living in South Dakota, I’ve found my online communities to be far less problematic and far more helpful than those I interact with in real life on a regular basis, and I’d include my experiences with credentialed therapists and addiction recovery groups in that assessment.
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No, I was responding to you by disagreeing that online support communities are “doomed to fail” and elaborating further. I’ll add that I think often those of us with mental health issues are able to help each other, contrary to the conventional wisdom that says we can’t.
I wasn’t trying to elicit a debate, just providing my differing perspective and experience.
I think online there’s a tendency for communities focused on mental health to consist of more people who need help than those who are in a position to really give it.
Not that I don’t think there’s value in online communities of people supporting eachother deliberately, but I think it can sometimes be like two people each with a broken leg helping one another.
A person who is in a good state of mental health and equipped to help those who need it isn’t necessarily going to be looking for mental health support communities unless it’s a deliberate calling they have, in which case they probably do it professionally anyway.
This is why I think the go to suggestion ends up being to find a therapist, or someone in your real life that you trust if available. It’s the ideal, if available.
As far as online support, I think the best way is to go to where the mentally healthy people are and form a more organic support network. Try and make friends by doing things online (ex. Participating in hobby forums and discords, joining gaming communities etc.) because then you are more likely to be surrounded by group of average people who can maybe help prop you up indirectly as you form friendships.
I only suggest this because looking back on the most positive and supportive experiences I’ve had online during low points in my life they were with friends I’d met through online communities. Talking in IRC channels, forum DMs, steam chat, discord etc. I was able to lean on those people a bit to get me past the worst of it.
A thought — looking at your post, and the other comment here, it sounds like you are looking for a community with very low tolerance for trolls and the like. Sounds familiar… 🤔
Maybe ask the BeeHaw mods if there’s room for the community that you’re looking for: /c/mentalhealth.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d be worried about the responsibility of such a place, both in terms of modding and I guess legal liability, but it can’t hurt to ask, right? Try asking in /c/beehawsupport.
It’s not the same (potential) can of worms, but we already have /c/neurodivergent.
BeeHaw is specifically a safe space; if what you’re looking for could exist, I personally can’t imagine a better home for it.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d be worried about the responsibility of such a place, both in terms of modding and I guess legal liability, but it can’t hurt to ask, right? Try asking in /c/beehawsupport.
Mental health is one of the few communities that fall into a general category of ‘often problematic on the internet’ due to a confluence of factors noted already in this post as well as a few not mentioned - namely that people who are not educated can cause serious and real harm to others with bad or misinformed advice. In the same way that you shouldn’t ask for legal advice from a random individual, asking for mental health advice online can be fraught with bad responses/answers. At this point in time we’re not entertaining the idea.
Tagging @LinkOpensChest_wav@beehaw.org for transparency
Good point. I will work on putting together a request post in the support community.
I think even a place to talk about things with other people who’ve experienced the same things and what’s worked for us could be helpful.
Good job! 👏
Also, if there is some sort of feeling that legal liability could be an issue, you might try suggesting that the proposed community had an extended set of rules, such as “no medical advice”, “suicide talk must be reported”, etc. And maybe some guidelines with standard responses to the latter, links to prevention hotlines, that sort of thing.
A suggestion could be to peruse Reddit for a similar community, specifically to look at their rules, standard responses, etc.
Best of luck! 😃 And do report back here if you post a proposal, I’ll gladly pop by for support and upvotes 👌
If you link to suicide hotlines, mention which ones can send cops (under the guise of EMS) to your door without your consent. (For instance, I’d never suggest 988 because of this.) That way, users know you know what’s up and that they can trust the group’s info. And given cops’ record of shooting mentally ill people in crisis, it’s pretty important.
I think catering to a worldwide audience and offering options for all the available countries would be a good addition to your suggestion.
I live in Scandinavia, and the cops try really hard not to kill people here, mentally ill or otherwise.
Similarly, I don’t know what 988 is and that information would be very unhelpful if I were in a situation where I needed help.
In essence, I’m all for doing some deep thinking about what information to give, and taking various national idiosyncracy into account. As long as we keep in mind that not everyone is an American.
I’m trying to provide information to prevent people from getting killed, and you’re policing my not being Euro-inclusive enough? Srsly?
I’m not policing anyone, I was pointing out the importance of being inclusive. If you feel like I was fishing for Euro-inclusivity, you’re missing the point — that would be just as fruitless as being America-centric. I was suggesting a global mindset, again, to prevent people from getting killed.
If you feel the need to take offense, I’ll freely admit that my comment could also be viewed as a thinly veiled jab at a “first-world” country that is collectively afraid of being killed by its own police force, so much so that a citizen would be compelled to point out the importance of only using suicide prevention services that don’t involve the police.
Either way, it’s a moot point, as the mods have definitively shot down the idea of a mental health community on BeeHaw (see nearby comments).
I’m genuinely sorry if my comment annoyed you, as that was not my intention, and doesn’t add anything to my overall happiness. I hope you won’t spend too much time thinking about it, and that you have a nice Monday 🙂
Thank you. I’m sorry. There’s a vocal segment in spaces like this that goes beyond trying to make sure Americans don’t manifest destiny the internet (totally fair) and crosses the line into attacking anything about us (not just the many, many, justified parts). I may have overreacted, but yes, living in a country where calling a suicide hotline could result in being shot by a police officer heightens my emotional response here. Thank you for being understanding.
I know it can be hard to find for sure, but there is a lot of online mental health support available. I’m not sure about actual free forum communities, but that might be becuase of privacy issues or the difficulty of both moderating and providing safe healthy advice.
But there are online options for therapy. Some of it is free, but most requires a fee - although there are often sliding scale options (when councelors offer lower fees if cost is an issue, there’s more who offer this than you’d think.) Finding help remotely is the way to go, it’s both more affordable and you can take the time to find someone who is right for you. I use an online therapist, she lives a few hours away and it took a few attempts to find the right fit, but it’s worth it.
There is 7 cups - they offer a lot of options. They provide just someone to talk to (volunteers, it’s free) as well as affordable options for counceling. https://www.7cups.com/
I’d also recommend Psychology Today, which lets you search for therapists both locally and online. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists
I used Psychology Today to find my therapist (there’s a Canadian version of the site) The have profiles and contact info for many, MANY therapists and psychologists, all accredited and professional. Most will be happy to tell you their rates, or offer either a free or very low cost introductory session (to see if you are the right fit)
There are also some free, self-directed therapy options in the form of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. A lot of it can be done yourself, as it involves worksheets and exercises. It’s actually very effective despite sounding maybe like busy work? Hehe - I’ve also had success using CBT, both with therapists and using self-directed workbooks.
Here is a good introduction, very thorough and with links for further reading: https://positivepsychology.com/cbt-cognitive-behavioral-therapy-techniques-worksheets/
The main website here also provides some good, free resources and articles by certified councelors. https://positivepsychology.com/
