Hi everyone. I havent updated this thread in a while, so it probably appropriate that I do now.
Thanks to @Zoe7 @Faith-and-Hope @Shaz51 @outlander @BlueBay @Former-Member @Appleblossom @Maggie @Owlunar @Peri @Starta @Sophia1 for your messages and 'supports'.
I've really had a difficult time this past week, it's been tough, to say the least. I've tried distraction, keeping busy, tried ignoring or forgetting. But it's all still there and is weighing heavily on me. I'm not sleeping and I feel almost like a zomby day in and day out. Just getting through. Upon reflection I believe there are 2 prominent reasons for my current struggles. I know this is a long post and I hope you can bare with me as I get this out. Its a difficult situation and I am conscious of not saying anything wrong.
The first cause of my current distress is that last Monday I got word from the Neurology Dept that hubby would need to go into the City hospital for tests to either rule out or confirm a reoccurrence of autoimmune encephalitis, instigated by cancer treatment last year. I hate the city, its highly triggering for me. I know it shouldnt be, that I should be over this, but it just is. I was assaulted in a city, and I have difficulty removing myself from that. I am on constant high alert in the city. And this isn't even the city where my assault took place. But that seems to have little relevance, all cities are triggering for me. I know I need to push that from my mind, but I am having great difficulty doing so. It's become a permanent fixture in my head this past week, refusing to be ignored. So I am really dreading that call from the hospital to say 'we have a bed available and it's time to bring him down to the city for admission'. Sigh.
The second thing which has triggered me is related to the changes which are currently being instigated here on the forums. In September 2016, as a member on a different forum, something similar occurred during a period of change. Change is never an easy process, and is made even more difficult when the changes are something which I cannot see a valid reason for. Change purely for the sake of change is never warranted, in my opinion. I am not saying that about Sane, but about the other forum I was a member of.
Anyway, getting back to my own personal experience ... out of nowhere and without any consultation or warning to members of impending changes, all threads with over 100 posts were suddenly transferred to a Social Zone section. After the event, managers created a thread to notify members. Through that thread I argued strongly against such action. I had several very legitimate causes of concern. One was that many of the longer term threads were highly inappropriate to consider putting into a 'social' thread. It felt insulting and demeaning for a thread which discussed SI and highly triggering traumatic incidents to suddenly be classified as casual Cafe chat. It made no sense!
The second issue was that it made me, as a long term member, feel that I didn't matter and that managers were trying to hide me in the back blocks. The reason I say that is because by moving threads into the Social Zone, it meant that those threads no longer appeared in the new posts feed. We became invisible. It felt like managers were trying to hide the long term members. It felt like we were being swept under the carpet and that they did not want us around. We became dispensable and unwanted, perhaps an embarrassment to them. It looked better for them that people came, received help, and left again .. completely cured. 🤣 Perhaps it looked better in their statistical analysis each year? As those of us with MIs know ... when it comes to MH ... the majority of us are going to have issues for the rest of our lives. Perhaps not all the time, but definitely from time to time. MH problems don't just disappear courtesy of a bit of well meaning advice and support from an online forum. We actually need ongoing support from people we have connected with and have respect for. Besides that, long term members have such a lot to give back to an online community. Why would you want to hide them or force them out? They are valuable members in any community, MH or anything else for that matter.
Now Zoe I am not saying that my situation is the same as yours is here, but to me there are many similarities. It was a time of change, it resulted in the loss of fellow members I had strong connections with and who had supported me in the 10 months I had been a member there. I lost contact with many others whom I cared a great deal about and whom I had supported for a long time.
To cut a long story short, my views resulted in my account being deactivated on that forum. It happened totally without warning, just an email from the manager saying that my account was deactivated. The excuse he gave was that I had posted an off-topic post to one of the threads. This meant that I was suddenly cut off from the people whom I had grown to consider friends. It was the only support I had and I was bereft. I guess Zoe, it was a little like you losing some of the moderators who have helped you so much in your early days here, such as Rockpool. Suddenly all that was taken away from me and I was completely desolate at the time. I felt very alone, was having suicidal thoughts, I was angry and confused and generally in a really bad way.
These things always seem to happen when we're down, don't they? Yeah well, it was the same for me. I was already in a low place back then, and suddenly found myself in an even worse place. It was at that stage that I found my way here to Sane, where I have again made some close connections, for which I am eternally grateful.
I might add that the other forum did make some changes as per my strong suggestions, but only after I was deactivated. Those long term threads were subsequently removed from the (highly inappropriate) Social Zone thankfully. That would honestly have been a total insult if they had continued with that. What they ended up doing was to introduce a new section for all long term threads to be moved to once they reached 100 plus posts. This included PTSD and Trauma, Suicidal thoughts and self harm threads. Sadly those threads are still essentially hidden from view, in that they do not appear in the new posts feed. You have to actually go hunting to find them. So they persist in treating long term members as second class citizens, which is really sad. I am pleased to say that Sane do not do that, and I hope they never do.
So when I saw what was happening here with your thread Zoe and also several others prior to yours, it brought back some really bad memories of September 2016 for me. Thankfully the changes proposed here have some merit. But the introduction of change needs to be sensitively done and very selective as to which threads are appropriate to be moved. I know this is not an easy task for managers.
Zoe, when you reacted with such disappointment and distress last week, it brought back so many distressing memories for me. And I have been struggling with that ever since. I feel terribly vulnerable and exposed. What if I get removed from here too? What will I have left? I have held off posting this in case I say something wrong, so I have needed to be careful in what I say and how I say it. Please don't let me have said anything wrong! I simply cannot lose my friends again. I'm sorry but I just needed to say this. Call it self-indulgent if you like, but maybe the timing is appropriate. I just hope this Forum is not going down the same path as the other one I used to be a member of. It would be such a shame. This is a great place to be a part of, and I know that with expansion comes inevitable change. But lets not change simply because others have, or purely for the sake of change.
Sherry 🌸😢💕
