I’m going to start journaling here a bit. I’ve agonised over this for a very long time.
The story of me on the forum.....changing and grieving.
when I first started on the forum I was elated to connect and communicate with others that had an understanding of what I was experiencing. I wanted to connect to everyone and help everyone connect to each other. There was a sense of tribe and I felt part of it in a guenuine way for the first time. I read every post every day.
I was possibly obsessed being here and spent many days (like 10 hours or more) on the forum, sometimes doing a 24 hour shift. It was the only place I felt ok about myself and my world was opened up to creating many new friends. I was mostly confident when I wrote and wrote from my heart. Posts just flowed. It was a huge part of me having a purpose on the good days. On the bad days I was out of control and needing intervention to be safe. I was swinging hugely from one to the other many times a week.
Then I fell into an exclusive phase. The forum was still my life but I stopped responding to others. Therapy had fallen in a black hole and it was a really tricky stage being in public mental health. Most of my time in the forum was around being in crisis mode.
At the beginning of this year I had started to find my feet again with my mental health. I had a good mh team that was making a difference. I was beginning to emerge as more stable but terribly confused and conflicted about identity. That has played out in the forum in many ways. I felt like I had abandoned many 'friend' members. I overthought my posts and have struggled to get the flow like I once did without stressing about it. I developed huge guilt that I wasn’t responding to everyone but was struggling to do so too. I missed the me that started on the forum. I felt like an imposter.
When the CG roles came up I thought that maybe that would be a good way to find my feet on the forum and give back. I had been so grateful for the forum and believe in and value the connections and support. I had come to a point with my mental health that I needed positivity. I wanted to bring some more positivity back to the forum.
Life has got in the way and my mental health has been erratic again. These days I spend more time offline trying to deal with my mental health. That change has come at the expense of forum time and has pulled at my heartstrings greatly. I think I’ve been grieving the loss of those close connections whilst understanding that I have to participate in the offline world to move forward.
So from here I want to work harder on fulfilling the goals I have as a CG whilst supporting others when I can. I know this will be erratic. 💜🤗
