Hello @Gem17 and
@Shaz51, @BPDSurvivor , @Judi9877 , @Kbomb
Welcome to the forum and we hope that it will be a place where you may find some comfort, as you describe in your introduction.
As you may possibly imagine, from the experience of engaging with forum members and their struggles and achievements, that it does not sound at all strange to those who have been connected with the forum for a while, to hear you reflect on a sense of comfort and possibly reassurance, that at last you know that you are definitely not on your own and that there are identifiable reasons for what you describe as
"the struggles I have had over the past 20+ years."
It is also pleasing to know, with the work that you have already done, on your own and with your psychologist, that you have come a long way across the bridge, between where you have been, and an awareness of the positives in front of you, and possibly the difficulties that you may face, because of your inner awareness.
It is also good to know that you certainly seem to be receptive to further information and observations that will allow you to put in and get the most from your life in the future.
With My Very Best Wishes
@HenryX
P.S.
I have added the following tips which I hope will be of help in using the functions of the forum. If you have any problems just ask from wherever you are and someone should be able to assist. These tips will make more sense as you become familiar with the site.
Posting a Comment and Replying to Another Post
When you want to reply to a post with someone's forum address, eg @HenryX .
forum name = @HenryX , forum address = @ + HenryX = @HenryX
= Gem17 = @ + Gem17 = @Gem17
- Click the REPLY oval to the bottom right of the post to which you intend replying
- With the cursor in the Reply box, type the "@" symbol {without quotation marks / inverted commas} which will open a drop down menu with up to five or six forum addresses of people who have commented in the thread to which you want to reply
- The @ symbol cannot be adjacent to any other letter or symbol, in front or behind, in order for the dropdown menu to appear P@ , = X P @ ,J = ✔
- Selecting a forum address from the list will automatically enter that forum address into the reply box, and, in turn, will send an alert, when the message is posted, to the person concerned, which will appear in their "Your Notifications" page list for that person
- Repeat steps 2 to 4 for additional forum address entries into the reply box
- Enter the comment that you wish to offer, then click POST once, and click POST again. {Two POST clicks are normally required. If the comment does not post on the second click, check above and below the reply box for Error Messages.
- There is often a message below the reply box regarding an "invalid HTML" { - see 8. below.} That message can normally be ignored unless it changes to read a different message. The message just seems to be stuck there, for no apparent reason, but can be confusing.
- " Your post has been changed because invalid HTML was found in the message body. The invalid HTML has been removed. Please review the message and submit the message when you are satisfied. "
Accessing and Responding to "Your Notifications"
Toward the top right of the forum page, to the right of Guidelines & Info, is placed the word New .
- Clicking on the word New will open your "Your Notifications" page
- The "Your Notifications" page displays a list of the notifications to you, posted by other members, from threads to which you have posted or been active, or where another member has entered your forum address, to alert you to their message.
- In the "Your Notifications" page, Left click on the link, which will be displayed like this; " Re: Henry's Landing Strip & Hangar " {with the prefix Re: but without quotation marks / inverted commas} to open the link and selected message in the same browser TAB as the "Your Notifications" page, or
- Right click on the displayed link to open the link and message in a new browser TAB
- If there are a number of message alerts, I find it easier to open two or three of them in new browser TABs
- However, if you see this timeout message, don't panic:
Authentication Failed.
- Authentication Ticket Mismatched, failed authentication.
Copy the whole of the message that you have typed into the message box, refresh ⟳ the page {top left of browser window}, and then paste the copied message back into the reply box; complete the message and click POST once, and click POST again.
When you are copying from the reply box, before refreshing, I believe that forum addresses do "copy and paste" back into the same refreshed reply box properly.
{The process above is what I had to do with this message because I took so long to write the message. That is when the dreaded "Authentication Failed" message most often appears}
Another way of avoiding the dreaded "Authentication Failed" message is to write the message in your word processor {Microsoft Word, Appache OpenOffice Writer, etc} and then "copy and paste" the text from the word processor into the reply box.
Caution: I believe that forum addresses do not copy and paste properly from the word processor, so it is best to enter all forum addresses directly into the reply box.
That should complete the message process unless there are any other error messages that require attention.
Cheers @HenryX
