Lived Experience Forum

[Seabreeze]

I can't see how any of this is helpful it all sounds so desperate and awful

[Former-Member]

Hi @Seabreeze my name is Nell23. Welcome to the SANE forum. In time I hope you find this place to be very supportive and filled with lots of understanding people, just like I have. 

I am hoping in time that you may feel comfortable to share some of you story with us. Nothing is desperate or awful on here. We all have lots of things, including myself, that we are currently dealing with.

Hope to hear from you soon,

Nell

[Phoenix_Rising]

Hi @Seabreeze, Welcome to Forum Land

I can totally understand what you are saying about how the "something's not right" section of the forum can seem unhelpful. I have tried a couple of other mental health focused forums over the years and walked away very quickly because of exactly what you describe. I found that they seemed like a whirlpool of misery that would drag me down rather than help me.

What I find different about the SANE forums is that the "something's not right" section is only one part of a much bigger picture. That is the space where people go when, well, something's not right.

However, there are LOTS of other spaces in Forum Land where people just hang out and chat about things unrelated to their mental health issues. Indeed, there is one thread specifically designed for that: Anything but "it".

There are threads where people chat about cats, dogs, birds, astronomy, poetry, reading, etc etc. There are threads where people share the positive things that happen in their day and their achievements. There are threads where people motivate each other to do things such as yoga or go out walking.

So you see, the "something's not right" area is only one part of Forum Land. It is a super important part because for many of us, that is the only space where we can share the things we are struggling with. However, it is absolutely 100% fine to stay right away from there and just hang out on the more social threads like this one: Good Morning (don't let the title throw you - the good morning thread seems to be very active all day long! ).

Perhaps you would like to introduce yourself here Seabreeze: Introduce yourself here and let us all know what brings you to Forum Land and what sorts of things you are interested in.

By the way, I have my settings set such that I only receive notifications if someone tags me, so make sure you do that if you want to respond to this post (and it is totally fine if you don't want to respond). To tag someone, you put the @ symbol in front of their name. So, for example, I am @Phoenix_Rising.

I hope you have a great day today @Seabreeze.

[Neelix]

Hi @Seabreeze. I agree. It appears desperate. It is awful. I cannot read the thread 'surrounded with darkness'. But?? and I think this...it makes me feel less alone to read others thoughts, it makes me validate what I think and feel. I will admit I do feel desperate. Some comments here are well? not awful but can be overwhelming for me. Post something small to start and see how you go.

The 'good morning' thread is great to get sunshine and feel hope. I like that thread.

[CheerBear]

Hi @Seabreeze 🙂

I am not sure if this is what you meant by your question but if your question was referring to whether it is helpful to have a space that seems at times to be so full of pain and suffering, then I understand why you might ask this. I asked myself a similar question when I joined too. It can be very hard to sit with the often dark side/s of mental health/mental illness.

What helped me work through this was when I saw that in every story of struggle there is also a story of strength, resilience and courage, because for every story that is shared there is a person behind it who has a 100% record for surviving the tough times. I am frequently inspired to keep on keeping on as I see others here doing.

As Neelix said, I also find it very validating to know I am not alone and that others experience things I do too. Mental health and mental illness are still kept too quiet in the world, and that drives feelings of being alone, isolated, confused, scared etc. This is a place to share what many want to elsewhere but can't. That in itself helps many people.

As well as this, as Phoenix_Rising mentioned, there are so many other parts of the forum that are lighter too. I try and balance my time here between different spaces because it helps me to do so. Many people here have different ways of managing their time here and there are many different ways 'here' can be helpful.

I hope you can find it helpful to be here, as I and so many others have and do 🙂

[Appleblossom]

Denial of the pain and suffering in life causes even more problems.  Not feeling there is anywhere that it is legit to tell it how it is, is a problem.  Enough people on the site find many positive things to post about.  That is heartening to see when they have also shared their down times. Sometimes putting the negative stuff out there males space for the sunshine and rainbows after the storm.