Relationship You want to continue supporting, but they seem so lost in isolation.

[Sweetpea76]

Supporters, I challenge you to go back and read the threads where you feel attacked.

There is a difference between opinion and attacking your character. It's not always the sufferers responding with opinion either.

Take the defensiveness out of it and reread the opinions and advice. Use it as a learning experience. I've been straightened out a time or two myself on here, and while it didn't feel good, I learned from it.

If you want a rant thread or are looking for warm fuzzies, then state in your original post that you don't want advice and opinion. People tend to be blunt here, but that is what is needed sometimes.

This thread has run its course. It's no longer productive. Locked

 

[joeylittle]

Final thoughts, from your admin:

Yeah, I think you get it and you don’t need more people to tell you how wrong/shitty/careless/whatever what you did was.

People are free to leave threads at any time. It's the internet - sometimes, responses keep coming when you're already past the issue. So, leave the thread. It's OK.

I’ve been thinking about leaving this site due to not feeling like I belong here. As you said, we as supporters are gonna make mistakes because we’re learning how to be supporters. Last night I felt like a swarm of bees had jumped on me; I shouldn’t have to feel like that at all, not being in the supporter’s section.

The way you want the site to work, is not actually how the site works. And that's OK - there are other sites out there. We don't aggressively manage the tone of the site, so sometimes things get blunt. We also don't keep a total separation between supporters and sufferers. We do intervene when things get too sufferer-heavy, but we aren't always available to catch things like that in real-time.

Finally - there's a mental health concept that is incredibly useful, and this thread has some solid examples of it (from both sides)

The concept is, "you can't make anyone do or feel anything; you cannot control anyone's actions, other than your own".

So, when you say that you've been made to feel a certain way - that's not accurate. You have been given a variety of responses, and some are super-direct and harsh. It's up to you, how to feel about them. You can feel frustrated, you can give voice to that frustration; you can walk away from the thread; you can examine where that bad feeling is really coming from - I'd guess that some of it comes from reading judgement from sufferers, and you are in a position right now where you think your ex (a supporter) is judging you, and you have bad feelings around that. But it could be other stuff, too.

If you want a rant thread or are looking for warm fuzzies, then state in your original post that you don't want advice and opinion. People tend to be blunt here, but that is what is needed sometimes.

Echoing what Sweetpea is saying - and, I wanted to add, there is an area for supporters only - Important - Private Supporter Discussion Area - and you might want to request access.

There are also diaries, for supporters - I know that you both know where that area is. A diary is a good place to vent - like you both started doing towards the end of this thread.

Finally, you can use ignore to avoid reading posts by anyone that bothers you - sufferer or supporter. It's a really easy tool, and can help tune out noise.