Don't know how to do quotes here but:
"Any community always ends up attracting downvotes and trolls, and the conventional resources such as the suicide hotline chat are only meant to keep you talking and don't help discuss chronic problems."
This is pretty much it right here. It boils down to qualifications, money, and the anonymous nature of the internet. It's hard to give real and useful advice to someone based off of only a couple of internet posts.
Offline, are you gonna run into shitty therapists who deserve to have their license revoked? Yes absolutely. But the people who can help have qualifications and charge a lot of money for their time. They're not gonna come on the internet and dispense useless or generic advice to strangers. It would be a waste of everyone's time, not to mention the whole issue with separating work from life.
This is it, and it's really a broader issue with online communities for a lot of professional services in general, whether it be mental healthcare or medicine or legal services, etc. I'd argue it's not just difficult to give real or helpful advice through these communities, but also irresponsible and potentially negligent, and that's not even going into professional ethics issues like patient confidentiality or attorney client privilege or a whole host of other ethical concerns.
Professional services generally fall into a bucket of "above the internet's pay grade." You really need a licensed professional, but a licensed professional isn't going to be distributing advice over a community forum, both because it's typically a paid service and because they really can't even if they wanted to.
Options are at least expanding for remote professional services, and I'd recommend looking into those options if you need specific help. I'm also not saying communities are bad and they can be great for general support and community, but they're not a replacement for licensed professional services when those services are needed.
I think online there's a tendency for communities focused on mental health to consist of more people who need help than those who are in a position to really give it.
Not that I don't think there's value in online communities of people supporting eachother deliberately, but I think it can sometimes be like two people each with a broken leg helping one another.
A person who is in a good state of mental health and equipped to help those who need it isn't necessarily going to be looking for mental health support communities unless it's a deliberate calling they have, in which case they probably do it professionally anyway.
This is why I think the go to suggestion ends up being to find a therapist, or someone in your real life that you trust if available. It's the ideal, if available.
As far as online support, I think the best way is to go to where the mentally healthy people are and form a more organic support network. Try and make friends by doing things online (ex. Participating in hobby forums and discords, joining gaming communities etc.) because then you are more likely to be surrounded by group of average people who can maybe help prop you up indirectly as you form friendships.
I only suggest this because looking back on the most positive and supportive experiences I've had online during low points in my life they were with friends I'd met through online communities. Talking in IRC channels, forum DMs, steam chat, discord etc. I was able to lean on those people a bit to get me past the worst of it.
I see what you're saying, and that's actually one of the things that inspired this post. I say this in the most endearing way possible, but your first statement describes all of the discord servers I'm in tbh. There are a lot of people hurting, and a major shortage of resources to cope, especially for those who are unemployed or on the lower end of the income scale. I've even opened my inbox and ears, but like you said, I'm certainly in no position to give help beyond actively listening and being present.
For certain, truly stable, healthy people do seem to be the exception rather than the rule. And I don't mean to say it should be all on them to help those who need it, there's value in everyone doing what little they can where they can even if they're struggling themselves.
Listening and being present is helpful, at least to me. Therapy is itself a way of getting people to sort of explore and analyze themselves, the therapist is there mainly to gently prod you along and give you a more objective, outside perspective when necessary that's detatched from the normal kind of social dance of trying to hide our vulnerabilities and pain. We can sometimes be that for one another to differing degrees.
Perhaps then it's more about everyone picking their moment -- when you're strong help others, when you're feeling weak look for those you can lean on until it passes.
I dunno, seems like a lot of words to more or less be saying nothing, lol. I'm figuring it out as much as anyone else.
I know it can be hard to find for sure, but there is a lot of online mental health support available. I'm not sure about actual free forum communities, but that might be becuase of privacy issues or the difficulty of both moderating and providing safe healthy advice.
But there are online options for therapy. Some of it is free, but most requires a fee - although there are often sliding scale options (when councelors offer lower fees if cost is an issue, there's more who offer this than you'd think.) Finding help remotely is the way to go, it's both more affordable and you can take the time to find someone who is right for you. I use an online therapist, she lives a few hours away and it took a few attempts to find the right fit, but it's worth it.
There is 7 cups - they offer a lot of options. They provide just someone to talk to (volunteers, it's free) as well as affordable options for counceling. https://www.7cups.com/
I'd also recommend Psychology Today, which lets you search for therapists both locally and online. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists
I used Psychology Today to find my therapist (there's a Canadian version of the site) The have profiles and contact info for many, MANY therapists and psychologists, all accredited and professional. Most will be happy to tell you their rates, or offer either a free or very low cost introductory session (to see if you are the right fit)
There are also some free, self-directed therapy options in the form of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. A lot of it can be done yourself, as it involves worksheets and exercises. It's actually very effective despite sounding maybe like busy work? Hehe - I've also had success using CBT, both with therapists and using self-directed workbooks.
Here is a good introduction, very thorough and with links for further reading: https://positivepsychology.com/cbt-cognitive-behavioral-therapy-techniques-worksheets/
The main website here also provides some good, free resources and articles by certified councelors. https://positivepsychology.com/
Thank you very much for the resources. It's interesting searching in that second link you provided because there are some therapists listed in my community, but neither of the two who I saw.
It gets discouraging not having much money, but I'll try that 7cups free service first and see if I like it.
Thanks!
A thought — looking at your post, and the other comment here, it sounds like you are looking for a community with very low tolerance for trolls and the like. Sounds familiar... 🤔
Maybe ask the BeeHaw mods if there's room for the community that you're looking for: /c/mentalhealth.
I wouldn't be surprised if they'd be worried about the responsibility of such a place, both in terms of modding and I guess legal liability, but it can't hurt to ask, right? Try asking in /c/beehawsupport.
It's not the same (potential) can of worms, but we already have /c/neurodivergent.
BeeHaw is specifically a safe space; if what you're looking for could exist, I personally can't imagine a better home for it.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d be worried about the responsibility of such a place, both in terms of modding and I guess legal liability, but it can’t hurt to ask, right? Try asking in /c/beehawsupport.
Mental health is one of the few communities that fall into a general category of 'often problematic on the internet' due to a confluence of factors noted already in this post as well as a few not mentioned - namely that people who are not educated can cause serious and real harm to others with bad or misinformed advice. In the same way that you shouldn't ask for legal advice from a random individual, asking for mental health advice online can be fraught with bad responses/answers. At this point in time we're not entertaining the idea.
Tagging @LinkOpensChest_wav@beehaw.org for transparency
Makes total sense, and I respect you and the team's decision on the matter 😊
I hadn't really thought the 'bad advice' angle through, thank you for the clarification.
Real-life therapists aren't any better.
Most mental health problems, I suspect, are the result of socioeconomic problems like price gouging and wage stagnation. Spending your whole life struggling to just barely avoid homelessness is not good for the mind. Neither is working for a boss who treats you like a slave, and let's face it, that's exactly what you are. No amount of talk or pills will fix that.
I agree that this is much of the problem. Capitalism is designed to break anyone who's not part of the bourgeoisie.
But without going into detail (because things took a bad turn last time I did here), I've got some exacerbating circumstances beyond that (which admittedly is still related to capitalism since all help is behind some pretty high paywalls).
Honestly, I think part of it is that having an entire community of people suffering depressive symptoms becomes a depressing environment.
I'm sure I heard this in a Brene Brown video, but in order to be able to help someone else, you need to be in the right place yourself. Two empty glasses can't help fill each other. And most people can't help an entire community of struggling people, one glass can't help fill fifty, it's futile and self damaging to try. It's why we have professionals that do one on one therapy.
And, this might be unpopular, but I think historically this is why we have priests too. I'm not religious, but I think that community offers that to some people.
Sometimes people need to vent, and some people aren't lucky enough to be in a position where they can vent to anybody, but I don't know if diving into a community where you expose yourself to everyone else's problems too is the solution. Things like addictions counseling are controlled, with professionals at the helm, and often in small spaces, with a prescribed meeting time and an end.
