> I feel as though the same stigma that folks with mental disorders face in general society is being replicated here against teens or children facing the same or similar issues.

That is a pretty strange feeling to be having... Typically feelings refer to something along the lines of an interpretation of a pattern of bodily response... Feelings are things like guilt and shame and frustration and anger. I think you mean to say that you think that ' the same stigma that folks with mental disorders face in general society is being replicated here against teens or children facing the same or similar issues'. Now... How do you feel when you interpret people as doing that?

> Does that mean that adults and teens/children face the same issues? No, they don't.

Don't they? I thought you just said you felt (or thought) they did.

I would have thought that anxiety, depression, SA, SI, issues around identity, eating disorders, in fact any disorder there is a place for here are disorders that are also found in adolescents. Even in children (in some instances). Though I would think that the literacy skills required to read detailed posts... The interest required in the first place... Would mean that not many children would be particularly interested in such a site.

> Teens and children face very different issues than adults, and have a very different set of social skills than adults.

I've met a number of teens who have better social skills than a number of adults I've met off boards. Some teens are pretty good at differentiating thoughts from feelings, for example. I'm wondering how much comments like yours tend to perpeptuate the stigma you were interpreting other people as displaying in that first quote.

Funny how people are more bothered by teens than they are by expressions of religion...

Or maybe it is that people are more concerned about teens having their own special place than they are interested in people having their own special place to talk about religon...

What next?

May I suggest a different board for people from ethnic minority groups as people who belong to an ethnic minority may well face different issues from those who aren't a member of an ethnic minority group.

Research on intelligence and so on and so forth suggests that people from an ethnic minority group aren't as likely to have good literacy skills...

Is there a problem with the analogy or is it illuminating do you think?