Trippin, I hear you and I am sorry that you have been strugglig so much lately. I am also sorry that it has not felt like a safe place for you to get support you need. You know I hate to see you or any members here struggling.

As far as the forum in it's present state...I also feel less comfortable posting here as it stands. Generally I know that if I spoke in a more dirct mannor with my advice it would be very unwelcomed. And it is kind of sad because it is the exact advice I recieved here that has lead me to recovery. Humans while being unique are also similar in many ways. We all want a " what works for you will not work for me" or vice versa approach. Well sometimes that just isn't true either, and more a question of do you want it to work at all? You can see why that would be a problem for me to post.

This forum when we joined way back in 2010 was not very open then either and we did fight to make it more acceptable of many views, I know you remember. Venus without a doubt would also remember Christina and many more. I use to worry I would get branded the annoyingly opptomistic nut . It is something that will probably cycle again as the mental health community ( pdocs, therapists and patients) and the current medical model take time to evolve. It's what we are taught as patients to believe and that is hard to give up as it can offer some sort of comfort, some sort of answer even if it does nothing to give us an actual quality of life that we can be blissful with, not just a quality that is accepted as a bit better than. I know I have been put on ignore many times for promoting things like self responsability, I know that has become a dirty word in much of the mental health community. I am not even talking about meds here, but the messages we are told in general.

I can give empathy and compassion, love to...but it doesn't really solve a whole lot at the end of the day. If I give real advice it no doubt will be met with disdain because I firmly like you, believe in acountability and learning how to steer and direct your own life instead of being steered especially in the face of adversity.



Just remeber you own strength within and abilty to rise above the issues as you have before, and as you can do again. That ability and strength is not finate, it is always there waiting.

Remember our poetry thread...pretty sure I was an odd man out there haha but you know, that's ok...good even. Sometimes being the odd one posting positivity and and feeling a bit out numbered is ok, never know who might find that useful. If it was not for some people taking that risk I might not have ever learned what I did from them. They probably didn't even realize the impact their words had or know how much they changed my life for the best, and you are included in that group as many of you are. But that advice I got came with risk to the poster. I had a hard time as first as well.. I sometimes couldn't understand how to make this work for me and I was challanged to think about what my educated dr's had told me. I was challenged to take a good hard honest look at myself and I can say it was not easy and it was not pretty in many ways. But I have never suffered for doing so. However it takes time to get to that place too.

I can think of times I thought...man this person just doesn't understand...I don't have a choice! Wow was I ...well I was wrong and maybe that person did understand, maybe they understood better than I did, because as it turns out, they were correct.. and I did have a choice..thank god. Took me quite a while to realize that tho. I could not make use of their advice however untill I became open to hearing what they had to say.

Quite frankly I would say the medical health model we use for psychiatry could be likened to brainwashing..to put it nicely. I'll go further with that crazy thought and extend it to the current commonly used physical medical model as well.