This thread almost perfectly illustrates the double standard I keep mentioning in this forum. Those of us who do try to offer what we perceive as support and actual suggestions (there's a nail in your head, you could try taking it out to fix your headache), get profusely criticized and diagnosed as grandiose, smug, self congratulatory, etc. We are both diagnosed and told how we should act. People assign motives to us, like we are semi-deliberately antagonizing, or whatever. I have been attacked on a personal level in threads and when I respond to try to explain what I meant, my response is deleted as a violation of the community standard that disagreements should be resolved in private, but the attack on me is left up on the thread, even when I ask that it be removed.

THIS is the kind of thing that I think really sucks about this forum and the reason I often debate whether to not to continue. It really does perpetuate my childhood experience of never having my experience or my feelings be important, and having to withdraw and not participate in most discussions for fear of constantly being told how I feel or think is wrong. In this forum, as in my life, I have basically withdrawn from interacting with anyone except a small group.