Quote:
Originally Posted by hairyone
Hello All,
This forum is a great idea and I think it helps many people, thank you for hosting it.
Background:
I run a forum completely unrelated to psych, it is a cryptozoology/bigfoot research website. The focus of the site is field research, sightings analysis, stats collection, fieldcraft, etc.
We have a subset of our members who I believe need help. However, I am ignorant about mental health, so maybe I'm wrong and that's why I'm here, to educate myself.
Our website's subject matter is animals not accepted by science yet. There is a stigma associated with searching for bigfoot. Our site makes every attempt to keep the discussions science based.
Problem:
We have a subset of members who claim that they can telepathically communicate with bigfoot. That bigfoots are everywhere and have a society and special powers. That they have interactions with these creatures all the time, etc.
They have names for their bigfoot friends, etc.
Questions:
1) Do these members have a mental health issue? (I think so)
2) We have segregated them to a specific forum in our website and they stay there for the most part and do their thing. It's been about three years now. Is allowing that not helping them? Are enabling something we shouldn't?
3) Is it advisable to not provide that forum for them? that is what I would like to do, end it. I don't want to cause them any issues though.
Thank You for your advice.
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Im sorry we cant tell you whether your members of your website have a mental disorder or not, only they and their own treatment providers can say that. you see we are not their doctors and here in the USA there are privacy rules and add to that if you look at the bottom of every page on psych central you will see a disclaimer that says this site is not for diagnosis and treatment, to contact ones own treatment providers.
that said I know many people who feel they can communicate with their pets, animals in general wild or not. Some people just have this instinctual ability. kind of like you can be out in public and accidentally make eye contact with someone and your own instincts will give you all kinds of clues and info about that stranger. some people have learned how to listen to their instincts with animals and other strange happenings.
some locations teach things like bigboot was/ is just a very large primate or individual. that anyone over a certain height and boot size is now considered to be a genetic relation to giants or big foot. example I have a friend who's brother is 7 ft tall, try buying a size 18 extra wide grown mens sneaker. yea he gets called bigfoot and he and his mom and dad have this instinctual connection, is it telepathy who knows but it sure seems that way when you are in the room with them.
also you have to understand if you are going to have a website based on mythical beasts and out of the ordinary beasts and animals you are going to get those who say they have met and talked with our have those kinds of animals just for the sake of saying so, just to see how gullible people on the site really are, having a website like this you are bound to get all kinds of people from believers to unbelievers and those that love to scam, heckle Bs their way through the site and forums.
my suggestion is you have two options you can look at what the rules are for the site and see if it goes against the rules of what your site is and as the administrator of your website take what ever action you want to
or
you can just sit back and enjoy the fact that you have a website that people are comfortable discussing bigfoot and other creatures freely. and that you have a site that does not discriminate against those who may be different.
or
you can have conversations with these people to see if they will tell you their self whether or not they have a mental disorder.