Hi Fuzzy,

I've looked around at other mental health sites. There are some with a lot of really good information that I have found very helpful, and I found this one from a link from one of them. The thing that they don't tend to have is the interaction and response and friendship and sense of belonging that we get here. Recently I joined another site that has message boards similar to this one, and it has some features that I like such as that although you have to be a member to post, you can post anonymously if you choose. (That isn't always an advantage, but was for me because I wanted to talk about something but was too embarassed to talk about it with anyone I knew). I also like that they have someone (apparently a licensed counselor) in charge of each of the message board topics. I guess they can do that since it is a site that offers e-therapy (paid), so it is a site that is for making money, not a free service like this one. And I generally like this one much better. Besides having better features here, I don't think anyone looks at the message boards there very often - it doesn't look like there are many responses to anything, and the posts go back 3 years or more without requiring additional pages.

The difference between support and enabling can be a fine line, but support is actually helping someone to deal with their problems, while enabling is keeping the problems going, such as making drugs available to a drug addict or providing the means and excuses to someone so that they don't have to actually face their problems.

More recovery oriented? I feel like we are given the freedom with this site to support each other and that it is what we make of it. We can just come here and complain about our problems and not do anything about it - some have done that - but they do get told what they need to do to start working on it instead of just complaining. Maybe some rules or guidelines for how to ask for help and how the rest of us could best answer those requests could be useful, but I think that most people here do just fine and anyone who lacks those skills learns.

Just a few of my opinions, for what it's worth.


<font color=purple>"The real problem of mental life is not why some people become insane, but rather why most avoid insanity." -Erich Fromm</font color=purple>