[luvyrself]

My former partner was a recovered alcoholic, 13 years into recovery. I feel a huge part of his success was his mentor in AA. The mentor in AA is a person who has beaten alcoholism for a long period of time. Like bipolar and some other disorders on these forums, alcoholism might go into remission but the disease never goes away, but many people triumph over it for the rest of their lives.
What Im proposing is that some who is struggling here matches up with someone who has a high level of mastery with their disorder, but understands how to cope with, eg minimize or prevent episodes.
Ideally, for example with bipolar, mentoring partners would be matched with people here who have the same type of bipolar: bp1, 2, 3-mixed, 4 (don't know what 4 is ), or w psychotic overtones. Sure, the perfect match would be with someone who has experience with additional disorders like ED, ADHD. etc. We could even try to match by geographical region, married or single, with or wo kids, and by hobbies. But those last things would be icing on the cake. We could do a match form. My boyfriend requested his mentor, or someone could offer to take you under their wing, to be their mentor.
What do you folks think? If you like this idea, I will propose it to PsychCentral.

[Wild Coyote]

I often encourage members to post publicly because they are more apt to gain feedback from a variety of perspectives. However, this is an interesting idea.

You have done a great job of pitching your idea.
Feedback should be interesting.

I, too, have seen people do well with a sponsor/mentoring relationship within a program, like AA. I think it helps that it's done within a program of working on set goals, like the 12 Steps or other type of a program.

I know that I do not have the extra time/energy to participate in this type of a more formal program. I know some members do eventually get to know each other and help one another along via PM and/or email.

Interested in the feedback on this idea.

Many thanks for taking an interest.

WC

[tecomsin]

Your proposal is interesting. One thing is that there is a very simple measure of success in AA, which is how long has a person refrained from drinking, but there's no simple measure of success with mental illness. I think this is why AA can be so successful with their mentor program but you don't see the same interest in the mental health field. In fact many group therapy leaders urge people to refrain from interacting outside of sessions. I am not sure why that is.

[Wild Coyote]

I wonder if "mentoring" goes on in some of the social groups here, just for instance, in the DBT group?


WC

[~Christina]

I don’t see this working to be to honest for a variety of reasons

Bipolar is not AA it’s a ongoing disorder..... yes AA is also but on a different level/ deal

I know first hand how someone with Bipolar can literally be drained by a not so stable person.

I feel it’s easy for members who like each other to find common ground and use the PM here or Facebook messaging , email or phone.

There would have to Huge boundaries in place to save the saving and not get pulled under

Let a friendship begin and let’s see if you can both stay afloat

I have many friends on here that I am very close to, but we all know we can’t take someone down when our raft is taking on water. We support each other greatly and love each and each deeply , we having a saying when we just need to put our selves in a ball and self protect “ I’m non verbal”

Maybe the word mentor has me bothered.

Hope it works for whoever that’s up for it.

JMHO of course

[luvyrself]

Originally Posted by tecomsin

Your proposal is interesting. One thing is that there is a very simple measure of success in AA, which is how long has a person refrained from drinking, but there's no simple measure of success with mental illness. I think this is why AA can be so successful with their mentor program but you don't see the same interest in the mental health field. In fact many group therapy leaders urge people to refrain from interacting outside of sessions. I am not sure why that is.

——In the past I have been stable with periods of remission as long as a year or more. That would describe the mentor. I was definitely doing something right. Right now I’m in a huge transition in my life (moved towns plus semi retired) plus tried a major med change that was a disaster, and two people I knew and loved since childhood passed. I would consider myself as needing a mentor at this point because I have been rapid cycling and will probably try switching out meds. Luckily I met a local woman whose son is bipolar. She has had depression. She totally gets it. However, I hold back a lot so I don’t drain her just as you folks said. Well, let’s see what additional folks add to this.