Skip to main content

Support Promote Advocate

for Borderline Personality Disorder

Forums Home
Illustration of people sitting and standing

New here?

Chat with other people who 'Get it'

with health professionals in the background to make sure everything is safe and supportive.

Register

Have an account?
Login

cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Forum News and Updates

Eden1919
Senior Contributor

A question with the best of intentions about the guidelines yet again.

Ok firstly i am sorry to ask another question about the guidlines and i know there is no perfect way to have them that meets every individual need but I and perhaps some others i am not sure, anyway i am having trouble with finding a balance between being able to openly dicuss a negative experience with services and not violating the guidline about discouraging help seeking. 

 

like i fully understand wanting to keep things postivite and encouraging around people getting help but i also feel like if things arent ok with the system or if someone has had a bad experience with it they should also be able to share that. and i also feel like only being able to hear the positives about a situation can be misleading if you do end up having a bad experience because it can make you feel as if your experience isnt valid or that people dont care or want to know. i cannot speak for others but i personally much preffer to have a mix of both good an bad information about any situation it helps me to think critically and to make my own opinions on a matter. anything to me that is all shunshine and rainbows kind of makes me feel like there is a cover up going on or like it is properganda and free speech has been somehow stiffled. that could very well be me being paranoid but nothing is ever 100% great and there are risks with everything and personally i prefer to be able to weigh all the information before forming an opninon.  

 

idk i know this isnt nessecarily a platform that encoruages complete free speech and there are some very reasonable reasons for that but is there a way we can express unhappniess with the system or our experience of it without having to be worried it will be taken down or told we are violating the guidlines. like i feel like there is a kind of healing that can happen by hearing that you arent alone and it would be great if that can happen here but i always feel like i am walking on egg shells whenever i want to post about any of this sort of thing and i would love some more clear instructions or examples of what is or is not ok in temrs of this.  

 

also sorry this is so incredibly long i am going to tag some people but no pressure to reply i would just love some other opinions on this than my own. 

@greenpea @Former-Member @outlander @eth @Snowie @The-red-centaur @nashy @Former-Member @Owlunar  and anyone else i have forgotten please feel free to chime in. 

7 REPLIES 7

Re: A question with the best of intentions about the guidelines yet again.

Over to you @nashy   I'm not the one to interpret the guidelines or explain why they are what they are, sorry @Eden1919 

Re: A question with the best of intentions about the guidelines yet again.

@eth  sorry i didnt mean to ask you personally to explain the guidlines I just meant for peoples general opinions experiences i should have clarified 

Re: A question with the best of intentions about the guidelines yet again.

Another thing that makes this forum off-putting for me, in addition to all of what @Eden1919 mentioned, is that the mods are dismissive in the language they use to approach this situation, and they use "the guidelines were created in consult with the community" as an excuse to justify their dismissiveness and this type of silence. I agree, it is like constantly having to walk on eggshells and like there is a lot of cover up for services etc going on that is justified by the people behind the scenes. 

 

All I have to ask, is have those higher ups in SANE actually used the mental health system before? Have they actually seen what goes on firsthand? Have they been there when patients and clients are treated like dirt? I doubt it, because the approach says otherwise. I think that needs to be considered when deciding if they have the right to censor actual lived experience and treat those of us with it like we have to walk on eggshells. We already are just to avoid being treated like criminals or shit otherwise. Don't need more of it. 

Re: A question with the best of intentions about the guidelines yet again.

when I talk about services I tend to share both good and bad or if its mostly bad then I will share something encouraging @eden1717
I don't think they mean you cant say anything bad about services but I was finding before that rule, there were many posts coming up that seemed quite discouraging to others trying to seek support.
I believe everyone is entitiled to an opinion and if you've only had bad experiences with supports then that's fine but when talking to others when sharing all the negative I tend to say something positive that I have noticed or found ie I know many people have had great success with support services and I tag those members in so they can also share their perspective.

Re: A question with the best of intentions about the guidelines yet again.

Hey there @Eden1919 thanks so much for this question, and we definitely empathise and understand it can be a bit tricky to get one's head around. I think a lot of your posting is really positive, you tend to use a lot of "My experience of xyz was not a positive one" and that's really paramount, always coming back to your own experience. Because you're right, there's work to be done in the sector, there are many people who feel disempowered by the way the services are run.

It gets tricky however when we say things like "I personally can't stand X organisation". That is a post we would allow initially, but if it is repetitive - then it needs to be removed (for a mod they would be looking for more than three repetitions of this criticism in a tight time frame). It's really important people don't feel afraid to access services, but it's also important people feel they can speak about their negative experience of the sector - so for both mods and staff it is probably one of the more challenging guidelines to navigate. I would definitely encourage you to email us if you like, and we can help work you through examples, but overall I think you do well to post from your own personal lens which is much appreciated 🙂 Currently as I type this, there are 20 members online and 400 guests. Those people are reading over many of the threads, some may be considering reaching out for help for the first time - it's just so important they feel they can have that opportunity. I know in my own experience, reaching out to a helpline for the first time was really paramount in recovery, but I also acknowledge not everyone has had the same opportunity perhaps due to an unhelpful counsellor on the other end of the line :(.


@Former-Member Thanks for your insight and feedback. We would encourage you to email us directly if you would like, we can also provide you more formal feedback channels for our service. Yes there are members of SANE's staff who have lived experience of complex mental health, in addition of course are our peer ambassadors and forum volunteers. I can assure you this community and org strives to ensure those affected by complex mental health feel supported, we do however, need to have policies and protocols that align with national requirements regarding duty of care to make sure all community members are safe. We understand it can be hard at times, please feel free to get in touch via team@saneforums.org and we can help you out further with this issue. 

Thanks heaps @eth @Eden1919 @Former-Member  Heart

Re: A question with the best of intentions about the guidelines yet again.

We're all adults here, why are we treated like hopeless babies with no ability to make decisions about what we do and don't read on the forums? 

Re: A question with the best of intentions about the guidelines yet again.

@Eden1919  Hey Eden1919 I totally and utterly agree with you 100% with everything you have said. peax

Illustration of people sitting and standing

New here?

Chat with other people who 'Get it'

with health professionals in the background to make sure everything is safe and supportive.

Register

Have an account?
Login

For urgent assistance

privacy statement | disclaimer | contact | Australian BPD Foundation Limited ABN: 83 163 173 439

We acknowledge and respect the traditional custodians of these ancestral lands. We acknowledge the deep feelings of attachment and relationship of Aboriginal people to country.