SRS BSNS... or is it?
 

So I have been PRing the hell out of the srs bsns board recently, and I too am guilty of making threads in that board which are not really serious enough to justify being there, due to it being too serious for GSA but not specific enough for MH, SH or ED.

I do not think I am alone in the feeling that Serious Discussions and Advice is being somewhat misused at the moment. [do feel free to correct me on that assertion!]. An abundance of only moderately serious threads means that acual srs bsns drops quickly to the second page, and i think also trivialises suicide.

I'v discussed the serious board with some members recently and one said that she thought it was somewhere that members should only post threads once or twice in their entire RYL 'career', and for really rather serious issues. And I find myself agreeing with that take on things. Is this how other people feel the board should be used?

Would it possibly be an idea to have another board bridging the gap between General Support and Advice and Serious Discussion and Advice? Like for example threads about being passively suicidal, going through a major life upheaval/family break up etc? If you are in a stalky mood, I would suggest all of the threads I have ever made in serious would be more suited in this hypothetical board I am describing.

As yet I have no suggestions for what such a board should be called. All I can currently think of is 'moderately srs bsns', which wouldn't do at all!

So yeah, thoughts?

it confuses me and ive been here for too many years and have been a mod for umpteen years on top of that.

From my perspective, and i believe from the perspective of all the mods, we agree that yeah, serious should be where you post if you are literally like 'i need to talk to someone right now or there is a massive risk that i am going of off myself'.

But then, thats tricky because its difficult for us to asses what 'serious' constitutes as.
If the most stressful thing in your life is your schooling, it seems a bit unfair to move a thread about that when it is making you feel terrible.

I think as well that the mental health board does not get used enough. It seems to be used for discussion of diagnosed mental illnesses etc, when, in my opinion, it is where all the on going threads about peoples general mental health should be. Even if they are eventually moved there after the initial crisis.
I believe the 'support for' threads should for the most part be in mental health as they tend to document peoples struggles with an on going situation rather than immediate help needed now kind of thing.

I really believe the following would help:
1. if members would read the description of each forum before deciding to post.
2. If members would then look at the 'trigger labels' available for that forum. If you are discussing something that doesnt have a contains label, it likely shouldnt be there. ie: if you write a post in general support and advice and find yourself writing *contains sexual abuse*
3. if members would use the serious discussion board to update one thread about themselves if they are having an especially desperate period of time rather than creating several threads in one board.
4. if members asked for their thread to be moved elsewhere when/if the desperateness of the situation decreases.

Number 3 is not fair on the rest of the community more than anything, it means those that are trying to support end up repeating themselves, it also means that by creating several threads very close together, they are pushing others need for support off the first page.

well.. that was quite a ramble.

As someone who never reads Serious (for several reasons), I agree with this. To me, Serious is 'the suicide board'. I don't think it matters why someone is feeling that bad, it's more the frame of mind that is important.

Charlie, I only saw your most recent post at first at thought you were talking about me and was like 'pfft, I think I was relatively concise' :-p

I agree with ALL of your points in theory. I just wonder, would the MH board not lose it's quality as being a good place to ask questions about specific MH conditions, if it were to become the main location for 'i'm struggling with being suicidal right now' and 'my family has fallen apart, I'm finding it difficult to cope' threads?

Oh, and Claire, I agree with you [how unexpected!], though do you consider there to be a difference between passive and active suicidality?
Like, when I was recently in crisis there probably was a risk of me actually offing myself, but most of the time, I kind of want to die, but am not really in danger of acting on that desire, and I would say that only the former would be an issue that should be in the serious board.

Batten down the hatches, the world is about to implode! :P

Yes, there is a difference between active and passive, and I would agree that only the former really belongs in Serious. However, at the moment there isn't really a place for those who are passively suicidal to post, as MHD is more about specific illness and medications, and GSA is maybe a bit too happy(?!) for want of a better word for it.

its a tricky one. Mental health is a very slow moving board, the first page covers the last 72 hours activity, i think thats because there are already established thread on some of the 'hot topics'* (eg: theres a Bordlerine thread and a disassociation thread that are massive and used by a lot of people).

i dunno like, perhaps we could do with a sub forum so that there can be a differation (what is the right word??) between ongoing mental health and specific mental illness?

As i said, its difficult to monitor what is classed as being serious without trivialising the board.

Oh, whilst im rambling, i also have a massive issue with people using serious as an extension of the ranting and venting forum where they just ignore any previous well thought out, supportive responses from members and make the rest of their posts within the thread just rants.

*terrible phrasing.

I think its unfair to say someone should only post there once or twice in their time here, if people need to post they need to post, but there has to be a limit i think to people posting and people posting a new thread every second day.

I think people need to think about where it needs to go, anything about mental health should be in the mental health board, anything thats not serious and not about mental health should go in the general board and anything that is considered serious or people feeling in desperate need for support should go in serious.

But saying that i have noticed there has been an amount of depression threads in general support.

I think some people use the serious board to kind of go "Look! Look how ill I am! I'm so ill I'm posting in here!" Cue attention, people trying to help, that person realises that they got some help by posting in that board, without realising fully that it is a SRS serious board (through misunderstanding, not reading rules, room guides, etc etc) and the cycle goes on.

Ps. I am NOT saying people in there are attention seeking - I think some people have just fallen into habits of using that board reguarly.

Thats why i feel that people should have only one thread going in there at one time rather than making new ones every few days when the old one can be bumped.

I kindof dislike the idea that the Serious discussion becomes an only actively suicidal board. I mean, to me it's basically that now, but if you removed the passively suicidal to somewhere else it really is going to turn the whole form into "go to the hospital" type replies, whereas now you have people calm enough to be able to work through the 'passive" suicidal feelings.

Also passive suicidal feelings can quickly turn to active ones, the line is blurred.

I agree with Charlie's list, and the point about people using it to rant and not take advice.

I just think if we make another forum things will be too fragmented. The description for Serious is actually 'what doesn't fit anywhere else' so theoretically with passive suicidal posts its doing its job. It's when posts that belong in GSA are put there that they should obviously be moved.

I recently started a SRS BSNS thread because it ALL felt rather SRS BSNS to me and stuffs and I have been really struggling. I think its hard because of perceptions but its really important to only have one thread as that is where I think things get a bit messy. :/

Perhaps re-name it Urgent Discussion and Advice?

I have only posted in Serious once or twice, when I really felt totally desperate. I do try to go in there to support, but get put off by the sheer number of new threads, lack of detail in them (ie. entire post is "I just can't do it" then you reply asking for more detail which just wastes time) and some threads that maybe don't need to be there.

I have recently posted in serious about being passively suicidal, but I was a danger of acting impulsively on my thoughts. I felt serious was the appropriate place to go and was grateful of the advice I received. To be honest I feel a bit guilty having posted there now and maybe over thinking things. Sorry, I'm feeling stupidly mushy-headed. I think serious can cover a wide range of things to different people, so it can be a hard thing to say what goes where. I agree with Charlie about it being difficult for us to asses what 'serious' constitutes as. I would hate to think of anyone too scared to ask for support that they need urgently because they feel it is not considered serious enough. I do agree that it is more helpful if people update their threads rather than create more than one the first page.

I don't think Urgent Discussion and Advice is a good name as then it is likely to be misused and used by anything that people want a quick reply to and as well as that it doesn't really say what it's about.

I also agree that it can be hard to tell whether people are passively (have suicidal ideations) or are actively suicidal here and some members may not know themselves. I think people also don't see much of a difference until they've gone out of that stage and are improving again when they can look back and think 'actually I don't think I would've done it at all then'/ realise they hadn't really been planning things and such and had just been thinking of it. The problem is, with both of these the emotions can be the same and so people with either of those need to be respected and treated equally. Yes, 1 is more likely to have a terrible outcome but it could be the ones that seem to be passively suicidal on reading the threads that are the worst ones as sometimes people write things as if they're not that bad and others may do the opposite and not even mean to. There also really isn't anywhere else for passively suicidal threads to go apart from MH too and is it fitted to that thread, I'm unsure.

As well as that, I think with a lot of the threads which are none-suicidal (and I definately don't want serious just to continue with the same proportion(or even have more) of suicide threads it already has and it's better to have a variety but then people saying 'well is that serious?' as it's maybe not someone who's about to top themselves is just going to turn it even more into a purely suicide board. To me serious is about things which may be triggering and that to the user it is a really serious problem that maybe is worsening how they feel significantly and doesn't fit in elsewhere. I've posted in there before and my thread had nothing to do with suicide. It was based on something that hugely affected me then and still does now but to others it may seem not that great. The reason it was in serious was not because I was going to kill myself or wanted urgent help/ more attention, it was because I wanted a rounded reply and it did mention SI but wasn't a thread that would fit into the SI forum. Even if it didn't mention SI I may still have put it in serious because of the huge impact it was having on me and the fact it didn't fit into other boards (apart from GSA but I still think looking back it was maybe a bit too hard-core for that; the thread has been deleted so if I have any threads present in serious this isn't related to them). Really it is hard for others to say that a thread is not serious enough to be in there as it may be something that to most people, especially older members on the forum, is something that may appear quite trivial but then to the thread-starter it could be a huge thing and nothing else has come close to being as bad; if that was then moved to GSA because people think it's not 'serious enough' or similar how is that going to make the user feel? Could it lead to people over-exaggerating on purpose when putting things in serious just to get more attention and feel that their post would then be more 'accepted' as being serious than maybe it would've if not exaggerated to the same level.

Anyway, sorry for me rambling on and on and on and on and sorry if half of it doesn't make sense!

I'm half asleep so this could be an ubershite idea, but is there a way of only allowing one thread per user? because users can edit their own thread titles to say when its been updated and stuff, and it'd be fairly easy to moderate if a user makes more than one thread and stuff? I guess this doesn't stop the people posting so much and others getting pushed onto page two... [which pisses me off imensly because as horrible as this seems, its the same people posting which is fair enough if theyre having a rough time, but when another user suddenly has a really bad day, they get pushed to page 2 because of the repetitive posting]

Edit this if needed. I make no sense

Theres no way other than for us to physically merge threads together, which (i doubt anyone notices) but we do do.. and often in all the support boards if someone has two or more threads we merge them together or encourage them to delete a thread they feel is no longer relevant.

So yeah, this does get enforced as much as we can, but its an 'as and when a moderator is online' rather than us being able to have a specific setting for it.

I really, really dislike the idea of Serious becoming a 'suicide board'.

It actually makes me - and I'm sure I'm not alone in this - horribly uncomfortable reading 'I'm about to kill myself' and 'I've just taken an overdose' and I find the idea of a whole board of that absolutely horrific. Apart from anything else, if the situation is that urgent then an internet forum isn't really the appropriate place to be asking for help. I have been on forums where posting when you are in that sort of a crisis is banned. It makes a nice change. I DON'T actually agree with it and I'm not suggesting it for RYL BUT I do think there's a point to it and I don't think that having Serious as being ONLY for people who are feeling actively suicidal would be especially constructive.

I think there's already a mentality that in order for it to be important, to get more replies, etc, one has to be on the verge of doing something serious/be suicidal. I think that already people find it difficult to ask for help when that ISN'T the case, and I think that would be further enforced by making Serious ONLY for that sort of post.

I personally am at a point now (although I haven't always been) where I wouldn't find it constructive for me, or fair on other members, to post a thread along the lines of 'omg I'm about to/have od'd'. That doesn't mean I'm not feeling it. However I do have a thread in Serious currently where I've been asking for support and trying to work through some of what's going on for me at the moment and come up with manageable steps to change things. I don't really see the problem with this, it seems somewhat more constructive in all honesty.

I do think that the MH Forum should be used more. I'm not sure how that could be achieved, but yes, encouraging people to post there is a good idea.

Also, posting in here scares me :P *hides*

If these rules/guidelines http://www.recoveryourlife.com/forum...d.php?t=109583 were followed, none of these things would be a problem. (Unless I'm missing something).

Serious board is for serious stuff; maybe not just suicide, but crises, serious, urgent problems.

As far as I can see, the main problem is single members created four/five threads, but then, that's against the guidelines.