Communities like this always skeeve me out. I know that I'm just being cynical, but random internet strangers aren't really a great place to go to get information and help if you are in one of these circumstances. At best you'll end up in an echo chamber of people who will just keep you on the same downward spiral, and at worst you'll run into someone who will try to take advantage of your vulnerability. Sure, there may be some out there that are qualified to help, but their voice will be drowned out by the throngs of, "Yeah! Fuck your parents! Hop a train!" and "Hey, I've got a warm van you can sleep in if you need some place."
Same with real people out there. I grew up in conflict with my parents before the internet and had the exact same issues you describe, just offline. it comes down to taking any and every advice with a grain of salt, no matter. Online and offline self help groups can be great, and life saving.
I wish more people like you were on lemmy. I see too many good takes being down and bad takes being upvoted by bigotted, cynical or plain ignorant people.
Being taken advantage of is a big problem that needs to be adressed. „Dont get help online.“ is the stupidest take I‘ve seen in years.
For some of us, rather than an echo chamber, it's just validation of our experiences and learning the language to describe abuse. You can't get help unless you know what you're getting help for. And when you learn to recognize gaslighting and manipulation, you can begin to counter it.
Yeah, people don't realize that people with abusive parents have been raised to believe that abuse is normal - even good for them. The first major hurdle is getting someone to realize that there's even a problem to fix, or that the problem to fix isn't themselves.
What would you suggest people who are going there looking for help do instead? Pay for therapy they can't afford or just suffer in silence? You make it sound like people are literally weighing therapy and professional help against online communities as though they are both equally accessible options.
So in other words, you have the choice and assume most others do too?
Honestly, most of the people in places like that are people who already found their way out, and now just want to shoot the shit with other people who understand what they've been through. If I hadn't had my sister to talk to about our insane mom, it would have been a lot harder for both of us to move on from her and become healthy, well-rounded adults - I imagine internet communities like these are a good alternate resource for when people don't have real-life support from someone who understands what it's like. But yeah, when you've got a parent who thinks all of science is one big scam, you're never going to be able to see a legitimate therapist.
Honestly, most of the people in places like that are people who already found their way out, and now just want to shoot the shit with other people who understand what they’ve been through.
At least in my experience, that wasn't the case at all. I used to hang out in communities like that back in the late 2010s, and me as well as multiple folks were people who still hadn't managed to shake off their abusive narcissistic parents due to us being young teenagers or unable to get a job, and needed an emotional support group. While yes, there were also multiple people who already had shaken off their N-parents, they certainly weren't the only group and there were still many who either were still stuck living with them, or people who were living on their own but were still dependent on their parents in some way or otherwise forced to see them once in a while. And a nice chunk of the people who did manage to go low- or no-contact with their abusive parents still gave the emotional support for those of us who didn't have the means to do so.
Telling someone to seek professional help instead feels like such a slap in the face for people in such a situation because, for the most part, they literally can't - at best, it's simply because they're completely financially dependent on their parents and can't afford a therapist (and it might be resolvable if they get enough donations to afford checkups and their parents are the neglectful variety and don't really care about that), but at worst (and it's almost always at worst) they're control freaks who believe therapy is a scam and you wanting to do it instead of "praying the depression away" means you're not religious enough, or they would see it as an affront due to the implication of their child being traumatized by them and get furious and punish them, or be insulted/freaked out by them receiving money from strangers online and cut their entire access to the internet altogether. It's simply not an option. So having an online emotional support group they don't need to cough up money for is simply the next best bet for many, and while it won't solve the problem, it'll at least make it manageable. I know it did for me.
i saw someone on tiktok runaway from home and pretty much everyone in the comments was supportive
Ok? You didn't say if you read about the situation enough to know if that was a good thing or not.
They can be helpful if you view them light heartedly as anonymous support groups where you can vent real quick. Not as actual qualified resources.
I'm sure they can be mildly helpful if you have a light-hearted disposition about your narcistic cult-parents who you are planning to run away from...
What are you talking about? They're the best people to ask for advice. Who are you going to trust more? Some random "professional" who has read about your issue in a book once and been to a couple lectures or an army of people who lived through hell and are dedicated to helping others and making sure they don't go through the same? As for people who would take advantage, well yeah. They exist in every group but they're actually less likely to exist in these communities because they're the type of people we've been burned by. We know how to spot them and chase them off. I also have absolutely no clue what you mean by downward spiral. The communities in the screenshot all explicitly for people who got out of horrific situations. How is that a downward spiral, exactly?
Yeah, you are being cynical. Extremely so.
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Yeah, why would you trust a professional with legal responsibilities and a duty of care when you can go to an anonymous forum where I'm sure everyone tells the truth all the time and always has your best interests at heart!
Obviously I'm being facetious and I get your point that taking to your peers is very important, but careful not to slip into the rampant anti-intellectualism and distrust of "so-called experts" which fuels all the insane conspiracy shit we see all over the internet nowadays.
Unfortunately in many places in America, if one went to a local professional to seek help escaping abusive parents or a cult scenario, you actually have a decent chance of encountering a professional who is either a fraud/quack with a nonsense degree from a degree mill, or they might just be totally fine with parental abuse or the local cult.
They might decide that the child is delusional (because no parent would ever be /that/ bad, right?) and has unfounded aggression issues, classify them as mentally ill and remand them to a modern day asylum (mental health facility) which are generally staffed by overworked and underpaid employees ... at best.
That kind of thing happens a lot more often than a lot of people realize.
Maybe check out how Dr. Phil seems to have had no problem his entire career sending unruly children to what are effective labor camps in the middle of no where.
Oh and lets just continue to pretend that the field of therapists and psychologists hasnt had a huge problem of uh, becoming sexually intimate with their clients, and lets also pretend that problem is completely solved.
Oh and lets also pretend that mental health facilities totally all attract the most well paid and tenured psychiatrists who never ever prescribe mind altering medication based on a single evaluation of a client in a 5 minute conversation, while the child is likely in a panicked state from either fleeing massive trauma, or being traumatically forced to go somewhere they do not want to go.
It sucks. If you can find a /good/ therapist or what not, they can literally save your life. But if you don't, well, not so great. And a child is not going to be able to recognize the difference most of the time, until its too late.
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Well that's shit, no wonder online discussion groups / safe spaces are so popular over there. That does raise a different issue though, the USA-dominated (and consequently often USA-centric) view presumably warps the view of people seeking help from places where they can and should be talking to real medical professionals.
Weighing in for Southern European mental health care, family support and abuse support. Believe me, you will be better off talking to friends or fellow sufferers online or offline than trying your luck in the public system. Pills is all you get here, and prescribed somewhat hit-or-miss after what amounts to a 15 min interview, most of which are spent by the doctor typing your data into his computer.
If you need help for domestic abuse, be prepared for hours of bureaucracy while reliving and retelling your trauma to a host of police and social security professionals repeatedly. Then relocated to somewhere where you receive the bare minimum of care. I was lucky to never need it but have witnessed it, and frankly would consider any offers from unknown van-dwellers before this.
The only way to get the help you need is to research your stuff well beforehand, and then wheedle out of the system what you need by annoying the bureaucrats till they give up.
Maybe some non-Europeans could weigh in with their perspective as well.
Heard similarly bad stories from Scandinavia, of all places. If you're vulnerable, it's very easy to fall between the cracks, with doctors who abuse their power or make bad mistakes.
Also, the replication crisis really undermines psychology's claims to scientific knowledge.
Of course, I'm not a scientologist, so I'm not going to claim that people shouldn't go to see a mental health professional. Anti-depressants do work, therapy can and often does work, but as you say you really need to do your resaerch beforehand, and preferably have family or friends to defend your interests. Otherwise you'll fall between the cracks just when you're at your most vulnerable.
Same goes for elderly homes. Personally, I think I'll kill myself before I ever get that far. If you don't have family to check up on you, you're quite likely to be neglected, exploited or abused.
Yeah this actually sounds very similar to the American system, generally speaking.
Short interview by uncaring overworked 'professional' who is basically just checking off some boxes to summarily prescribe mind altering medication (when that kind of stuff should actually only be administered after many many discussions between a patient, therapist and qualified psychiatrist?).
Check.
Trauma victims being continually retraumatized and frustrated and stresses out further by being forced to now do critical analytic comprehension of a Byzantine amount of paperwork while they are more or less in shock to prove they were traumatized, making everything much, much worse for them mentally, in a system that supposedly exists to help them?
Check.
Yeah... Americans have very expensive, fairly low quality healthcare compared to much of the rest of the developed world... and we also have garbage quality public education compared to much of the developed world.
If you are an average, poor, barely educated American kid from an abusive family, chances are you do not even realize that people from other countries use the internet as well.
The 'joke' during the Bush years was that Americans learn geography through our wars.
This isnt a joke anymore. Our education systems are worse today, in general, than when I was a kid... Most American kids are basically unaware of the rest of the world, other than a few famous landmarks from a movie or music video.
I met an 18 year old a few months ago who was an otherwise capable and reasonable person... but I had to explain to him that the Iron Man movies were not documentaries.
He actually thought they were at least based on real life events, genuinely.
And he was actually fleeing an abusive family.
In America these days, schools are terrible, Parents are usually very overworked, very stressed out, come home from work and either go to bed, or zone out with TV, Video Games or Booze or Drugs.
They rarely spend quality time with their kids, as the average American worker is far worse off in many respects than many other parts of the developed world.
But uh anyway... yeah Americans usually just assume by default that everyone on the internet speaking english is also American, at least via text, myself included usually, unless some particular non American vernacular or cultural reference is used or whatever.
Usually when you tell the average American that basically most Europeans and many Asians and Africans are just also taught English in addition to their mother tongues during standard childhood education, they do not even believe you, or are astounded by this fact. (Exception to this is; Unless they are from a recently immigrated family.)
I am not quite sure what you mean, or if I am understanding what you are saying near the end of your comment though.
Are... poor, abused, poorly educated American children somehow going to be able to access quality mental healthcare from outside their country? How would they pay for it? How would they travel to it?
Or do you more mean that basically people should use like country flags on such discussion groups so that people at least generally know what country their given advice should apply to?
I can't talk with a professional on the fly. I can't even talk to a professional more than once a month if I'm lucky.
anti-intellectualism and distrust of “so-called experts
Experts or authorities?
Here some conspiracy for you: A lot of psychiatry (not all) is made up shit rooted in old white guys' ideas about how to keep unruly youngsters and women in check. The DSM is a vague symptom list sponsored by the pharma industry and gets changed every few years or so (glad they took the gay out).
I consider the output of (the scientifically connected side of) psychiatry, together with the output of my peers, together with my own perception when I make decisions about my own wellbeing - if that alone is anti-intellectual and conspiratic to you, you might be adhering to scientism rather than science.
Also:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis
A lot of psychology and psychiarty is not proper science. I'm not saying it doesn't have value, but people should be sceptical. Of course, don't go the other way and join scientology.
I think a lot of mental health problems are due to SLS.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shit_life_syndrome
If suspect that if we gave the mentally ill 2k and told them to go on a nice holiday, buy some healthy food, take care of their most urgent bills, many of them would be better off than after a mandatory hold in an underfunded mental health ward or a prescription of xanax from an overworked general practicioner.
High quality mental health care is probably far better, but that's not what most people have access to.
This is double edged sword. These places helped me in my journey but they need to be strongly moderated. There are a lot of creeps that want to exploit people. There are a lot of narcissistic echo chembers. But they also have battle tested techniques and "Know How" that is unprecedented.
Without strong anti-toxic culture and ruthless moderation these places could be a pitfall for someone.
The groups need an established core of well informed and experienced people to work together and shape the culture of the community. The moderation team also needs to be responsive and consistent.
I got pulled into being part of one of those teams years ago. It was a pretty simple formula to make the community healthy: The creeps/spammers got banned and reported. The ignorant got educated in a logical and coherent manner by a team approach. The trolls were played with for a while then banned when they eventually violated a rule.
A good group can save lives and help a lot of people. A bad one can further harm the already damaged and vulnerable. There are many of both groups out there.
You're really over exaggerating on how much moderation is needed. While it does need a closer eye calling it ruthless is a bit much.
When diplomacy fails, there's only one alternative. Violence. Force must be applied without apology. It's the Starfleet way.
Stamets, I love you. You are a source of joy in my life. I hope you have a good night, friend.
Someone understands how online forums work. I‘m impressed. You‘re a rare breed these days. Great text btw.
