NB. I did consider not posting this entry because it is very specific to the survivor site it was originally written for. I only include it because my intent was to go public and not hide or edit anything. Learning how to navigate and discuss abuse was as much a part of the story as anything else. So I guess it has its place.
I thought I would talk about the culture of this site. In any group of people with shared interests there is a culture that evolves around them. They develop a shared language, there is a way of doing things, often there are unwritten rules that just become the way things are done and it is an accepted and known fact.
An example of American/English cultural divide, and I see it here all the time, your fascination with and wide extensive knowledge of drugs. You don’t just know the name of a drug but you seem to know derivatives, ones that were developed as a result of further research, you know advised dosages and even what to avoid mixing with them. Often you can even discuss possible side effects and which ones do or don’t suit you personally.
To this Englishman it is quite incredible to watch you all have a chat about drugs. I may as well be in a room full of Korean people talking away in Korean, and I mean the more obscure north Korean dialect. I have sat and watched an hour long chat go by as you all chitter chatter about drugs you have known and loved.
In my bathroom cupboard there is a packet of plasters, some aspirin and the more modern paracetamol, an old box of some painkiller or other from a shoulder injury and some cough medicine. Oh and maybe some Lemsip (other cold remedies from the 1970’s are available).
Just as baffling are some of the things that are just taken for granted here on this site. Without exception, every single time someone enters a chatroom we all say hello, and every time anyone leaves we all say goodbye. It’s ok I understand manners. But it consumes an awful lot of time, I’m just fascinated that nobody has not suggested at some point that we just dispense with the formality.
It can sometimes be a drawback, if you would prefer to just slip into the room unnoticed or leave discreetly, likewise the things that says ‘John has entered/left the room’. Like being announced at an Edwardian ball. Maybe if you want to do the greeting thing you say hello on entry, otherwise ignore me until I speak.
One of the oddest things for me to get my head around is the culture around identity. The majority of people don’t have a picture of themselves, they use a nickname, or a picture of themselves as a boy, in fact the guidelines specifically warn against using your actual name, and never tell anyone your home/email/phone details.
Four months and I still don’t get it. I have yet to hear an explanation for this that makes sense. It is possible that some people do not want to be found or identified, easy enough for them just to use a nickname or fake name and never tell anyone. I am sure there are occasionally people doing things they shouldn’t and it would be wise and prudent to warn people and educate accordingly.
Quite why we all have to adhere to this odd behaviour because of the small percentage of people who want to stay hidden is beyond me. It is like asking everyone in a town to hop so the one legged man doesn’t feel as if he is an oddity.
To tell people to hide their identity, people who are survivors, makes no sense to me. Do not tell people who you are. Keep the secret. Tell no-one.
Nobody ever thinks that this is a little macabre to be telling survivors this? Possibly even unhealthy.
A group of people who mostly to a man have kept secrets they should never had been asked to keep. Asked to conceal their identity when most have felt they have a lost childhood, who have felt invisible and unseen.
To control people and demand that they do not connect with others away from the site, ok they advise against it, but it is enforced and can result in people being banned. Why?
I understand why you say you need to do this. Again it seems odd that you think it ok to control people in this way, not sure if it has ever occurred to you but I for one am not keen on being controlled, it can feel as if, what is the word?, oh yes, abusive.
On a couple of occasions in the last four months I have had good reason to connect with people. A caring, friendly, normal, quite innocent reason for connecting with someone. Once I even asked if it was possible to pass on my email for me to avoid me bypassing or breaking a rule. I was refused.
Quite bizarre, I am 64 years old. I am capable of making those kind of decisions for myself. I do it all the time. I meet people we exchange contact information. I can just touch phones with another for the exchange to happen, that’s how normal we consider it, we have machines to do it for us. If they were to annoy me or drone on and on about trains or politics I am quite capable of not speaking to them and removing all contact.
I am not calling for a revolution, I think of it as an annoying, unnecessary and irritating rule. What I am saying is, how did this happen? How did you become the people who control survivors, silence survivors, ask survivors to remove their identity. There are just some things you do that considering where we are seem … wrong … weird.
If you don’t believe me. Ask yourself this, the most oft asked question in the chatrooms on this site?
How are you?
How the hell do you think I am? Who in their right mind would be here unless they were here for the same reason everyone else is. How am I? How long have you got? Anyone using this couch?
Yes Yes manners, kind of, but also habit, and a social pressure to answer and be truthful, but in a way that doesn’t pull attention or maybe lie and just say I’m fine. Maybe sometimes people come here to forget how they are feeling
On more than one occasion, uninvited and without warning, I have had people tell me what is wrong with me in front of a room full of people. Which where I come from would be considered rude bordering on intrusive. It is one thing to have a discussion with me one to one, quite another to humiliate me in front of others. It is so ill mannered that we have a saying for it. ‘No need to wash your dirty laundry in public!’
Unless I am paying you or we have some kind of appointment you would do well to remember that in society we have etiquette and manners for a reason. So as not to offend people, or make them feel uncomfortable, or even just to be kind.
It occurred to me the other day that people forget that extroverts have feelings to, some are not as confident as their personality suggests and also some of them are survivors and suffer from the same things as you do. Me being an extrovert does not give you the right to talk to me any way you like, just means I am more likely to be robust and not give a fuck what you think about me. Or you might hurt me, it’s the risk you take.
If this piece gets me banned you can reach me on +44 7980 682727 *
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* BBC Newsdesk