Author Topic: **WARNING** touchy subject-How to do this politely?  (Read 3975 times)

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TootsNYC

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Re: **WARNING** touchy subject-How to do this politely?
« Reply #15 on: January 21, 2010, 07:06:55 PM »
As a friend, you may be able to say to her that bringing this up constantly does not seem to be helping anyone.  It alienates her friends and ultimately is painful for her when she doesn't get the support she is expecting.  You could suggest again that since she is obviously ready to talk about it (since she is at every opportunity) that the best place to do so would be in a group or forum dedicated to providing support for those in her situation.  It's not quite saying that she can't post about it, but leading her to that place.

After four years, and consistent refusal to seek any type of help offered, I would have to question whether being the victim has become her identity and has some ultimate value to her.  If so it is quite sad, but she would probably need professional help to address.

that is very nice!

familyfun

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Re: **WARNING** touchy subject-How to do this politely?
« Reply #16 on: January 21, 2010, 08:25:40 PM »
One caveat re: steering the OP's friend to an online forum dealing with her trauma.  I've participated in trauma forums as a result of my witnessing/being threatened domestic violence growing up.  Online forums dealing with trauma, their moderation, etc. can vary widely.  Granted, people's mileage may vary, but I found a lot of times the mods were in too much pain themselves to mod properly.  People would trigger each other right & left and I decided to leave the ones I was in because I felt it was doing more harm than good.  Part of the experience of trauma survivors is that we are hypervigilant and can inadvertently perceive threats that aren't there.  Imagine a whole forum of folks with this issue and no cooler heads to prevail in moderation!

Also, there's no licensing or screening process to run an online group anyone can set one up.  In one trauma survivors' group I used to belong to, it turned out the admin was using people's personal info against them.  Even though it's been years, I still don't want to go into detail about what happened there lest the admin stumble across this.  I dealt with online harassment for over a year as a result of this experience.

My concern is that if the OP's friend has an experience like that, it might scare her off of seeking help for good.  And cause even more trauma/damage.  My anxiety levels were through the roof when I was dealing with online harassment and my experience wasn't nearly as bad as the OP's friend's.  I can't even imagine what something like that would do to her.

It sounds like the OP did a good job gathering licensed, etc. resources in her friend's area, I would suggest she continue to recommend them.  And that the others should recommend them as well.  I'd be extremely wary of recommending online self-help groups for someone in crisis. 

smidget23

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Re: **WARNING** touchy subject-How to do this politely?
« Reply #17 on: January 21, 2010, 09:16:21 PM »
OP here again:

I would like to thank everyone for their help!!! I've talked to the other members and we've decided to go ahead and start using stock phrases as suggested here. One of our concerns with not wanting to upset her too badly was in case she decided to use her mod powers against us for evil instead of good. However, we warned the other mods that we were about to do this, and they needed to back us up if they weren't going to take any actions.

As previously mentioned by a poster, we ARE a group of women. Several members have been in her shoes (under different conditions). That was playing into a lot of the annoyances at the Victim Mod. It's not that we're uncaring. It's just that she's refusing to get help and is instead dwelling upon it and taking it out on us inappropriately when several of us have BTDT. Then in her reactions to advice, it comes across like she's downplaying others' experiences. No Bueno...

RE: online support forums-One of our members happens to be a licensed therapist. She was the one in charge of finding the therapy forum. It was one set up through a larger rape/crisis counseling organization.

RE: the Admin/owner - She is located in another country and tends to be very hands off in her ownership role. She, along with our main moderator, is rather sugarcoat-y and would prefer that we all just ignore it and get along. That's an annoyance of mine for a later post maybe.
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cass2591

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Re: **WARNING** touchy subject-How to do this politely?
« Reply #18 on: January 21, 2010, 10:20:56 PM »
Did the other mods agree?
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smidget23

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Re: **WARNING** touchy subject-How to do this politely?
« Reply #19 on: January 21, 2010, 11:49:52 PM »
The Admin/Owner and one mod are both MIA. They will pop in and out  and randomly post. We basically just told them the plan, but haven't heard back from them and don't really expect a reply on the issue.

The mod that is a fan of sugarcoating urged us to be nice and polite (which is why I sought advice here!) and to make sure not to "cause waves" or upset the victim mod.

The third mod (the therapist) is completely on board.

Ugh. Wish us luck...
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Allyson

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Re: **WARNING** touchy subject-How to do this politely?
« Reply #20 on: January 22, 2010, 03:34:06 AM »
I have seen this sort of person on forums. For some reason, the internet seems to bring it out. It isn't always sexual abuse, sometimes it is something like a miscarriage or their having depression. But whatever it is, the person will bring it up all the time, in completely inappropriate threads. One of those worst examples of this was a thread about early childhood memories..it was really lighthearted and fun, people were posting about their memories of preschool...and then one person came in with "I remember being assaulted by a family member. That destroyed my trust in humanity." or something along those lines...well, really, how can you go back to posting about finger painting after that?

If I were in this situation, I would address it in response to what she says, rather than taking her aside to have a talk. For example, when she posts insensitively to the woman who recently lost her father...I think that's a good time where someone could say 'Hey, that was insensitive! Everyone has had bad things happen to them, and turning it into a contest to see who's had it worse is really unfair." or something. And when she starts a thread about how everyone's ignoring or being mean to her? That's the time to perhaps send her a private message. She has basically brought the issue out, so saying something like "hey, I'm sorry you're feeling ignored, but here's the way I'm feeling, and I wouldn't be surprised if others felt the same.." isn't uncalled for.

I feel it would be more of a shock and seem like a ganging up if someone did it without provocation at the time, whereas addressing each post as it happens seems more organic.

sparklestar

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Re: **WARNING** touchy subject-How to do this politely?
« Reply #21 on: January 22, 2010, 04:41:43 AM »
Basically this is a Mod problem - and I can see why they don't want to step in and "play god" with one of their own. 

OP - does the forum have a facility to "Report this post" or similar?

I'm thinking that the Mods have very subjective rules at the moment - is this post offensive/inappropriate? Should it be deleted/locked? Should they explain their decision or contact the person whose thread it is?  It's a bit of a minefield if there are no defined rules.  If you could make the rules more defined (e.g. if someone reports a post as offensive it gets deleted, if there's squabbling within a post it gets one warning and then locked etc.) then the Mods can properly moderate the forum without seeming like they are picking on her.

Playing armchair shrink, it sounds like she's found a safe area where she can talk about her dreadful experience and vent some of the feelings she has.  But this simple fact could very well be stopping her from getting the help she needs.  She needs an outlet for it and what she is doing isn't appropriate.  As long as she's posting on the forum, she's not getting help.  I don't agree with PP who says "After 4 years..." - some people it takes them a lifetime to even admit this happened to them.   There's no measured timescale for healing.

Given your personal relationship with the person, could you talk about having seen a lot of posts where she is talking about what happened recently?  Depending on her reaction you could either suggest talking to a professional or, if she refuses, suggest she takes some time to write out exactly what happened, how she feels, what impact it's had?  She clearly needs to get this outside of her. 

I do hope she gets the help she needs.

Queenie

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Re: **WARNING** touchy subject-How to do this politely?
« Reply #22 on: January 22, 2010, 02:00:43 PM »
I see no reason why everyone could not start reminding this person that her assault does not pertain to the topic or discussion at hand.

Virg

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Re: **WARNING** touchy subject-How to do this politely?
« Reply #23 on: January 22, 2010, 03:19:51 PM »
Maybe I'm a bit more hard-nosed than other posters, but I'd simply pull out of the forum and go somewhere else.  If the mods are going to be nicey-nice to the point of driving off the membership, then it's reasonable to let the commuinty die and move the people who want to maintain it elsewhere.  Perhaps noticing that they're losing their membership will get them moving in a positive direction, but their attempts to dump what should be their problem on smidget23 because she happens to be friendly with the offender is a cop-out.

sparklestar wrote:

"Basically this is a Mod problem - and I can see why they don't want to step in and "play god" with one of their own."

It's the moderators' responsibility to handle this sort of thing.  I can see why they would find it uncomfortable, but their non-solution isn't fair to smidget23 or the other posters and isn't going to be effective either.  The Victim Mod is slowly destroying the community, and they're doing nothing to fix it.

Virg

TootsNYC

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Re: **WARNING** touchy subject-How to do this politely?
« Reply #24 on: January 22, 2010, 06:25:19 PM »
Maybe I'm a bit more hard-nosed than other posters, but I'd simply pull out of the forum and go somewhere else.  If the mods are going to be nicey-nice to the point of driving off the membership, then it's reasonable to let the commuinty die and move the people who want to maintain it elsewhere.  Perhaps noticing that they're losing their membership will get them moving in a positive direction, but their attempts to dump what should be their problem on smidget23 because she happens to be friendly with the offender is a cop-out.

sparklestar wrote:

"Basically this is a Mod problem - and I can see why they don't want to step in and "play god" with one of their own."

It's the moderators' responsibility to handle this sort of thing.  I can see why they would find it uncomfortable, but their non-solution isn't fair to smidget23 or the other posters and isn't going to be effective either.  The Victim Mod is slowly destroying the community, and they're doing nothing to fix it.

Virg

I think this would be my plan.


Mahdoumi

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Re: **WARNING** touchy subject-How to do this politely?
« Reply #25 on: January 22, 2010, 08:23:42 PM »
Mine, too.

smidget23

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Re: **WARNING** touchy subject-How to do this politely?
« Reply #26 on: January 22, 2010, 09:58:12 PM »
Maybe I'm a bit more hard-nosed than other posters, but I'd simply pull out of the forum and go somewhere else.  If the mods are going to be nicey-nice to the point of driving off the membership, then it's reasonable to let the commuinty die and move the people who want to maintain it elsewhere.  Perhaps noticing that they're losing their membership will get them moving in a positive direction, but their attempts to dump what should be their problem on smidget23 because she happens to be friendly with the offender is a cop-out.

Virg

That is my last resort plan. I just hate leaving a place that I've been an active part of for the past three years. Another part of it is that I'm friends with the majority of the members on the forum, so I know that by leaving, I would be opening myself up to a deluge of "why" or "what happened" all over facebook/my phone/ect. 
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sparklestar

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Re: **WARNING** touchy subject-How to do this politely?
« Reply #27 on: January 23, 2010, 03:41:33 AM »
Given the history of the forum and the fact that it's moved once before to avoid conflict, I think it's important that you try and sort this out with the Mods first. 

Otherwise every time there is an issue, it'll have to move homes again. 

As a last resort, it gives you the control to be able to put proper controls in place.