Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Voicelessness and Emotional Survival => Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board => Topic started by: Dr. Richard Grossman on August 29, 2010, 06:49:34 PM
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Hi everybody,
FYI, the lead story from the trade newspaper that is mailed to all New England psychologists:
http://www.masspsy.com/leading/8_9.10_market.html
Thank you all for participating and making this the special place that it is.
Richard
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8)
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Wow.
I'm glad for the positive press for you, Dr. G. Something about it makes me feel a bit shakey and exposed though.
I think I had just completely lost sight of the fact that this is a public forum--maybe more so since the board has been closed to new members, perhaps? It did make me go back through some old posts and remove what felt too easily identifiable. There's a LOT of them though! :?
CB
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Guest,
We all have our scars and fears from living with N's and what they have done to us. They are all different.
You've just seen mine.
CB
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Hi CB,
Don’t worry--New England psychologists can’t hurt you unless you see them. :wink: :wink:
But seriously, I understand. This Board is usually such an out of the way place, I too get lulled into thinking what I write won’t be seen elsewhere—and I use my real name. But you never know--and it’s always better, when possible (and it’s not always possible) to restrict identifying information.
The other point I want to make is that (in meteorological terms) this publicity/exposure was simply a microburst. The reporter e-mailed me out of the blue and asked how it was when she googled “Massachusetts psychologist” my name appeared near the top, and what SEO did I use. I had no idea what a SEO was (search engine optimization program), nor did I know why my name appeared near the top. So she interviewed me to find out what I “did”. The idea that anyone would interview me about “marketing” anything was hilarious to me—since the “m” word I am preoccupied with is (no, not “money”) but “meaning”. So, I crawled back into the moldy basement where I slowly started constructing this web site a decade ago and had a good laugh. Which is not to say I’m not proud of where this project has gone. I feel very lucky (and less alone) to “know” all of you, to have learned about your lives, the good parts and bad, and to think this site (which is a part of me) has had a positive effect...and lucky to have suffered and rejoiced (in my own particular ways) along side all of you for over ten years.
Richard
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The article stresses the importance of finding the right fit with a therapist. I don't think this can be underestimated. I found my last therapist by reading his book and knew he would understand me.
Congrats to you Dr. G. This site has also been very helpful to me while I was in therapy - it was great to be able to express feelings about therapy itself with other like-minded people and frequently it helped me stick with it.
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Guest,
I can’t speak for the rest of the Board, but absolutely no apologies are necessary as far as I am concerned. You’ve always been a valued member. I’m not sure under what circumstance I would take you up on your generous offer, but I tell you what, if anything happens to me (due to the randomness of the universe) write an e-mail with those words to my daughter. I’m sure she’ll get a kick out of them. (She’ll probably be the owner of some well-known “foodie” restaurant in NYC by then—not too hard to find!)
and
Ales2,
Thanks. I’m glad the Board helped you stick with your therapist—it sounds like you found a good one…
Richard
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Dr. G.,
I seem always to be the one asking this question. Can you give us an update on any changes you have in mind for the board?
tt
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Hey CB! I feel the same way you do about being identified through my posts - especially as I add more & more details, and current events. I know enough about what is possible on the techie-backend side of of the software & servers... to justify that worry, some. One time, I even erased all my old posts, I was so scared.
It's not that I want to hide from everyone, mind you. In fact, I've been trying to push myself lately to come out from behind whatever shred of my last ego-defenses still exist, here. But, the first time around between my version of what happened to me - and my mom's version - was so awful, so "sensational" (exagerated & exacerbated), and I was so "stigmatized" (that would be humiliated and discredited; not believed) - that I simply can't get past the "what ifs" - the worst that could happen - i.e., my brother & mother finding out what I've written about them. For one thing - it'll be all about them. AGAIN. And I'll be to blame &tc. AGAIN.
Then, there is the fact that as I heal and grow - I'm contradicting myself. Changing my mind about things. Gosh; that's embarassing! But necessary, I think. Processing my chronology of events, to try to get it to read like a high school history textbook (and not the latest action movie script) does open up new ways of looking at things... and putting them firmly "in the past" - or "let go of", in emotional terms. Lately, my brain's been in overdrive - the chattering mind is completely ADD right now - and I've got ideas, and directions, and just "stuff" running through it so fast... that I'll start a great big long post... and then just delete it... because somehow I know - it's just mental energy and the "content" is just not important to anyone - not even me. Maybe that's a side-effect of not obsessing so much on the old feelings; the old wounds... and my monkey mind is looking for something new to make me "important" - a legend in my own mind.
Unnecessarily.
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Dr. G.,
I seem always to be the one asking this question. Can you give us an update on any changes you have in mind for the board?
tt
Hi tt,
The only potential change that I sometimes ponder concerns allowing new members to join. The Board has been delightfully peaceful, but (some may think), at the expense of getting adequate responses to posts. I do not envision going back to the way things started (when anyone, including guests, could post), or even “open admission” to membership (when guests could not post but anyone could join)—if I allowed either of these policies, because of the numbers, I would be quickly overwhelmed. At the height of the “open admission” period the Board was getting over 6000 posts per month—the bulk of which I read, or at least skimmed. So, I’ll either let things stay the way they are (with a terrific group of people—all of whose posts I enjoy reading) or allow “limited admission”—application (e-mail about oneself and the reasons one wants to join) plus $25 good-faith donation to the Board???
Perhaps Board members, including yourself, could share your thoughts about this…
Richard
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Hi Guest,
Thanks for your response!
As for the $25, I would rather order something to be sent to you which you wanted...like a book? Maybe you could set up a dynamic wish list of stuff you want!
Unfortunately, for over 30 years I've been unable to tell my wife, my 3 step-children, and my daughter (only 25 years) what I want (stuff-wise). Every birthday/holiday I have to apologize profusely...(Perhaps this lacuna dates back to my 9th birthday when the gift from my parents/mother was an academic book entitled: "Beethoven's Nine Symphonies"...)
Richard
PS I haven't read the book yet (it's on my shelf)--but my favorite piece of music in the world is the second movement of Beethoven's 7th Symphony. What could all this mean???
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Hmm.
I think people without voices don't think they deserve to want anything, like a present. With a bow on it.
Homework for you, Doc G!
If you need help in supporting the Board financially, I believe it's always all right to ask for what you need.
You sure aren't greedy.
Reading 6000 posts a day???? Lord.
thank you.
Hops
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Hi Hops,
Thanks for your thoughts. By the way, are you accepting new patients and do you take insurance? :)
I definitely don’t need financial support in running the Board—although I appreciate all donations and see them as just another form of “thank you” (which, of course, I get plenty of in other ways). The main reason for asking people for a donation when becoming a member (if I ever decided to go in that direction) would be to limit the numbers, and make sure people really were serious about being here (rather than a casual chat room).
If people could also respond to the other concern of my post: are there enough active members such that posts get adequate responses? If so, I’d be more than happy to keep the Board closed to new members (except by special request)…
Richard
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are there enough active members such that posts get adequate responses?
I have only responded lately, not asked for responses, so I'm probably not the best one to answer this, but that has never stopped me in the past so why start now?
I think the board could use more and different perspectives and voices. Seems a might too peaceful to me.
mud
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Hi mud,
Thanks for the input!
Richard
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I do barter, Doc G...
you promise to contemplate the joy it gives OTHERS to be allowed to give you something special you would really enjoy...(and so, you need to help them do that, by identifying a couple ideas or directions...)
(My Dad was so self-effacing he would always deny he wanted anything, and sort of deflected the joy of giving. It hurt. I remember a lot of real pain about it. I wanted so much to show him I loved him, and had spent time thinking of him. I loved him very much and the ways I could think of to show it were limited. I wanted the delight of delighting him. But giving him gifts was excruciating because he was so uncomfortable "wanting".)
And if you do that...I'll keep on spouting freebie opinions now and then.
Boy, I get the easy part. :)
Hops
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you promise to contemplate the joy it gives OTHERS to be allowed to give you something special you would really enjoy...(and so, you need to help them do that, by identifying a couple ideas or directions...)
And if you do that...I'll keep on spouting freebie opinions now and then.
Boy, I get the easy part. :)
Hops
OK, Hops. I promise. Keep those freebie opinions coming!
Richard
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Dr. G.,
I seem always to be the one asking this question. Can you give us an update on any changes you have in mind for the board?
tt
Hi tt,
The only potential change that I sometimes ponder concerns allowing new members to join. The Board has been delightfully peaceful, but (some may think), at the expense of getting adequate responses to posts. I do not envision going back to the way things started (when anyone, including guests, could post), or even “open admission” to membership (when guests could not post but anyone could join)—if I allowed either of these policies, because of the numbers, I would be quickly overwhelmed. At the height of the “open admission” period the Board was getting over 6000 posts per month—the bulk of which I read, or at least skimmed. So, I’ll either let things stay the way they are (with a terrific group of people—all of whose posts I enjoy reading) or allow “limited admission”—application (e-mail about oneself and the reasons one wants to join) plus $25 good-faith donation to the Board???
Perhaps Board members, including yourself, could share your thoughts about this…
Richard
My two cents:
I think it might be time to try to assemble a new "critical mass" - new personalities - on the board, in any fashion that seems manageable. Integrating them with us, maybe... since while most of us are "graduating" back into our lives, and have done a lot of the initial work of recovering and healing, we still have a real connection with each other through the board. It is our touchstone of safety and reassurance... and we've come to rely on insight and feedback from each other for the big and little questions we struggle with in our lives, whether affected by early voicelessness or not.
We, collectively, have a lot to give new members at different stages in their journeys. And conversely, new members will teach us a few things, too!
The board has been a wonderful resource for me, ever since I found it. I may have graduated from therapy - but there was no way I was ready to face people, the world, and my life - much less create and maintain new boundaries with my FOO - on my own, without some on-going support. I made mistakes; tried things that flopped big time; made tentative little steps while reaching for Hops, tt, CB, or GS's hand... to reassure me that horrible things wouldn't happen to me, just because I healed and started to live again. I feel we need to "pass it on" because I sense that the need is growing "out there"... times are tough and the most vulnerable are the ones who've been affected the ways we have.
I'd like to see the board continue. I'm open to changes in direction; format... maybe. Having managed and contributed to online higher ed tech systems (and seen all the new toys) I still think that the discussion board format is the best for these kinds of conversations. It connects to and is more easily understood by a wider group of people than blogs and provides a "history" of conversation for people new to the topic to search on and read - before venturing to post on their own.
I belonged to an art discussion board that has morphed into blogs and a pseudo-social network. I find it abysmally confusing to use; and even as long-winded as I am I just can't bring myself to blog about myself!!!!! (I know - there's not much difference in what I do here... is there???)
Long story short: I'm open to any change that makes sense for you and the board, Dr G.
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................I definitely don't need financial support in running the Board—although I appreciate all donations and see them as just another form of “thank you” (which, of course, I get plenty of in other ways). The main reason for asking people for a donation when becoming a member (if I ever decided to go in that direction) would be to limit the numbers, and make sure people really were serious about being here (rather than a casual chat room)............
To contribute my own thoughts and experience relating to this: I wouldn't join or be a member if there was a mandatory $25.00 price associated with membership. I am currently living in a homeless shelter. I don't own a credit card. So if there are certain categories of people you are wishing to deter from participating I would probably fall into that category right now due to my personal circumstances. I have never participated on any other board besides this one. I wouldn't describe my writing here as casual in nature.
As far as the responses go....I'm content just being able to put my voice out there..any person looking at the board can read it. I don't know who they are and I don't really know exactly how my story impacts someone out there but it works for me. I don't always want a lot of responses. I just want to share my experience sometimes.
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If I may add my voice here....if there were a required financial cost to remaining a member then I couldn't afford it due to the medical bills that I'm struggling to pay while living on a fixed income. I had been a member of the DONM board before it had to be taken down due to a N-Troll committing crimes there. When that board recently resurrected, the only way anyone could join, (or re-join), was to PAY for a membership, which I cannot afford to do.
I would hate to be forced to lose my voice due to an inability to afford the help I find here...especially given the fact that there are NO professional therapists around my geographic area that has a CLUE about being a survivor of a Narcissistic, Rage-aholic, Sexually, Physically, and Emotionally Abusive Womb-Donor.
Bones
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Hi everyone,
Thanks for your responses. I will keep all of them in mind as I think about whether to open the Board up or not. Certainly, if I did ask for a $25 entry "donation", I would waive it for those who could not afford it--and make that clear in the "application". Also, Bones: this would not be a yearly fee, rather, a one-time only entry "donation"--and you're already in, so you don't have to worry about it.
Also, since the thread was (in part) about "marketing" (!) and my un-ease about it--there was a terrific short short story in this week's New Yorker entitled "Et Tu, Brooklyn?" by Allison Silverman which addresses this very topic:
http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2010/09/20/100920sh_shouts_silverman
Highly recommended!
Richard
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Hi everyone,
Thanks for your responses. I will keep all of them in mind as I think about whether to open the Board up or not. Certainly, if I did ask for a $25 entry "donation", I would waive it for those who could not afford it--and make that clear in the "application". Also, Bones: this would not be a yearly fee, rather, a one-time only entry "donation"--and you're already in, so you don't have to worry about it.
Also, since the thread was (in part) about "marketing" (!) and my un-ease about it--there was a terrific short short story in this week's New Yorker entitled "Et Tu, Brooklyn?" by Allison Silverman which addresses this very topic:
http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2010/09/20/100920sh_shouts_silverman
Highly recommended!
Richard
Thanks, Dr. G!
Bones