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Is anyone up for a chat?

Doolhof
Champion Alumni
Champion Alumni

Hi Everyone,

Sometimes it is great to have a place where you can just have a chat about something not related to your mental health. So here is the opportunity to have a general chat about anything and to maybe find a "friend" to help make the day feel brighter.

Occasionally I connect with people on the forums and a lovely  friendship develops, but it may seem to others that they are not welcome to join in the conversation. This is not the case.

So here is an opportunity for new friendships to happen.

Maybe you would like to share your favourite holiday destination, or place you would love to visit. If you could have any animal as a pet what would it be? What is your favourite flavoured ice cream?

For me right now I would love to be somewhere warm! We have been experiencing some rather cold weather where even the chooks water is freezing over during the night! Somewhere with a beach and warm sea to swim in would be lovely!

My favourite ice cream flavour would be Jaffa in one of those crunchy cones! I would love to be eating one down at that tropical beach paradise followed by a lovely fresh coconut and maybe a beach massage as well.

I will be dreaming about this as I drive around today for work listening to Meatloaf. Maybe I should be listening to The Beach Boys instead, but I don't think I have any of their music on CD.

Hope you all have a great day,

Cheers from Mrs. Dools

 

 

161 Replies 161

Guest_5218
Community Member

Phillip,

Firstly I am really sorry that you are about to become homeless.  What will you do, and where will you go? 

Secondly I hope you didnt feel that I had abandoned you all last night when I packed up and left the conversation.  It is just that it was after 10.30pm and I was really tired after a couple of nights lack of sleep.  Plus the system kept crashing and my messages were not getting through.

Thirdly, well done you!  For your writing accomplishments that is.  In what field of writing have you won your awards?

And Shelley Anne, dont feel bad about starting a thread in order to attempt small talk or chat.  I guess it takes practice.  Something most of us last night no doubt needed!  So hey, you were doing all of us a favour. 

Sherie xx

Chris_B
Blue Voices Member
Blue Voices Member

Hi Philip, I'm really sorry to hear about your living situation - are you able to give our support service a call, they may be able to point you towards some other supports at this time.

It's part of the territory on an anonymous forum, unfortunately, that people will drift in and out, which can be disappointing if you've put the effort in to have a conversation or provide support for someone. We're starting to see a bit less of this since we put up the Forums Etiquette thread. 

If it's any consolation, there is a huge audience of people on our forums who never post - we have over 60,000 unique visitors per month, so when you write a post the audience is much wider than the people you see posting in the thread. 

Your posts are really supportive and valuable Philip so I hope you'll stay around if you're able, as you've probably now seen from the replies above there are a lot of people here who care about you.


BKYTH
Community Member
I know there is a time lapse and take that into consideration and reload the page for about ten minutes until its becomes obvious that the other person has signed out or gone to another area on BB. I allow a reasonable amount of time for a response to come as I don't want the other person to respond to my post and find I have disappeared.                                                                                                                                                                                   Its not only polite in a chat to bring it to an end by informing the other person but its saves them wasting their time waiting for a reply that is not going to come.

BKYTH
Community Member
Of course not your statement "nite all" informed everyone in the conversation that you were signing out. Its not that difficult a think to do is it. Philip.

Guest_5218
Community Member

You are right Philip, it isnt a difficult thing to do.  The only difficulty I had was to get the message to finally accept.  It crashed 3 times before I was  finally able to get my message posted.  The rest are lost in space!  Not sure if it was my computer or the website, but it was very annoying!  Grrr    ) :

You didnt mention in your reply if you have become homeless?

Perhaps you can do what Chris B suggested, and phone the BB Support Service.  I have always had a home, so cannot even imagine what it must be like to not have a home to go to.

I am thinking of you and sincerely hope you are okay.  Take care Philip.  xx

 

Dear Sherie thanks so much for your encouraging words to me, means a lot. And you did do the polite thing, by saying goodbye. 

For me... well I feel bad, I did not mean to act un kind. And I truly am sorry. I asked Philip to forgive me. The truth is I panicked, because I didn't know what I was doing . This is the first social sort of chat, I have ever done. I never initiate conversion outside these forum walls. I could have said goodbye, but I did not even think of it, I just went into fear and panic mode. I wish that he understood that, but I fear he rejects me now. Ok bye now

 

Thats okay Shelley Anne.  I dont expect I was much help to anyone, but it would be nice to think that I may have been.  So thanks  ) :

Please dont feel bad.  I sensed that Philip was quite upset, and given his current circumstances I can understand why he would be feeling that way.  It cant be easy being faced with the prospect of becoming homeless, and I really feel for him right now.  

But I'm sure that he will realise that it wasnt your fault either, and that this small talk / chat business is new to us all, and very difficult for some of us.  I am sorry that you panicked, and of course good manners are not uppermost on our mind when we are in panic mode.  I'm sure that upon reflection, and knowing the circumstances, Philip will understand that.  

You are obviously not an unkind person, in fact far from it.  Cannot undo what is done, so try not to worry about it.  I'm sure you have enough worries without adding this to it!

Maybe it will get easier with practice, so if you ever want to give this chat business another go, let me know.  I will keep a look out for the thread name.  Catch you again soon.

Sherie xx

 

Thanks so very much Sherie, for your beautiful understanding heart and you are a help to me, because I was indeed worrying so very much. I will most likely not post in this thread for a while. So do I say goodbye now.... maybe  I will catch up with you in another thread.

Hugs xxxx

Ha ha, you're funny (in the nicest way).  I'm glad if I have helped in some bumbling way.  And I understand you not wanting to use this thread again.

Please dont say goodbye though, as I hope to see you on another thread soon.  I will be looking out for you.

In the meantime, a big hug back to you  { Shelley Anne }.

Sherie xx

Chris_B
Blue Voices Member
Blue Voices Member

Hi everyone,

I think it's always good to remember that communicating on the Internet has its pitfalls. It's so easy to misconstrue was someone has or hasn't said, and when you add to that symptoms of depression or anxiety we are all prone to making assumptions that might not be true.

The forums aren't a "live chat" environment, and back-and-forth social threads like this are the exception rather than the norm, so I don't think the average person coming through here is conditioned to sign off after every post. Also, with the way the forums are moderated, your post may take up to 12 hours to appear anyway, so even if you have said you're signing off for the night in a thread, that may not be seen till the next day.

I have even seen situations where, in a particularly intense thread where someone is struggling, saying "goodbye" at the end of a post has led other members to assume the worst. 

I've been managing the forums here for a couple of years now, and I can assure everyone that instances of someone posting with the intention of hurting another person are extremely rare. We have a zero tolerance policy for that sort of thing, and it's a very friendly, supportive environment here as a result.

Bearing this in mind, if you read a post and you're not clear on its meaning, reply to the person and ask. Don't assume that they're being nasty, because it's incredibly unlikely.  That said, if you see something that is obviously disrespectful, then you can always report the post to us and we'll look into it. 

Finally, our forums can be clunky at the best of times as well, I know a lot of you report that you have lost posts from time to time. Please let me know if this happens to you, I am collecting a log of all these incidents so we can try and get our web developers to work out why it is happening.

Carry on! 🙂