Disclaimer: These are just my personal experiences and in no way intended to incite hatred against the subjects mentioned.
I have struggled with mental health problems ever since my high school days, as I am sure many of you guys have. I was always looking for someone to open upto. After all, meaningful human connection is better than everything else.
I find it hard striking conversation with strangers. So instead, I started searching for online health platforms where you can chat with other people like you and maybe even talk to a therapist. I stumbled across couple of these platforms, namely, 7cups and blahtherapy. In this part, I am mainly elaborating on 7cups.
7cups' is a rather elegant website, at least in appearance. It has this option of group chat, with groups like 'Depression Support'. Anyway during college, slowly but surely, I started being involved in conversation with lots and lots of strangers in those groups, people from all over the world. The only thing you know about them initially, is their screen name, which is usually something like LemonyZest65 or MagnificentHorse23 or ... you get the gist. It started to feel good being involved in conversations with these many people. Sometimes I would imagine what this other person might look like. I used to chat, day and night. So much so that, I spent most of my exam days chatting. I didn't get good grades, but at least I didn't fret during the exam days, which were the most stressful. People used to roam the dorm rooms, revising on the subject for the last time, and I was laying in my bed, chatting here, trying to 'protect' myself from thinking about the adversity that are exams.
I also occasionally used to talk to the so called 'listeners' (online therapists whom you don't pay). But after telling my story couple times, I lost interest in getting help. Some of them gave proper advices, but most of them just repeated the age old platitudes like 'First step to getting better is identifying'.Rather, I became more involved with the people whom I regularly chatted with.
Those people used to visit the chat groups everyday, just like me. I developed rather unhealthy attitudes like being angry at them not visiting the chat some day, or trying to bully people (which is ironic since I have usually been on the opposite end of bullying). It was toxic. I developed a curiosity about the personal lives of those people.
Sometimes, to make myself feel like the site is not making me more toxic, I used to try out their 'path' feature. It helps you do some positive things like writing in your gratitude journal or meditating every day. You earn points for every task completed. Once your completed points reach a threshold, you earn badges. I earned like 50 badges, but never felt like I benefited from them at all.
Sometimes I tried to post in their forums. Just like facebook groups, but for people sharing uplifting images and articles. That would make me feel better for like a day. But then back to normal.
This continued for like 5 years. It never helped me. It made me miserable. I never approached a psychologist in real life. Never tried to make real friends. Abandoned my parents and my siblings. Stayed isolated from my college mates. This is not to say that people don't benefit from this website. I have seen people getting better and uplifting others, at least thats what I could infer from their forum posts.
This is still continuing to this day, although I have reduced going back to the website. It's helping me to actually open my eyes and try to find sources of inspiration in real life or become one.
I hope these experiences are of some help to someone already going through similar things. Get some psych help. Talk to friends, family, whomever.
More on blatherapy and other platforms in the next part.
Good luck.
People are now seem frustrated then before. And many suffer from depression. This online help i hope will help them to heal. Thank for that information.