When I crashed 5 years ago when my mom died, I lost a lot. I ended up in a psyche ward, lost my housing, had to miss two months of work, I was in almost constant pain with my back problems and I had to quit college.
I had been living on my own for 20 years but I ended up back in mental health housing. I pretty much thought I was done for and I was deathly afraid I was going to end up in some back ward in some mental institution for the rest of my life.
I got released from the psyche ward right into a temporary group home.
Well, for anyone who doesn’t’ believe this forum helps people they would be dead wrong. I got tons of support from here as I went through the crisis.
I got so many people who encouraged me and supported me and I had people telling me I would recover and so many people telling me I would get back up on my feet.
And the whole time I was going through it, my sister’s were trying to help me too. They would come to pick me up from the group home and they were always so cheery and positive and their attitude was that the whole situation was just a short setback and I would pull out of my funk and be back to working in no time and back n my feet.
I’m sure it must have scared them to see me go so low and in such a short period of time but they believed I would get better. And I did. I went through some changes and got my life back. But all the great things I was told on here and the support was a big part of my recovery.
If you don’t mind me asking, what sort of support is it that helps you? When I visit the forum I find I want to help people, but either lack the skill or understanding to do much.
In my particular case 5 years ago I was feeling like my life was over. I felt like a bad person and I was really depressed.
We had a computer in the living room of the group home and I would come here. I had been coming on here about ten years by that time. People knew me and my story. So people were probably surprised (to say the least) that I ended up in a hospital.
People tried to cheer me up and they told me I wasn’t a bad person. A lot of people would tell me I’m a strong person and I’ll get through it. Everybody had confidence in me that the last hospitalization was just a temporary setback.
So many people were nice to me.
That was a very low point in my life. I don’t know what people saw when they looked at me and people on here were used to me doing good but I felt like the lowest person on the planet.
But people believed in me. A lot of people who tried to help me I had known for years. When so many of them told me I would recover I started to believe them.
So if you want to help someone, that’s the way. Support. Listening to their problems. Being sympathetic to their situation. Using your own life experience and showing what worked for you (or what didn’t work). Encouraging someone who is trying to change their life. Seeing someone with low confidence who wants to go back to work or school and try to encourage them and support them, give them confidence.
really nice to hear that people on here helped you so well =)
I think this forum is a big help too… spending here some time makes me feel better cause then i feel like i’m not alone…