Can we please not traumatize the new people?
CrazeyJaneyR
member
I feel like people come here and pour out their hearts and express their hopes and fears, and that some of us forget what it's like to be NEW at all of this.
I understand that honestly is helpful and necessary, but can we BE NICE about it. This is the first place some people turn to after finding out devastating news. I think it's awful to force people to rush the natural grieving process. Yes - honestly is absolutely necessary! There's a way to be nice about it though.
I have gotten a fabulous wealth of knowledge here. I appreciate it greatly. HOWEVER - sometimes I read the responses that people write and I want to cry. Newbies haven't grown a thick skin yet - they come for support, not to be beaten down. It's crazy how this board can be hopeful and despairing at the same time.
Re: Can we please not traumatize the new people?
DD1, 1/5/2008 ~~~ DD2, 3/17/2010
Dang...I must have missed a good post.
Nothing I have read is traumatizing. Honest, but not traumatizing.
Uhm, I didn't see anything remotely traumatic. Auntie, judged one part of her story and they seemed to solve it.
It seemed 99% of everyone said "ignore the label for now, use it to get him services and revisit the diagnosis later"
Not talking about a specific post. Sure that is what set me off, but is surely not the first time, and I'm not villianizing Auntie - she's the best resource on the board, no doubt.
I am reminding everyone to be sensitive. I cringe at some of the responses on here.
I am not sure which post(s) this is referring to but in general I do not see people being traumatizing with their responses. Yeah, you don't see a lot of sugar coating here. It won't really help anything IME plus I'd rather have straightforwardness even if it hurts my feelings (I'm quite the sensitive person). Also, I'm not the most eloquent speaker/writer so I could totally see something I write coming off in a tone that is opposite of the tone used in my head when typing. That is part of the problem with the written word. The reader reads it with their own interpretation of tone...and that interpretation could be wrong or spot on.
I hope that there is never anyone who feels traumatized here or unwelcome in general. This is one of the most supportive and non-drama boards on TB and I welcome that.
No one wants to be a part of the SN world and no one thinks (unless they know before the baby is born) that the SN world is where you will end up. Knowing before or after birth, still finding out something is wrong is generally traumatizing all on its own. We are almost 2yr post diagnosis and I STILL find myself in disbelief and other negative emotions sometimes. It is all a process and sometimes a really long one.
It is really really hard to be honest and sincere with people without it reading as snarky. Especially if you lurk on other boards and are used to the 'tone' and then come over here and read. Your 'inside voice' is already reading it in a snarky way.
There is also a level of frustration that we all live within our own lives that can affect how we answer certain posts. I know it happens with me. I have an extremely low tolerance for bullsh!t and for people who appear to be sticking their heads in the sand.
We also can only work off of what information people do or do not choose to post here. If someone comes in here and posts what I feel is only part of the story or a little bit "off", you can bet your bottom dollar that I will be looking at posts they make on other boards to try and make sense of what they are looking for.....
I understand that you want it to be "more supportive" and I will work on my supportiveness. At the same time, however, we don't want to be shooting rainbows up people's azzes while their child could be missing out on valuable and timely services.
Everyone handles having an SN child differently. I am just not at a point in my life where I have much tolerance for certain approaches. Thus, for everyone's benefit, I have not said much.
I am also tired of explaining the same processes over and over. I just don't have time. If anything, maybe that is why some of us are short in giving responses. We are insanely busy, and all we can give is the basic info, usually info that can be found via an internet search anyways.
Being a pretty new person myself, I understand what you mean. It's hard for us that have now spent tons of hours researching everything not to just reply with good information to a post. It's easy to forget that most of us were overwhelmed and in some sort of denial when we first received a diagnosis. It helps to try to be sensitive of that to someone that is new. I also totally understand not having time, but maybe if you don't have time and it's someone new you could just not post a reply or come back later when you have a chance to think about giving the good information in a way that is very sensitive to the new person's feelings.
I have to admit I didn't post a lot at first on this board because I felt intimidated and overwhelmed. Now that I have had time to go through some of the stages of grief and really learned to trust that I know my son better than anyone else, but can still learn a ton from other parents that have been through the same situations I can take the advice you all offer and know you all are trying to be helpful.
I also spent a lot of time trying to get someone to believe me that something was going on. I also remember crying in a parking deck the day I got the diagnosis for DS#1. Everyone around me and most people I've met since have given me lots of "there, there everything will be fine". Honestly, it didn't make me feel any better about the situation because I knew it wouldn't be fine if I did nothing and actually made me feel more isolated. What helped me is the people that told me what to do, where to go, and how to do things. I appreciated people that said, yup I've dealt with that and it sucks, because it meant I wasn't alone or a bad mother for finding it hard.
What I'm trying to say is that different people need and consider different things "support". I've never seen anyone be intentionally mean so I can't really relate to what you are saying. People have said things I didn't want to hear, but they were usually what I did need to hear.Maybe a FAQ could be added to the board. When I first started lurking, I asked a ton of questions that I've seen many times since. With the amount of information out there, a web search can sometimes be overwhelming when you just want to know what the next steps are.
Also, frankly, these sorts of boards always have similar questions asked over and over. And the bump's search function is terrible, so not everyone is able to ffiona the response you gave last week to the same question.
Yeah, I guess I just figured a FAQ might help newcomers who are emotionally wrecked to not clog up the boards with "stupid" questions and then have to be patronized for not thinking to google first.