Mental Health Online Self Help Groups

by Patty E. Fleener M.S.W.

Today I want to address mental health consumers and their families who use self help groups. My message is to be very careful when you enter an online or offline support group. That may be a bulletin board, email support group, a meeting where people meet face to face, etc. 

There are many different reasons that people seek out these "groups." Some go just to listen to other people so they won't feel so alone. Some go as a place just to vent. Some come with a real desire to grow and change their lives. Some are there just to please someone in their life but don't want to be there. There are many other reasons people seek these groups out. 

I think the mistake we make many times is assuming that everyone there is there to promote positive changes for themselves and learn new and different ways to live their lives. We assume they are desiring inner growth and healing. However as many of us have found out, this is not the case. People go to these groups for all kinds of reasons and many times the people themselves are not even aware of why they are there. 

I get letters from people all the time complaining how their "group" is making them miserable instead of helping them. People are say horrible things to them, getting angry at them, etc. 

In the family groups I hear this all the time. "All they do is complain about their partners. No one ever talks about themselves or looks within themselves."

Whether you have a mental health disorder or are a family member, you must remember that when you go into that group, you and most everyone in there came in with your unhealthy behavior. Only you haven't been into recovery very long so you are not even aware of which behavior of yours is healthy and which is unhealthy. 

I had to learn this myself when I joined my first mental health email support group. I had no idea which of my behaviors was ill and which wasn't. Honest! However I learned about myself from listening to other people and relating to many of the things other people said. I couldn't even "go off" on people in the group or we would be penalized. That rule in and of itself helped to teach me how to communicate with others without going off on them. I simply couldn't flame people!

Now if you are a family member and you come into your new group with the old unhealthy behavior of avoiding thinking and talking about yourself and only talk and complain about your partner, you are likely to present yourself this way to the group initially. Correct? This is the only way you know how to cope in your situation thus far. You are doing the best you can with the tools you have and you are not aware there is another and possibly better and healthier way to live. 

Chances are very high that most people in the family group are going to present themselves in the same way - the only way they know to cope. However this behavior didn't work and doesn't work because if it did you and they wouldn't be in the support group to begin with, correct?

Some families talk as if their happiness solely depends upon their partner's behavior. They believe that their happiness is outside of themselves and in someone else's hands. 

Anytime you feel that happiness, peace, harmony, etc. are somewhere outside of you, you are on the wrong track and you will not find them there. They simply are not there to find.

http://www.mental-health-today.com/articles/shgroups.htm