Bipolar Dream : Abuse Group Guidelines

Abuse Group Guidelines

This List has been created by the Elves for the sole purpose of supporting, educating and allowing awareness of abuse and of how it impacts on people diagnosed as bipolar, whether stable or not and whether on meds or not. We strongly recommend any bipolar to get to a pdoc on regular basis, but we accept any diagnosed person who decided not to.

The main ideal inspiring this list is support among abuse survivors. We firmly believe in support as a main path to all the self-awareness and education that facing abuse, especially when having bipolar disorder, requires.

RULES

#1. We encourage and welcome the expression of different ideas and ideals about how to cope and deal with abuse and concurrent bipolar disorder, provided no post contains abusive/manipulative overtones, flaming of present members or arguments. For members who choose to word out their abuse with foul language, they should asterisk it, writing only the first and the last letter, in order to be respectful of members that are offended by it. Messages with graphic language should in any case have a strong "*****SPOILER*****" tag in the subject line.

#2. Posts regarding racial, religious or politic matters are not allowed, save when they are related to bipolar disorder and/or abuse(for example stigma issues, triggers for an episode, ways to cope with the illness, things to solve in your life, symptoms of the disorder or consequences of an abuse). In this settings, they will be allowed, provided that the subject line contains a "***SPOILER***" tag with a mention of the topic that post is about.

#3. We ask you to protect the privacy of the members, as well as we protect yours. Thus, any post you receive from our group can *not* be forwarded to a person who is not a member, save when you got the permission from the author of that post. We also welcome private contacts among members but not unsolicited email. If you are willing to receive private emails from a member, authorize him/her thru a public post. Similarly, ask for permission to contact a member thru a public post.

#4. Suicidal ideation and discussion is allowed, also are allowed posts about previous attempts by members and history of friends/familiar suicides, in any case identified by a "***SPOILER***" tag with the word "suicide" VISIBLE in the subject line.

#5. Disagreements are not avoidable for a list like this, on the contrary they are welcome because they help exploring our minds. Be polite and respectful in wording your experiences and ideas out. Also pay a special attention in not getting hurt by opinions different from yours. We use differences as opportunities, challenges and means to grow.

#6. If you have a personal issue with a member, ask the mod you are more comfortable with for an advice. Do not take it as being a "spy". In fact you are actively cooperating with us for the safety of the group. The mod will only advise you and, if you want, s/he will *moderate* things between you and the other member.

#7. Do not post in HTML, only in plain text with black letters and white background. Colours could be an issue for many bp, therefore won't be allowed in any case. Attachment are not allowed as well. They waste a lot of memory on servers.

#8. Website referrals. Commercial links are not allowed. Links to personal pages or to charities are allowed. In any case no link supporting dangerous and/or not medically effective proven therapies can be posted, as well as no harmful link (i.e. links claiming how to cut or how to starve). Links to alternative approaches to bipolar disease or to abuse can be posted provided they don't define those approaches as "therapies" or "treatments". Links to informations and educational sites are welcomed. Be in any case cautious about which links you are posting, especially when it comes to medical infos. Assess the reliability of the association whose links you are posting. Remember that 1 site about mental illnesses out of 10 has misleading informations.

#9. Links to other groups are allowed if they are about illnesses not covered (yet) by Bipolar Dream. If Bipolar Dream covers that aspect with info only, use the form for requiring that specific kind of group. If Bipolar Dream does not cover that illness, that link is allowed. Links to charity groups (such for example food banks, homeless, etc) are allowed. Links to commercial group are in any case NOT allowed.

#10. Try not to post topics that don't regard abuse or your personal lives. If you do, there will be a time frame of 24 hrs after which your thread will expire and you will be asked to keep that conversation back channel (that is, thru emails). Chain letters are not allowed.

#11. No reply can be solicited. Remember that replies are a gift, not an obligation. And also remember that anytime you solicit a reply you can make members feel guilty, and that's the reason for we don't allow them.

#12. Try to keep topics in thread. Also, anytime you reply to a member add "/name-of-that-member" to the subject line. This makes easier a quick visualization of posts and allow ppl to easily reply to posts for them.

Copyright (C) 2003 Bipolar Dream