Anagram Glossary?

[chibam]

This is about a minor peeve I've recently developed with this forum. I've noticed that a lot of the users here have a habit of writing the anagrams for what their talking about with no further explaination. Some of them I am familiar with, e.g. PTSD = post trauma stress disorder, OCD = obsessive compulsive disorder, ADHD = attention deficit hyperactive disorder, ect., ect. But I'm increasingly noticing that there are a lot of anagrams I don't recognize.

Maybe this is a case of "if you don't know what it means, you probably have nothing to contribute to the discussion anyway," but I still find the confusion this produces a bit irritating.

I'm wondering if maybe it might be a good idea to have a link on the side of the forum to a glossary of all the common mental illness & psychiatric anagrams that people seem to use on these forums, so that the rest of us can understand what's going on?

In fact, if the guys who run this site are really nifty with their programming skills, they could rig the site so that whenever a reader rolls their mouse over an anagram, it automatically pops up the expanded definition of what it means

Just a thought...

[grubbytoes]

Yes! I second this.
I like your idea, it's a brilliant one. If nothing else I would love to read othera comments about the shorthand they use.

It took me a while to realise BPD was not Bipolar disorder, but rather borderline personality disorder.

[chibam]

OMG! (Oh my God ) You just blew my mind! I've seen BPD written lots of times (not just on here), and I always assumed it meant bipolar, too!

If nothing else comes from this thread, at least I've learned something today!

[Former-Member]

I got confused at first too 🙂 still do at times but I just ask what it was and these are public forums and would love to see more people contributing around the forums, the more perspectives and ideas we have the better!!

A couple of short hands I know of are
Sh - self harm
Si - suicidal ideation (although I think it can also be self injury?)
Mi - mental illness

[NikNik]

Hi everyone!

I think this is a great idea! I have to admit - I google a lot of the acronyms & anagrams, so I wouldn't say '"if you don't know what it means, you probably have nothing to contribute to the discussion anyway," ' 🙂

If we could continue the list, as @Former-Member that would be helpful. I'm sure there's a list online we could use as a basis too.

@chibam I will look into your idea for the 'roll over' option - I think that would be awesome.

I will keep you updated.

In the meantime, some I can add to the list include:

CBT: Cognitive behavioural therapy

ECT: Electroconvulsive therapy

MH: Mental health

[Mazarita]

The same thing happened here when I first started posting to the forum, had to look up the acronyms or try to guess them. Some I still don't really know, like DID (something to do with dissociation?)

The ones I got confused with first up were:

BPD = borderline personality disorder

BD (or sometimes BP) = bipolar disorder

Sometimes I think we use these acronyms because we prefer them to the clinical sound of psych terminology.

[NikNik]

Hi @chibam

Again - thanks for starting this discussion. I did some digging (well... I asked our technical guru) and unfortunately we don't have the ability to create the 'roll over' feature you're referring to.

We use a specific forum platform, which does give us some great features, but can also be restricting in other areas.

We can still create this Glossary though and feature it in a prominent spot so people can easily access it.

Lets start by dumping a bunch of anagrams (whether you know what they mean or not) here.

Nik

[CannonSalt]

I tried to post about "ED" this morning, but the post didn't go through.  It's not in my draft posts, and it's not on the page, but I have been subscribed to this thread all day.  Just in case the IT staff needed something to think about. 🙂

There's also

ECT - electro-convulsive therapy

CCBT - CBT done by computers

DBT - Dialectical Behavioural Therapy

[chibam]

@NikNik

That's okay. It was just an idea. A link-to glossary page would be just as helpful, too.

@CannonSalt

Thanks for bringing up DBT, I would've mentioned that myself otherwise, because that was actually "the last straw" for me that inspired this thread. I saw it in another post and had no idea what it was.

As for adding to the list:

CSA = Childhood Sexual Abuse (I think? Again, another one I came across that I had to figure out myself)

PARC = Prevention And Recovery Care (Apparently. Just googled it)

[Appleblossom]

I googled a lot when I first started.

For me personally, as I saw other use them I started to and found, it actually helps to use some of the acronyms ... it means that as I post I dont gouge big hole in my psychic self but skate over the top of painful experiences ... ie still say what is needed but not trigger myself so much.