Come celebrate the 10-year anniversary of SANE Forums!

[Shaz51]

Heyyyyyy @Lauz 😊

Is that you 👀 😁

[Judi9877]

Hello @rav3n and other forumites here. I can’t believe it’s been 10 years since the SANE forums started - Haply 10th birthday SANE Forums🎉🎂🎁!

According to the data, I’ve been a member of the forums since September 2018 - so about 6 years. During this time, I have gone from being just a regular forum member to a Community Guide on the forums which is a role I love and have learnt a lot from, including using my lived experience to help others whilst learning new information about all things mental health related from other forum members as well, such as new coping strategies and new craft ideas to try. 

I can’t remember why I joined or how I joined, except to know that I had mental health issues and I was feeling isolated, confused, depressed and I wanted somewhere and someone to talk to besides my psychiatrist and mental health nurse at the time. I was living with my housemate and liked the fact that I could talk to forum members about any issues I had with her ( she also had mental health issues) as a way of helping me deal with them. I was also in the middle in 2018 of studying my Certificate IV in Mental Health at TAFE so being on the forums assisted in my academic studies along with my personal life experiences of mental illness. I do know that there were several members at the start that I connected with such as @Shaz51 @TAB @MDT @greenpea @Jynx  who made me feel welcome along with others that are no longer - several members were into craft such as knitting and crochet which had a discussion thread especially for this - and I found them to be really helpful and friendly to the point they have become my forum friends over the years. I like the fact that I can drop in and out of the forums for various reasons, including poor mental health status, yet still have people wanting to know if you are okay which is something I love about the forums.

When I reflect on what has stood out for me on the forums, it has been the following things:

- Being able to help others during the COVID pandemic with the lockdowns and getting through it with the help of others here on the forums. This was especially important to me as I lived in Melbourne and was dealing with the harsh restrictions that were in place for the 6 lockdowns and saw the toll they took on people’s mental health, including my own which resulted in an inpatient stay at a mental health facility for just under 4 weeks. Having the forums allowed me to talk about the situation at hand and gave me something to distract myself with as forum members would pass on advice and words of support which I found to be incredibly helpful and valuable at the time. I also liked that I was able to help out other forum members in different states of Australia when they went into lockdowns due to my experience with this part of my life at the time which I really enjoyed doing.

- Learning new coping strategies such as the use of aromatherapy and cups of tea to calm down 

- Celebrating forum members achievements on a post called Thumbs up Thursday - Woohoo! With recognition of what forum members have done on the forums to help others 

- Starting a discussion thread to celebrate daily achievements which I started to help me deal with my depression episodes with the idea being just waking up is an amazing achievement each day.

- Having connections with a wide range of people on different topics such as sports, crafts, cats, etc. 

I like being part of the SANE forums community in that I know that I can reach out for support and advice and will usually get it from a forum member. I also like knowing that I don’t have to be sick to use the forums as my mental health is episodic and being both well and sick is accepted here. If I’m not the best mentally, I can post about it and often feel better because my thoughts and feelings are out of my head and I know that someone will acknowledge what I’m going through so I’m not alone. If I’m well, I can support others and pass on my knowledge to help them with their issues as well as learn from them at the same time.

One thing I’m proud of is the fact that the forums are on online community to help people with complex mental health issues and are free and accessible to all people experiencing mental health issues which is very important to me. Mental illnesses are complex and challenging and it can be very expensive to manage as it often requires a psychiatrist, psychologist and other medical professionals and facilities and treatment options. These people/items aren’t cheap and often there is a waiting list to see them, if at all, so that is a major problem, especially for country areas. People often attend a hospital to try and get treatment for their illnesses only to be turned away due to not enough beds or they aren’t sick enough to require treatment, making the situation even worse for the person involved- coming from experience. Having lived through the recent COVID pandemic, I saw the increase in people requiring mental health treatments and services yet not being able to access them due to costs and limited number of qualified professionals to deal with this crisis. The pandemic saw a whole new element of mental health issues with isolation and other mental health problems and symptoms emerging due to people being restricted on what they could and couldn’t do with lots of people who were previously healthy developing mental illness for the first time and not knowing how to deal with it. By the forums being free and accessible, it allowed this group of people to utilise mental health knowledge and options to assist them to deal with what they were going through without having to find money for the service which they may not have been able to afford otherwise. I know from a personal perspective that I can’t afford a psychiatrist and have benefited greatly from the knowledge and expertise of others to help me with my mental health issues which have at times been life saving for me. Keeping the forums free is very important.

Overall, I’ve loved being part of the SANE forums community. There’s been so many different things I’ve seen, learnt and been part of and I hope to continue to do this now and into the future. Good luck to the next 10 years!

Judi9877☺️🌻🍀

[Jynx]

Aww @Judi9877 you absolute superstar, thank you for sharing!! We're blessed to have you as part of the community 😊💜

[Shaz51]

Awwww ❤️ @Judi9877 😊

[MJG017]

Wow!  10 years!  In some ways it feels like so long ago, in others it feels like a blink of the eye.  I remember being in a pretty good place back then.  I was 44 and I had been with my current partner for a bit over a year.  Which was a new experience for me as I had spent all my life up to then assuming I wasn't good enough for anyone and basically just kept to myself.  The thought of not spending my whole life alone seemed like a real possibility for the first time.  Other than the fact I was sure i'd find a way to mess it up.  10 years later, I still haven't managed to.  It does slightly concern me about what must be wrong with her to put up with me for this long but maybe we both have the same kind of "wrong".

I joined here back in May this year.  My health had taken a major turn towards pear shaped with a test result i got on December 28 2023, and so began the worst 6 months of my life.  I had tried so many things I would have never thought i would ever do.... none of it was helping.  I had gotten a bit used to talking to people about how I was struggling mentally, which was helping just to say these things out load, but after I'd said them, what was I supposed to do then?  I was in the middle of another sleepless night and just typed something into google out of desperation about where to find something to help this depression and anxiety I had been really struggling with for months.  This forum called Sane came up.  I was desperate and ready to try anything.  It was sort of refreshing to hear forums actually still existed and it was still possible to chat to people online without using Facebook or Whatsapp, or whatever people use these days.  So I thought i'd sign up and have a look, only to be told I couldn't use my real name.  It was the middle of the night and I just wanted to check it out so i just typed the first thing that came into my head as a username.  I thought i'd read a few posts, get bored and not comeback anyway.  So if you've ever wondered about the deep and meaningful origin of my username... there you go 😁

I found a post that seemed to resonate with issues I had dealt with throughout my life, so i replied saying how i understood and felt that same way as the poster did.  I then waffled on a bit, as I do.  I got a reply from someone else commenting on what a good bit of advice my post it was.  Well that was weird... my thoughts made sense to someone and my advice was "great".  I felt a bit better about myself.  I had given some advice and someone found it helpful.  So i just kept going.  I started to get to know more people and found so many things I had always struggled with, other people had as well!  All those things I had struggled with in life, could I use them an my experience in dealing with them as a way to support others with similar experiences and in doing so help myself?

For the first time in months, I started to feel some progress and started to find some motivation in life again.  I started to make other positive changes in my life which lead to opportunities which brought me even more of a sense of direction in life and a strong sense of this 'new normal' that was my life now.  Things kept improving for the rest of the year, until a few weeks ago on November 28th (I really am beginning to hate the 28th!) another bad result.  But this time, there was no huge depressive spiral, I was struggling definitely, but things felt a lot more under control, especially compared to the last time.  Was it progress from throughout the year or just the fact that i needed to wait until early January 2025 for a follow up test to confirm the November result?  Who knows.  Maybe that big depressive spiral is just waiting for confirmation to kick in.  I really don't know.

I do know that my time with Sane has gotten me through the darkest, most difficult time of my life so far and even appears to have given me tools to navigate my way through times that will only get tougher and tougher in the coming few years.

I like to think now that if you want to find an empathetic person, who cares and will be understanding and supportive... without judgment or any dismissiveness, find someone who has fought (or is fighting) their own mental health issues.  I don't think you'll find someone else who would fit that description any better.  And for me, the people here on Sane are living proof of that.  And I am so thankful to have found it and proud to be a small part of it.