I've had friends on here who make it a HUGE deal that they're deleting their accounts here.. and some of these people either never wind up doing it or do it and come back complaining in a few months that they had to make a new account and look for all the friends they left behind... Recently, a close friend on here left what seemed like a WAY overly dramatic message saying she's deleting her account (after sending her this, all that ended up happening was she deleted me instead).

I think its just silly really to make such a big deal out of leaving DS that you actually bother to delete your own account. It seems like a lot of people here get so dramatic about this sort of thing and really, my take on it is this: When I'm getting sick of DS, not happy here or whatever I just stop coming for a while. It seems silly to make a whole show out of leaving, I even know one guy who made a HUGE deal out of it when he had already told me he always comes back anyways and has to make himself another account and try to reconnect with the friends he's made here. Personally, I would just stop coming, don't even bother closing my account..

Maybe instead of turning it into this big thing your going to make yourself deal with, you should try and address what it is that's making your unhappy here... alternatively, just do what I've mentioned I do multiple times, It's really not nearly as big a deal as you or many others I know seem to make it. You'd lose a lot less friends and contacts that way and, seeing as how this IS a support site after all, when you need the SUPPORT you don't have to go through the hassle of creating a new account and looking for the good friends you've made on here again... To further my point on this, its also not even a little bit hard to meet new people on here..

Plus, the fact that many people here seem to think its such a huge, life-changing, earth-shattering event kinda hints that they're too attached to this site already. Ultimately, its just a social networking website, nothing more. Its not like your removing a hand or something. Like many social institutions, you could simply just walk away from it and come back anytime. Instead of dwelling on whether or not to shut your own account down, maybe you should simply walk away from it for a while. Go out more, talk to people in person, make new friendships and new connections. Stop worrying so much about whether or not one website is hurting you so much, because if it really is causing you this much discomfort than it seems more like your taking it too seriously and too personally. Everyone here is hurting, that's the whole point of this site. We come here for SUPPORT or to give support, it doesn't mean you need to keep coming here day in and day out just to sit around for a few hours and pretend its the most important thing in the universe that you say hi to and then run away from whoever or argue with some random drunk you've started chatting with about whether or not drinking more alcohol is a good idea.

When you think about it, this site isn't really meant for you to get soo emotionally invested in it that it becomes detrimental to your own well-being. When something DOES get that way, its usually a good idea to take a step back, do something else for a little while and come back to it fresh and not so wrapped up in these silly little micro-dramas that you go out of your mind.

I had to have this talk with a really close friend a few years ago, it made sense.. it was a conflict that came up through facebook and it almost ended our friendship until I realized that really, it seriously DID NOT matter all that much and in cases like these its best not to blow things way out of proportion and instead simply just close the window, go about doing whatever else it is you do and stop worrying about it so much. Its not worth loosing good friends over something stupid one or two people say, especially if these are people you hardly know anyways and whose opinions really shouldn't matter to you all that much.

I'm sorry if the length of this rant kind of contradicts its own point but honestly, having seen this happen with a bunch of people on here, it seems like SOMEONE besides me really has to laugh at how big a deal these people make it. I hate to be horrible insensitive but I suspect this particularly common issue has more to do with the fact that pretty much everyone here has some sort of issue they're hear to deal with and because of these particular issues it makes them feel separated and different from the rest of the world when really, if anyone bothered to simple look at the sheer number of people on here they'd realize that their never alone anyways. If they get sooo wrapped up and emotionally thrown off balance on here, it has more to do with that sense of self-inflicted alienation and isolation...

I guess ultimately my point is, stop saying your leaving and making such a big fuss over it, if your really THAT unhappy here maybe you've been confining yourself in this tiny little box and getting wrapped up in the insignificances of it all when really all you need to do is get your ass off that chair, stop worrying yourself over whether Joe Shmoe in whocares Canada is depressed over loosing his job or if Jane Doe in Where-ever India has stopped taking her meds. Ask yourself, is there really ANYTHING else you can do that you haven't already done for these people? No! So stop wasting so much emotional energy on it. Getting yourself worked up over some social network like this is really too big of a waste of time and you should feel lucky if this is really the only thing getting you so worked up because really, real life is a lot worse than this little imaginary box we call Daily Strength.

People can drive themselves insane here, especially if they a tendency to care about others too much. You can use this site the same way any NORMAL person uses things like Yahoo chat or facebook, make good friends, keep in touch, form relationships that actually matter to you and learn to let go of those that either don't matter or cause you more stress than they're worth. If your really making this site such a huge part of your life that its making you THAT uncomfortable, count yourself VERY lucky because its just a website with a theme, nothing more...