It seems the new international pass-time is to join depression forums for the sole purpose of telling members of those forums everything they are doing wrong.

I for one am sick of this.

How many posts have I read over the last number of months from members that have been around less than a month bitching about the way we use this board? I have lost count.

They bitch about the fact that we like to have fun on the board - we post videos, start joke threads, etc etc. Somehow, they see it as inappropriate? Far as I'm concerned if there is ONE thing everyone here needs it's to friggin LAUGH!!! ...laughter IS the best medicine, after all.....

They bitch about the fact that we piss and moan and vent on the board - isn't one of the reasons we are all here is to have an outlet? To be able to have a place we can truly speak our minds and get things off our chests that we can't say to the people in our real lives? Isn't it important to have a means of dealing with our daily annoyances in order that we can concentrate on overcoming the big challenges we face?

They bitch that we talk about suicide - I'm sorry, but if there is ONE place in the world that I am going to turn to if I am feeling the urge for the knife it's going to be here.... we are here to support each other, no matter what. When one of our members is in crisis, they have every right to seek help from the board. I get that the topic is triggering - but almost every topic we discuss on this board is triggering to someone. It's just part of it.

They bitch that we don't do anything to help ourselves, that we just sit here online all day making our problems worse - this might be true about a very small handful, but from what I have seen in my FOUR YEARS on this board is that the vast majority here truly want to heal, truly are willing to do what it takes, and truly mean to follow the advice they are given. But it's not easy. It's easy to say "get off your ass and DO something about it" but when all you can think about for months on end is offing yourself and just getting out of bed to go pee is a chore, it's not that freaking easy, now is it?

What I'm trying to get at in this post is that this board is important to a lot of our members, and it is important that we feel free to use this board in whatever way we see as conducive to our own healing and coping. For some it's joking, for some it's venting, for some it's reaching out during crisis, for most it's a combination.

If people don't like what they get out of this board they are free to leave - this is not the only support group on the internet.

What annoys me most about a lot of these posts is that they tend to come from fairly new members - now, I'm not saying new members should not have an opinion of DS... but I think that when you have been here less than a month you're really not in a position to judge the merits of this group. I know when I first started on DS there were times that I got frustrated with the board being full of jokes - esp inside jokes - and sometimes wondered whether people cared at all.... but after being here a while, and getting to know some of the personalities and the dynamics of the group, it did not take me long to realize how important these things were to members, and eventually to myself.

DS is an important part of my life. My friends here are real friends, regardless of the fact that I never have and never will see them in real life. I have every right to joke around with them, every right to vent about my daily pissoffs with them, and every right to reach out to them when I am in need. And I expect them to be comfortable doing the same.