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Borderline
Personality Disorder Chatroom
Chat
Room Guidelines
This chat room is for RECOVERY purposes. If you're feeling
suicidal, the need to self injure, or in extreme crisis, this room is not
for you. You need to be on the phone calling 911 or your local suicide or
crisis hot line. If you're not comfortable with that than you can use our
hotline page for people to talk with. This room is not equipped to handle
these crises. Discussing suicide is extremely upsetting to everyone in the
room. If you come in and discuss these topics in the room or in private, you
will be given suicidal resources and be invited back when you are not in
crisis. If you come back and continue, you will be kicked and banned.
For those familiar with IRC and wish to use more robust
clients such as mIRC or Pirch.
The server is Magicstar.net and the
room name is #bpdsanc. The preferred server is gryphon.magicstar.net
followed by linuxguy.magicstar.net, atlantis.magicstar.net and
galaxy.magicstar.net .
Magicstar has been going thru some growing pains, because of
this we will infrequently experience what is known as "Netsplit".
If this happens and you are using another server other than
gryphon.magicstar.net you may experience everyone disappearing. This is when
the different servers lose contact with each other. This usually remedies
itself with in a few minutes. No one did this to you, this is just internet
problems. For those using the JAVA applet this will not effect you.
*This chat room engages in mature discussions which may not always be
suitable for minors. (People under the age of 18) This room is for those 18
OR OLDER ONLY. Borderline Personality Disorder involves many aspects of our
lives which are all discussed in this chat room. History has shown that too
often there are topics of discussion not appropriate for minors.*
Other Topics: Nicknames, Self Injury, Suicide,
If you're banned from this site, and you don't know why, please send
chat@mhsanctuary.com
Rules:
1. Pick a nickname that you like and try to use it all the time. When people
change their nickname it becomes confusing to others in the room. Sometimes
while joking around, people will change their nickname for a few minutes but
we will always join the channel with the same nickname and change it back to
what we normally use.
2. If you find that the room is too busy or you are needing to speak to
someone in private, please message an operator and they will be willing (in
most cases) to speak with you in private. The operators are the ones with
the @ symbol next to their nick. (if you are using "ircle" for
macintosh the operators will have their names in red)
3. Please remember this is a support room of people who cannot substitute
for your Therapist or Psychiatrist. If talking with others in the room is
not helping, our best advice is for you to contact your Therapist or
Psychiatrist. *No medical advise allowed* It is considered to be medical
advice if you are discussing things best discussed with your Psychiatrist or
Therapist. You may discuss your own personal experiences with the
understanding that everyone will have a different experience.
4. This site is tolerant of all religious beliefs, however, this chat room
is not the appropriate place to discuss any one religion. You may use simple
terms such as "I will pray for ****" But there are other places on
the internet for these discussions.
5. Sexual discussions will not be tolerated. Joking around is one thing, but
I think those of us in the room realize what is inappropriate. If you don't
know what is inappropriate, an operator will remind you.
6. Lurking (being in the chat room but not speaking for very long periods of
time) is not allowed. If you are new, we can understand about being shy and
wishing to not talk for your first visit. If you are a regular chat room
visitor to the room, then you are expected to use the room as intended. Not
to simply sit and PM (private message) others.
7. Offensive language/cussing is limited to what is allowed. The only swear
words you can say in this room are Hell, Damn, Ass, Crap, Sucks, and Pissed.
We realize that sometimes when you're feeling emotional you may tend to use
swear words, however, this is where we have set the limit for what is
accepted in this chat room.
8. No inappropriate nicknames. We can all use our own judgment on this. If
an op asks you to change your nickname because it's inappropriate, please
change it.
9. Gossip *especially* that which is about online relationships will NOT be
tolerated. We certainly can't prevent a relationship from forming, but if a
moderator finds out about it, that's because it was gossiped about too much.
Topics which are inappropriate for this chat room include:
-Discussions of suicide and/or suicidal/parasuicidal behavior. At no time is
this appropriate for a support room for BPD.
-Discussions of self injury when not related to recovery. You may discuss
ways to help one stop this negative behaviour. You may NOT tell "war
stories" about self injury. This means no telling stories about
previous self injury.
-Any verbally abusive behavior towards another chat room member will NOT be
tolerated.
-Discussions of alcohol or street drugs except in a recovery aspect. Again,
no "war stories" on drinking or using drugs. This includes
discussion of self medicating with prescription drugs.
-Discussions of self destructive behavior. This includes speeding, criminal
behavior, etc) Yes some people may say "oh crap, I got a speeding
ticket today" and that isn't a big deal but we don't want continued
discussions of reckless driving and criminal behavior and things of that
sort.
-Bringing in outside disagreements is inappropriate.
-Offensive quit messages will NOT be tolerated.
-Any topic which is best discussed with your Therapist/Psychiatrist is not
appropriate for this chat room. Such topics include Sexual abuse, Physical
abuse, etc...To ask for help because you are being abused is okay. A
moderator of the room or someone else will probably be able to give you a
phone number to call for help, but beyond this, it's not appropriate for
this room.
-Discussing another member of the chat room who is not present is
inappropriate.
ADDITIONAL NOTES:
BPD is a disorder that has many stages. There is the beginning of recovery
where you have become aware of what changes you need to start implementing
in yourself and you're willing to get help doing this. There is that
*further along* place where you have been implementing change, and there is
also that place more towards the end. This is where some will tell you that
they no longer meet the criteria for BPD or that they are cured or that they
don't have BPD anymore or any other descriptor that they use to say that BPD
no longer describes them.
There are other stages also. There are those who have been diagnosed with
BPD by a therapist or psychiatrist but the person has no idea what BPD
means. There is the person who knows some about BPD and has been diagnosed
with it but does nothing to help in his/her own recovery. When someone has
no desire to help oneself I refer to this as "not being ready to give
up the payoffs". What this means is that this person is simply not at a
place yet to want to change. We all have our own payoffs from our behaviours.
I have my own payoffs as well. One of those payoffs for me being the
attention I receive as a result of certain behaviours. If one is not willing
to give up payoffs in exchange for honest communication, at least sometimes,
then you may hear me saying to you that you are not ready to be a part of
this group. I am not telling you to leave because you have BPD, but rather I
am trying to help you see what this group can provide for you. One thing it
will not provide is center stage for you. The people in the group will help
you process your negative behaviours and you wanting to act out negatively,
but we will not take part when you act out in ways that are purely attention
seeking. To flat out start talking about being suicidal or wanting to self
injure, or saying you have self injured while talking to us is completely
unacceptable. It is also completely unacceptable to 'flood' the room with
useless chit chat simply to be noticed. We will not take part in a
competition for who can be the *worst borderline*.
And one more note......
Some people get kicked out of the room, or banned for a day, or sometimes
longer. Please do not compare what you've done to get reprimanded to what
someone else has done. Some of you have been using this room a very long
time, others of you for a little while, and others are brand new. The
expectations for each person vary depending on several factors. Someone may
get kicked out momentarily for swearing whereas someone else may get banned
for a while. It may appear to be the same behaviour in some people's eyes,
but they are two different people. You have all been given your
"testing leeway" to some extent. You've all been allowed to test
the waters by breaking rules. Some of you are much further beyond that stage
of the game (and should be thankful for that) whereas some of you still very
much need to test us. Our warnings are courtesies to you all. Some of you
know full well what is expected of you and may NOT get a warning if you
start breaking rules. Some of you will be asked to explain yourselves much
more extensively before being allowed to return to the room after breaking a
rule. For some, we're giving more of a simple reality check and saying
"that behaviour is not allowed". For others we're saying
"that behaviour is something you know is not tolerated here, yet you do
it anyway. You need to think about why you're doing it and what you think is
beneficial for you in this room before you can come back." I'm not
going to give a specific outline of what is acceptable from whom. I just
want to give a brief thought on why some people appear to be treated
differently than others. There isn't any favouritism here.....but yes some
are treated differently.
Explanation
of the Rules:
*When you are asked if you have read the rules for this chat room that does
not include this explanation section. This is solely for those who wish to
have a more extensive explanation.*
Nickname
Many common
names already belong to someone else, so you may have to try combinations
with numbers or underscores to find a nickname that is not already
registered. (For example, if Susan is already registered, try _Susan_
or Susan111 or combinations like that).
With mIRC, you can tell the program what to do with commands. ALL commands
start with the / so if a command does not work, check first if you
included the /. If you get on IRC and it tells you the name you chose
is already been taken than you can try other nicknames with the command
/nick nickname
If
you want to see if a nickname is already taken, use /nickserv
info nickname
If
the nick is not registered, you can use it, and even register it yourself,
so no one else can use it. Once you've found an unregistered nickname
you can register it by using the command /nickserv register password
Choose
a password you can remember easily and DO write it down so you can
always use your nick. If you forget your password, you have to wait
21 days. If a nick is not used after this period of time, it will
lose its registration. Ops cannot retrieve your nickname password
for you.
The
command /nickserv set kill on will
prevent anyone from using your nickname and turn their nick into "guest"
after a minute if they try by accident. Next time you open mIRC, fill
in the nickname space with your new nickname. When you first log on
to StarChat, use the command /nickserv
identify password
so that nickserv knows the right person is trying to use the nickname.
If you do not manage to write the command in time, or there is a delay
between nickserv and you and it turns you into a Guest, you can always
try a couple of minutes later, with the /nick nickname command and
then identify after that. If you are an Op (a moderator), make sure
you do this before you enter the room.
Self
Injury
Anyone
who is at risk for Self Injury should call 911 or their local crisis
intervention group. This is not the group for them as the person
needs a trained specialist. Some methods of dealing with this
behavior can be found here.
There is inpatient facility expressly for those who self injure
which can be reached at 1-800-DONT-CUT The ops in the chat room
have been flooded with people coming in saying they are harming
themselves. You are responsible for your own actions and to seek
treatment. The OPs are not trained to deal with this behavior.
Suicide
Anyone
who is at risk for suicide should call 911 or their local crisis
intervention group. This is not the group for them as the person
needs a trained specialist. The ops in the chat room have
been flooded with suicidal people coming in. Many who do not have
have the borderline personality disorder and many who are are playing
games with the chat operators. When this happens, no time can be
spent with others in the chat room and this discussion is upsetting
for everyone. People who are feeling suicidal will be referred to
these resources, where they
can receive the proper guidance and assistance. They do not belong
in the chat room as it is not a safe place for suicidal people and
ops are not trained for that.
The
Mental Health Sanctuary provides a list
of volunteers to accept telephone calls from people who are
feeling suicidal and/or are in crisis. Also available is an on-line
email support group called BPD - Self Harm/Suicide List
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