seesawToday at 3:40 AM
Hey Zen, I hate to bug you, and I feel like an asshole about this but I'm super uncomfortable and just want to make you aware. When I came over from Psych Central there were two people in the world I hoped never to meet again: Artchic and Healing the Damage aka Repetitive Motions. I typically can handle conflict with people, but these were both people who, I suppose due to BPD and inability to self-regulate, fixated on me because I was an active member, and tried to cause drama. In the end, both were banned. I know Artchic has left or was banned, whatever, from here. Healing the Damage just showed up, and I was trying to remember the circumstances of her ban from PC, when I remembered, finally, that she had been placed on what's called a "forced ignore" with me, meaning she was told to have no contact with me. But I guess she had a lot of issues with many members because she reported things so many times that the mods eventually curtailed her privileges. THEN, she retaliated by DMing as many members as possible disparaging the team and DocJohn. I have pasted the text of what she sent around to all the members below. I am ignoring her so I don't have to deal with her, but even when I did that on PC, she's the kind of person where ignoring makes them escalate bad behavior. Of course, this was about 3 years ago that she was banned, but I think it's relevant, considering the partnership. But I  just wanted to let someone on the team know of this back history and my discomfort. I tend to walk away from difficult people, and I was NOT the only person to have issues with these two on PC, not in the slightest, I guess I'm just one of the few who decided to migrate over, and now gets to deal with it.
This is the text of what she sent to as many PC member as possible before she was banned: Originally Posted by Healing the Damage
This is being sent to as many active members as I can send it to. It is directed and addressed to all of the admins and mods here. I am sending it to them last.

Hello,
On April 14, 2016, I received a message from DocJohn saying that he had been "appointed the exclusive team member who will work with you on all current and future issues you're having in chat". He said that I was making it confusing for all of you to keep track of things by going to different people when I was having a problem with something.
To him, I responded this:
Quote:
I am not ok with this. I do not feel comfortable with being required to only communicate issues in chat to you. I am uncomfortable with this because most of the things that I am reporting are instances of bullying and harassment in the chat rooms. I do not feel comfortable reporting to you that I am being bullied, harassed, flamed or otherwise abused in your chat rooms due to the situation in your Q&A session on March 8, 2016 in which not only was I bullied, harassed, flamed and abused in your chat rooms and your bi-weekly hosted Q&A session, but you, as both the host of the chat and owner of the site, participated in the bullying, harassment, flaming and abuse. And the resolution of that situation was another member calling you out on it, in public, in that public Q&A session, to say that your behavior was inappropriate and that it was unbelievable that the host and owner of the site would treat a member that way. And your response was to send me a private message the next day with a pseudo-apology that was more of an attempt at justifying why you treated me like absolute sit than an actual apology for treating me like absolute sit.

As for reaching out to multiple members of the team, I thought that the point of the team working as a team was so that you could reach out to any of them and all would be on the same page? And I message the admins/mods every time, so there really isn't any confusion. The issue isn't confusion, the issue is a lack of desire to deal with any issues that arise, more specifically, a lack of desire to help a member who is being targeted, flamed, abused, and bullied on your website by other members.
Now, I realize that some of you may not be aware of the
Now, I realize that some of you may not be aware of the situation from that day, in which our esteemed leader descended to the level of the regular members of the site, and participated in bullying me until I left his biweekly hosted Q&A chat, ready to cry, because how dare I ask for advice and support on something! After all, this is me, Healing the Damage (formerly known as Living in Chaos), and god forbid, I get support.

DocJohn is aware of that he messed up that night too, because the next day, I received a private message titled "Apologies for chat last night"
Quote:
Hi,

I wanted to reach out and let you know that I wasn't trying to be negative with you in the Q&A chat last night. I do apologize for not really getting to the heart of your question, or responding in the way I wanted to.

I was really struggling with understanding the situation, which seemed pretty complicated. I also wasn't aware the story was as long and as complicated as it was, and that our bi-weekly Q&A on general mental health questions probably wasn't really appropriate for discussing it. I had no way of knowing (nor did you) that this was the case beforehand...

I still don't understand the situation despite everything you said, and my questions were an attempt to get a clearer understanding of it. I think they were taken the wrong way -- which is a challenge when there's no nonverbal cues on which to go on.
I can understand how painful it must be to have a friend turn on you, and suddenly want nothing to do with you. I've experienced something similar, and it's a real painful situation. There's no way to explain your friend's behavior, or to justify it, or to make any of it better. It's the way things are now and when it happened to me, it took me months to recover from the new way of things. I really valued that lost friendship and never really understood what I did "wrong" to make it go away.

And that's the way life is too often -- things happen like this and we'll never really know why they played out the way they did. It's frustrating and painful, but it's a sad part of life. One that I don't think any of us ever gets used to.

Again, I'm sorry for my behavior in chat last night and hope you can find a way to accept my apology.

Best,
DocJohn
I would like to know how this counts as an apology. He spent FIVE (5) paragraphs telling me about how I shouldn't have asked what I did in the chat, and that he understands why I feel like I do. And then says one line. ONE LINE. "I'm sorry for my behavior in chat last night and hope you can find a way to accept my apology". This did not feel like an apology to me. It still doesn't. It feels like he was making up excuses for why he behaved how he did, and then threw on the "I'm sorry" as an afterthought.
This happened in the Auditorium room, on March 8, 2016 from 9:45pm-10:20pm EST. I know that at the very least the admins have the ability to go and read the chat transcript from then with that information. By all means, please, go read it.
And then, a week later, Anna posts on the forums in numerous places a link to a song saying good bye. A lot of people commented back and asked why she was posting that and if she was ok. I responded to all of these instances with the same post -
Quote:
She is saying goodbye because she is probably planning to leave the site because she has decided to tell everyone the truth finally.

That she is a liar. That she is not autistic. That she has been putting on a facade for the past year. That she has been making up lies about herself and a fake life.

She is a liar. Nothing more, nothing less.
In return, I got a message from FooZe the next morning, saying this:
Quote:
Hi Healing, I hope you're OK.

We noticed that your two most recent posts were against guidelines so we had to remove them. You wrote, referring to another member:
---Quote (Originally by Healing the Damage)---
She is saying goodbye because she is probably planning to leave the site because she has decided to tell everyone the truth finally.

That she is a liar. That she is not autistic. That she has been putting on a facade for the past year. That she has been making up lies about herself and a fake life.
She is a liar. Nothing more, nothing less.
---End Quote---
Our Community Guidelines (http://forums.psychcentral.com/rules...-8-2014-a.html) state:Inappropriate Content

This is, first and foremost, a self-help support community. That means if your message (post or PM) isn't about offering support to another person or asking for it, it's potentially not appropriate for our community. Specifically prohibited from our community:
* Flames or messages meant to intimidate or harass others
* Members should generally not speak for, or about (especially in a negative manner), other current or past members.
We couldn't tell what had happened that might have prompted you to lash out against another member this way, so we have put your account into moderation until we see that you're not planning to continue. Moderation just means that anything you post will need to be approved by a moderator or administrator before it appears on the boards.

Going forward, if you have concerns that a member might not be who they say they are, please PM us to discuss your concerns. Please do not confront the member yourself.
Best wishes,
FooZe
co-Administrator, Community Support Team

cc: all team members
My account was placed into moderation because of what I posted. There was no communication between DocJohn and FooZe or any of the other admins or mods about the situation with Anna. I know that he knew about it though, because I made sure that it was reported to him, even though there were some who did not want it reported. I did not receive any apology for the screw up about this. My post was not flaming, and was not meant to intimidate or harass others. It was talking about another member, yes, but it was an explanation of why the member posted something since they weren't explaining themselves.
And then the full story about Anna came out. And in front of two different mods, in chat, I was called a b.tch. And neither of them did anything about it. You can find the full transcript if you look up March 15, 2016 from about 7:05pm-7:22pm in the Coffeehouse room.
Quote:
MistressStayc says(7:14 PM):
your a *, I was defending what I believed to be a defenseless person
And still, nothing from the admins apologizing for their screw up.
oving on though. Next we come to the situation with seesaw. I did not know that she was in chat, and started having a conversation with moogieotter. And then she comments on the conversation. I sent a private message to moogie - because he is a chat mod - and discussed it with him. He then went to sabby, who banned me from chat, supposedly for three days, but apparently, you guys forgot about that, and it lasted for five days, closer to six. I got a message from DocJohn about "circumventing directives". I'm not entirely sure what that was all about though - considering I received the message about the ban at 10:35pm, and then that message from DocJohn twelve hours later... I was asleep when all of that happened. 10:35pm after a long week on a Friday night? I work 40-50 hours a week. I was tired, I was sleeping. I have no clue what you were talking about with "circumventing directives". Even still though, when I join chat, she makes a public announcement that she is switching to mobile chat. Everyone knows that the ignore feature does not work in mobile chat. So she is allowed to "circumvent directives" every day by not ignoring me, and nothing happens. But yet, one time, I make one mistake, and go to a mod about it, and wind up banned for a week? How is this fair?

But then that comes up again, in this newest issue, with the "you can only talk to DocJohn, and no one else". He says basically that I deserve how I'm treated because of how I behave. But he doesn't feel it necessary to elaborate on that. And then of course, there's this line from that message:
Quote:
If you don't like the decision, you're welcomed to find other ways to cope with the situation that is more to your liking and within the community guidelines.
According to the community guidelines, I can contact any moderator or admin about any issues in chat or on the site. DocJohn said that I am "welcome to find other ways to cope with the situation that is... within the community guidelines." Approaching other mods and admins is more to my liking and within the community guidelines, so I don't see why it should be an issue.

But then, of course, we get to today. I tried to talk to ToeJam and sabby about this, and the end result was that I got this:

A ban from chat. No warning. No broken rules, no violation of the community guidelines. I didn't realize that it was the habit of the admins to ban people from chat for "bothering me".

According to DocJohn, you guys get confused when I message too many people about issues in chat. I'm fine with having a limited number of mods/admins to go to with things - there are a limited number of you that I trust to be fair and unbiased anyways.
TheWell
bluekoi
notz
ToeJam
Tamster
sabby
FooZe (to a certain extent)
Turtleboy (to a certain extent)
Most of the time, when I have an issue with chat or the site, I send it to TheWell, sabby, and FooZe. I'll go to Tamster or ToeJam if they are in chat. I'll ask notz to come to chat if I see her online. But I don't send them transcripts of stuff. I only send transcripts to TheWell, sabby and FooZe. And I'm perfectly fine with having it being specified that I can only send things to the three of them, because I trust them to actually handle things, and respond to me, and be helpful, and (mostly) fair when dealing with things. I've talked to all of them enough that I'd be ok with that. If you want less than three, then fine, make it just TheWell and sabby.

But I will NOT go to DocJohn about things because I have seen and experienced first hand that he bullies the members here. Not only that, but he twists what they say to suit his own needs and expectations. He talks down to us, he degrades us. We are less than him, because he is the wonderful, esteemed leader who owns the site, and we are just the lowly people who use it for support because we struggle with mental health disorders.

I will not speak to someone who thinks that justifying their actions and then adding an apology as an afterthought is an acceptable apology for bullying a member out of their chat - not when that person is a psychologist. Not when that person is the owner of the site. Not when that person is setting an example for everyone else on the site, and sending the message that it is ok to bully others here.

I was bullied my entire life. I was molested, I was raped, I was emotionally beaten - day after day. I was physically and emotionally bullied at school. I was physically abused at home. I have finally gotten myself out of those situations. And I am still struggling, and the one place I turn to for support, I find myself right back there again. Bullied, degraded, less than others, worthless.
I have no problem with following the directive of "having a designated mod/admin", but I will not agree to, or be ok with that person being DocJohn.

I want the chat ban removed from account. I want to be reinstated as a Chat Leader and a Chat Host. And I want someone new assigned to be my "designated" mod/admin that I go to with problems on this site.

Healing the Damage
Human Target
PsychCentral Firing Range