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Hi, Mister. Higher on the page, I gave a thumbs up to your idea .. but after I posted, I remembered and continued to think on how on Bipolar, discussions about our illnesses getting worse, the pressures our illness puts on our families, our job searches and firings, our spouses' being laid off, having to move to cheaper digs, our ill or disabled kids, our marriages and relationships in some sort of trouble. None of us would have even briefly considered going to a specific forum. We needed our friends, we needed those who understood the illnesses we suffered from, what our past history here.

And none of us would have considered cutting them off as off-topic, telling them to take this issue somewhere elsewhere. (tho I understand that not every forum, no matter how busy, will necessarily develop such a closely knit supportive and understanding family as you see at BP).

Another valid point, a lot of people, no matter how well educated, will recognize themselves as abused, or they may be in strong denial, see themselves as causing their own problems, or simply be too embarrassed to talk about these things in a totally open forum. And this includes men and women.

And, as another point to look at, I do know that many of specialty forums have ended up very quiet forums with little activity -- certainly not enough to ever develop its own supportive on-going community.

But MAYBE if there was a forum called Our Families in Crisis or something like that might more readily attract more users who CAN become a supportive community. And we have to remember that domestic abuse never occurs in isolation and I've mentioned many of those correllaries above.

Thoughts and feedback regarding this idea? A more encompassing concept?

Just thinking ...
Theresa