I've used https://reddit.com/r/cptsd as a support group for awhile. It never felt right to post such sensitive discussions onto a platform controlled by a tech company trying to monetize its content, so I was really happy when things like Lemmy began taking off. In my opinion, support communities belong in user-owned spaces like this.

I use Beehaw as a provider, and I thought it might be a good place to host a CPTSD community because of Beehaw's rules and ethos. I had a look at what's existing, and this is the closest one I could find. There's !cptsd@lemmy.ml (am I referring to that correctly?), but it's dead.

Is anyone aware of a good CPTSD community, or would there be interest/support in creating one on Beehaw?

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[–] StringTheory@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You might be interested in https://lemmy.world/c/mentalhealth It’s not on Beehaw, but you could work with the mods there to structure it similarly.

[–] a_cat@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

Thank you, I'll check it out!

I still think an individual CPTSD community is warranted though. I just don't think it works if posts about anxiety are next to posts about things like being trafficked, tortured, etc.

There's a joke about people performing in the "trauma olympics", and comparing each other's experiences to see whose is worse. I'm explicitly not trying to do that, but it's difficult to describe why I think these kinds of communities should be separate without describing the difference in severity and amount of issues people with CPTSD are generally working with. I'm afraid posts about CPTSD might make people with "more common" (this feels incredibly dismissive) mental health struggles feel like their issues are small in comparison (they're not!), and that maybe they shouldn't post. I wouldn't want that.

[+] ArtVandelay@beehaw.org 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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[–] a_cat@beehaw.org 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This was cross-posted from the neurodivergence community, but I don't think it's a very good fit. Without getting into the nuances, CPTSD is situational, or it's caused by a confluence of factors, and is a negative aspect of people's lives requiring support. Neurodivergence is more often something that's biological, and not usually negative, and can be celebrated.

A more appropriate broad categorization would be something like a mental health community, but even then, sadly, people who suffer from CPTSD have been through some horrific, NSFL, things. Having a separate community would probably be best for both sides: those who have CPTSD, and those who don't, and probably wouldn't want to read some of the things in people's posts.

Anyway, I was wondering if there was a place people could request new communities, but it sounds like the admins largely decide based on what they see on the fediverse?

[–] noughtnaut@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Without getting into the nuances, CPTSD is situational, or it’s caused by a confluence of factors, and is a negative aspect of people’s lives requiring support. Neurodivergence is more often something that’s biological, and not usually negative, and can be celebrated.

I just want to say that this is eloquently and quite beautifully put.