Mental health support in the cyber world
A page in the diary "Accept, Adapt and Appreciate: How?"
Written by nw4m Mar 6 2008 09:23 AM
ST Mind Your Body – Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Sufferers of mental illness can now turn to a new form of support - the LiveJournal (LJ) community sg-mentalhealth (http://community.livejournal.com/sg_mentalhealth).
This is a locally-based cyber community whose message is: 'It's okay to be not okay'. Here, individuals coping with mental illness can find a safe haven to share their thoughts and emotions about what they are going through.
Its founder is Ms Yew Run Bin, 24, who launched the site on Oct 10, 2005 - World Mental Health Day. She is the moderator of the community and in charge of maintaining and organising posts from members.
Ms Yew herself is currently recovering from depression with psychotic features, borderline personality disorder and dissociative identity disorder.
The community is also open to mental health professionals, caregivers, and anyone else who is interested in mental health.
There are about 150 members. Aside from sharing their personal experiences, they are invited to post articles, videos, lyrics and even their own artwork.
Through the community, members can also seek advice from people who have been through similar experiences and find out more about the various help channels available.
Members can advise each other on treatment, which clinics to go to, or what numbers to call.
While most members are not professionals, most of them have had first hand experience in dealing with mental health issues and can share information.
Face-to-face support too
There are also face-to-face support sessions and information on local mental health-related events online.
Ms Yew, who did not want to be photographed, herself has struggled with various mental health issues since her teens.
In secondary school, she started cutting her wrists. The self-mutilation worsened to the point that she once needed a tourniquet, and was suspended from school for three weeks. Her principal feared that she would be a bad influence on her peers.
She was so angry and frustrated at being singled out and ostracised that her grades slipped, forcing her to repeat a year in Secondary 3.
After she finished secondary school, she did well enough to land a Ministry of Education scholarship to study Consumer Science and Technology at Temasek Polytechnic (TP), but once again mental health issues disrupted her studies.
She would flee from class whenever panic attacks or the urge to self-mutilate overtook her, and was eventually hospitalised. This constant disruption in her studies resulted in her breaking her scholarship bond, and leaving TP.
Although her mental condition made studying difficult, she eventually managed to earn a diploma in Mass Communications at the Management Development Institute of Singapore, while working odd jobs between classes. In 2006, she started a course in English and English Literature at the Singapore Institute of Management (SIM), but was forced to leave after three semesters as she had relapses and was hospitalised four times.
Ms Yew says that she had tried other avenues of support before founding this LJ community.
'I used to be in a support group at SMH (Singapore Association for Mental Health), and I really liked what I experienced there. But I wanted more spontaneity, so I decided to set this up,' she says.
Members of the community can also post about their personal issues without having to worry who may see their entries.
'On LJ there's a Friends Filter, so people have the choice to let only their friends see their posts,' says Ms Yew.
A Friends Filter allows a member to alter the security settings for any entry he may post so that only those with selected usernames are able to see the information.
Several community gatherings, at which members meet for casual chats, have been organised through the network.
On top of that, a group of about six or seven members have started visiting mental health patients who are warded in hospital, to provide support and to assure them that they are not alone.
'It feels a bit strange visiting someone you've never seen before, but after reading all the posts, you realise that there's something we all have in common,' says Ms Yew.
Psychologists agree that the singapore-mental health community is a positive move.
'Having a platform to share your struggles is good. Members will feel supported knowing that they are not alone, and that they are normal except for the fact that they have more to cope with than others. Sharing coping strategies and remedies is also helpful,' says Madam Christabel Hong, a counselling psychologist at Students Care Service (Clementi Centre).
'However, the flip side is that there are those who may create or amplify their 'sufferings' and draw pleasure from the sympathy they receive. That is reinforcing negative behaviour and is unhealthy,' she adds.
Managing the singapore-mental health LJ community has not been easy.
'I'm concerned that people may crash the community and and say nasty things,' says MsYew.
'On rare occasions we have had such comments, so I've had to delete them.'