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**RFLH** · 30 July 2012, 09:15 PM

There is no way you would be banned BDC - you are one of the best advisors we have - you give yourself tirelessly and we appreciate it.

**Boys don't cry** · 30 July 2012, 09:34 PM

I don't care about being hit,accused,anything,I have been through so much and noone will ever be stronger than me as long as I haven't seen my son

Help yourself,your comments are welcome.
This is what this thread is about being harsh or relaxed.

So if anyone has something against me...

**diana_holbourn** · 30 July 2012, 11:41 PM

I'll be posting in this thread tomorrow BDC. It isn't something you need to worry about; it isn't an issue of great seriousness. It was only a minor disagreement really. I'm not going to say horrible things about you. All I want to do is clarify a misunderstanding or two that seems to have arisen between us, and explain my point of view and the reasons I hold it, and then discuss it with anyone who still disagrees with me. I think you misunderstood just what I was recommending and why. Maybe others did too. That is why I want to clarify things. I'm not angry with you. I just think things need explaining. I hope it can remain friendly.

**Boys don't cry** · 31 July 2012, 02:31 AM

It will remain friendly.

It is now nearly 3.30 am and I know why you and I feel offended.
I have nothing against you nor anyone else.
I deeply appreciate your help to the members.
I am trying my best as you do.Everyone is different and that's what makes the world.
I can't stand men abusing women because some are genuinely raped and can't stand women falsely accusing men.
I told the jury that I would never do this to my wife or anyone else.

I can't help being from another country but what the falsely accusers are doing especially for money and their "male" victims is not fair.
We could lose our life,our children,our jobs,...everything.
I even told the police that "I don't wish this for anyone else".

It is an absolute torture and an easy way to get out of this would be....
I will be misunderstood,I will be harsh but the only reason is to be helpful,...

Some will like it ,some won't,it is life.
I will be harsh even if I am not and don't look like it because I lived something as strong as being falsely accused to get back to myself.
It was the way I started to stand up and fight to be FREE.

**worriedandconcerned** · 31 July 2012, 05:15 AM

BDC

I am off to work now so cannot reply but i will later.

I did not have time to talk properly with you Friday but i want to meet up with you so we can talk.

Speak soon

**Casehardened** · 31 July 2012, 06:17 AM

BDC,

...just wanted to get a few words in before the debate commences

...

As you might have noticed from my few posts I don't do 'emotional' but prefer 'practical' while you are superb with empathetic support to members who are at the end of their tether and literally feel that they have nothing left to live for.

The the beauty of this forum is that we all bring differing opinions, talents, and suggestions to the table and members who join us can try, taste, and eat to their fill of whatever is on the table. It is no reflection on anyone if some members do not like a particular dish, it may well be the next person's 'food of the gods'.

What mustn't happen is that valid differences of opinion metamorph into personal attacks (and this is where the mods need to step in and edit, issue infractions, or bans, as appropriate) worse still, followed by members leaving the forum; we will all be the poorer for this.

KEEP CALM
AND
CARRY ON

**Boys don't cry** · 31 July 2012, 10:05 AM

I am calm and it is true that I feel ashamed I had to start this thread but I had the invitation to do it.

I don't want to be a pest in this forum but obviously I am a firestarter.

I know that everyone here is extremely helpful and do their best to help others.
And I understood what you meant.

I am grateful to Diana and her brother to have created this website which saved me.

The points that made "you" and I mean you generally cross against me and there are a few is my harshness.

The fact that I answered to the priest,
To Tatguy by saying that he was making his life and his family a hell...because of this girl harassing him and he didn't want to change his life or numbers.
I understood his point of view and respect him for this but this girl is a poison.Sometimes to be stronger you have to be wiser.
I tried my best to help Mark as I lived this...I know it was a painful and scary story and I pray that he is still alive and found a different way to fight.
But once again I am not surprised that he received the divorce paper just after.I had the same.
It would have been a mistake to try to go back with this woman as they were both tormented and god knows what would have happen.
Once again it is only my point of view.

I hope that this thread will appeal to members as I would have loved to find relaxation techniques against what I was living.
I appreciate once more Diana's help and understand that some needs it and maybe if she was present when I was tormented she would have helped me.
I have absolutely nothing against her nor anyone in here.

I am a new member,don't have the knowledge nor the rethoric,I have only my experience.
My boss have been harsh with me at work to make me act "normally" because I could have end up dead.
I really thought about suicide even one week before the trial.

Relaxation techniques I didn't know about them and they might help members.I cannot comment on them because I am a workaholic.
I just said that when you are falsely accused of rape you don't think about blue sky,flowers,deep breathing,warm baths and this is my opinion.
Obviously these few words created a tornado is this website and this was not needed.

This thread will never end or it will when a moderator will close it.
Everyone is different and will react differently to different help.

Diana is helping by trying to give relaxation methods to the members.
I am trying to help by maybe being to harsh but for the falsely accused to react.
I don't regret anything I wrote.If I offended people I am sorry but I am just trying to help.

About harshness,I don't know enough barristers to comment properly about this but mine was so harsh and so was the prosecution one.
Now I have sympathy for mine and he wouldn't have been like this with me I wouldn't be here now.
The only way I did react is by him being harsh with me and people pushing me to do things.
And by here I mean alive because there is no way I would have been in jail and if I did I would have commit...

I don't mean to offend and have respect for everyone and every kind of help is welcome.

**Boys don't cry** · 31 July 2012, 10:07 AM

Originally posted by worriedandconcerned View Post

BDC

I am off to work now so cannot reply but i will later.

I did not have time to talk properly with you Friday but i want to meet up with you so we can talk.

Speak soon

I hope you are a bit more relaxed now

Me as well I must go to work (again),see you later.

**IvorBinWronged** · 31 July 2012, 01:42 PM

Hi there

Both ways are correct in their own way.

Personally I scroll through most of the relaxation posts because it's not my bag but that is not to say that they are wrong. I just always thought of them being more for the girls - WAGs perhaps? For the guys - get on the press-ups and get strong - if you want to relax go have a bath. No insults to Diana though - she has her own way of posting.

By the way - that priest had CCTV recommended in his bedroom so he could show that he wasn't "sinning" alone and you get four cameras in a basic system so there's the forth - an anti-M cam - good to show the bosses that you are keeping up your side. Agree?

Be harsh with the posters if they deserve it - but not to the point where it will damage them further.

Do unto others as they would do unto you and forgive them their trespasses.

**Rights Fighter** · 31 July 2012, 05:24 PM

BDC I can see exactly where you are coming from. It's oh so easy to suggest relaxation or walks in the country etc, but when you head is all over the place then it is impossible.

Having said that it's ok for people to suggest that sort of winding down technique if it worked for them, as the suggestion is well meant. However it is up to the person reading the posts on the thread to accept or reject the 'advice' or suggestions.

I do not see the point of setting up a separate thread to 'discuss' why people disagree with each other on the forum. If somebody has a grievance with somebody else and they feel the need to 'discuss' it then they can always PM or email the person concerned if their settings allow for that. The recipient can then choose to answer or not to answer as they feel.

If somebody doesn't like the advice ok. Move on. People have enough on their plates without having to feel they have to pussyfoot about others and answer when somebody might disagree with them.

Well that's my two penn'orth anyway

**Boys don't cry** · 31 July 2012, 09:05 PM

Originally posted by IvorBinWronged View Post

Both ways are correct in their own way.

Be harsh with the posters if they deserve it - but not to the point where it will damage them further.

Do unto others as they would do unto you and forgive them their trespasses.

Noone deserves to be treated harshly after being falsely accused of rape but you must be mentally so strong...
For some it must be a way to stop being lethargic.

I used to say "Amen" to anything but after this,it is finish.

I think it is Lawlessone or Wunderland who posted "It is better to be a lion for a day than a sheep all your life"

I had enough to be a sheep for half of my life.I am shy,you would see me anyone could have me for breakfast.
But in Crown court I was different,I told the truth and did show evidence against her.
2 out of 3 of my witnesses could hardly talk or remember.

When your life is in danger you find unknown ressources (I hope you will understand this).

I would never hurt anyone but to go out of this,you don't have the choice,you must defend yourself and the only way to defend yourself is to fight wisely against the accusator and the prosecution.

I will refer to the Olympic games because it is the right time.You can't just think you are prepared,you must be prepared.

Thank you IvorBinWronged.

**diana_holbourn** · 1 August 2012, 09:13 PM

(I meant to start this thread myself a few days ago, but writing what I wanted to say has taken longer than I expected; I couldn't write it in one session.

... Whether anyone will actually read the monstrocity in its entirety is open to question. But it will at least be here for future reference if the same kind of objections to what I've said come up again. It might seem far longer than necessary; if it had remained just a small issue between me and my original critic, I could just have made a few basic points; but since RFLH got involved, as moderator, it's clearly escalated to being a fundamental issue that needs addressing thoroughly.)

This is too long to just fit in one post, so here are two.

I haven't read most of this thread yet, but will do so and respond more if issues arise I want to comment on. But for now, I'll just state my point of view:

All I want to do is clarify my views on a few things, because some misunderstandings have arisen, and it may be that others feel the same way about things I've said here as the person who first misunderstood and criticised what I've been trying to do. I don't want that to continue into the future, so I'll try making myself clearer than maybe I have up till now.

If anyone wants to disagree with me, I'd appreciate it if they read all of this post carefully first, and then they're welcome. If they don't fancy the idea of reading it all, however, then criticising me on the basis of what they think I must have said won't be sensible.

The reason I wanted to start a new thread for this was only that in the one this conversation originally arose from, it was becoming off-topic.

I'm not making a criticism of anyone's general posting style; most of the things I've read on here since I've been back have seemed good and have, I'm sure, been helpful; and it's great that people are often feeling and saying they're getting a lot of help from here and value the place. I'm pleased. There are just a few things causing discord. If I get criticised over things, I like the issues to get a good airing so they can be sorted out:

-------------

First I'd like to clarify to the person/people who said it was inappropriate for me to recommend relaxation techniques to anyone, that when I was talking about relaxation techniques in Mark's thread - the only place I've described them since I've been back here, incidentally, - (the description of which is what has caused part of this controversy, because I started being criticised for it after I criticised the way someone else spoke to another person in another thread) I wasn't talking about relaxation in the sense of general chilling out, as he thinks I was. It was another person, someone who had himself been falsely accused of rape a while ago, who recommended Mark to do things that were more on those lines - watching comedies etc., which the first person to criticise me over this seems to think I myself recommended. Those are actually things often recommended to depressed and anxious people.

Briefly skimming parts of others' replies, it seems some are under the impression I was recommending walks in the countryside and things like that. I was not. A walk in the countryside when the mind is full of horrific thoughts would give a person time to brood because it wouldn't be very occupied, so the person would likely end up feeling worse, perhaps much worse. I was recommending something very different indeed, something specifically designed to do the opposite of that - to rid the mind of distressing thoughts.

The relaxation techniques I described had nothing to do with general chilling, but were to do with trying to expel distressing thoughts from the mind for a while so as to be able to think more calmly and clearly. Certainly, they won't work for everyone and not all the time; perhaps I could have made that clearer. But for those who can focus on them long enough to make use of them, their purpose is to temporarily uncloud the mind so a more practical kind of thinking can take place.

The trouble is that the more anxious people get, the more hopeless things can seem to them, because it becomes more and more difficult to focus on anything other than what's perceived as looming catastrophe. Clear and helpful thinking becomes far more difficult. Because the more anxious or depressed a person gets, the less they can think of ways it might be possible to solve their problems, the more they can start to think suicide is the only way out. Then they're more likely to actually commit suicide, wanting to stop the mental torment they've worked themselves up into the quickest way they can think of, not being able to see anything other than catastrophe ahead and around them.

If they can be persuaded to try to put their racing thoughts on hold just for a few minutes while they make the best effort they can to focus on something else, even that in itself can begin to calm the mind, and when the mind begins to calm down, the urge to commit suicide can seem less vital; and when the mind's a bit calmer, relaxation techniques can seem a bit easier, so the mind can calm down some more, and then clearer thinking and planning can take place more easily.

Mark was posting on the verge of suicide. He seemed incapable of doing any planning in that state. So I recommended him some techniques which, if he'd managed to focus on any of them for long enough for them to begin to have an effect, might have begun to clear his mind of racing panicky thoughts so he could think more clearly and plan better.

So there's less distinction between those suggestions and the "practical advice" people come here for than some might think.

The day the things were posted that has caused a lot of this controversy was a day when Mark posted saying he was only managing to stop himself committing suicide by putting it off from hour to hour almost - thinking before he went to bed, "I'll make the decision as to whether to kill myself when I get up in the morning", and then when he got up, thinking, "No I'll put off the decision till I get to work", - that kind of thing.

What has caused some of this controversy was that I posted several different suggestions on things he could try to calm himself down to draw him away from the edge of suicide, including some suggestions on relaxation techniques, that one or more people erroneously seem to have taken to be fluffy airy-fairy suggestions that simply wouldn't work, because they took some superficial aspects of what I said to be the entire basis of the exercises, it seems; and at literally almost the same time, RFLH posted the opposite - something designed to get Mark angry, to try to spur him to actually get motivated to do something about the serious accusation facing him, painting a stark picture of some of the worst things that could happen if he didn't, implying they were inevitable.

While I certainly do think there's a time and a place for a "kick up the ass" to get people motivated, I didn't think that was a good time, since Mark was probably already sure the worst was going to happen which was why he was on the verge of suicide in the first place, and he could have just been demoralised further by the bleak picture, rather than becoming angry; and also, he was being allowed to see his kids for the first time; they were due to spend the weekend with him, but he really wasn't in good mental shape to make the best of things. I thought it would be a shame if things went horribly wrong. I thought it was unlikely the police would do anything drastic that very weekend; he surely did have a certain amount of leeway where he could attempt to take his mind off the charges and try to focus it on trying to get himself into a better frame of mind so he could make the best of his time with his kids, as well as calming himself down so he could think more clearly and so plan more effectively for what to do about his case afterwards. Really, a man consumed with anger over the way the mother of his kids was treating him wasn't going to be in that much of a better position to give his kids a fun time over the weekend than what he seemed to be - a suicidally depressed man consumed with grief over the way she'd treated him would. So I thought that was a bad time to try to make him angry. After the weekend, and when he was less suicidal, would perhaps have been a better time.

The idea of relaxation techniques is that if he, and anyone else in a panicky state of mind with possible doom looming, can try to make an effort of will to think, "OK, something terrible is at least not likely to happen for the next hour", it'll be easier for them to try to spend a bit of time making an effort to rid their mind of the thoughts that are drawing them closer and closer to the brinkk of suicide.

Certainly it's far more difficult to do relaxation exercises in certain emotional states like shock. But though a falsely accused person might be regularly in a panic for months, there are still likely to be times of day or even whole days when they're not in such a panic they simply cannot take in new information, so there probably will be certain times when it's more possible for them to discipline themselves to focus for a few minutes on a simple technique to rid the mind of distressing thoughts for a while. The simpler the first techniques people suffering strong emotions try to use, the better, because then they need to take in less information so it's easier to start when they can't think straight.

It's ironic that the process of relaxation can have to start with a short but intense effort of concentration. But it's easier if you can tell yourself you'll put off worrying about your situation for a little while because you have enough leeway/time to take a break to calm down, just as Mark was able to make an effort of will to put off committing suicide for brief times.

Who knows whether he's done it now! I certainly won't consider anyone here to have been the slightest bit responsible if he has, naturally. But I do think there was a risk that saying harsh things to him in that state would make him feel even more judged than he already was feeling, so it could have just put him off coming here like he was at first for a while when he felt judged, and lacking the support he'd got here, he might have started feeling yet more hopeless. He may have started feeling judged again, because for instance, he said he couldn't understand why people were trying to stop him committing suicide by saying he'd be selfish if he did, since it seemed selfish of them to want him to stay alive in the torment he was in. A comment was made after that that suicide would be cowardly and stupid, among other things. the person who made it was no doubt just urging him with feeling not to take the easy way out. But it could well have come across to him as yet another harsh judgment by someone lacking empathy.

It is possible that Mark himself thought the relaxation techniques I was suggesting were just airy-fairy fluffy unrealistic things, which would have been a shame, because it would have seriously missed the point, though I could possibly have made it a lot clearer. The techniques aren't about thinking of pretty autumn leaves or anything like that; those things just set the scene for a couple of them, though perhaps there could have been more appropriate scenes set in the circumstances; but The important thing about the techniques is the expelling of distressing thoughts from the mind by imagining them being taken away by various means. It might take an effort of concentration to start, but as people calm down, they might find it gets progressively easier.

I certainly agree with a point that was made about some things often working a lot better than relaxation techniques, like venting to supportive people. (Someone once spoke to me for six hours literally non-stop, and when they started they were anxious, but they'd calmed right down by the end of it.)

I actually once had a very depressive neighbour. If his girlfriend couldn't come to see him, he would spiral down very quickly into a terrible suicidal depression where he was convinced his life was ruined, and all he wanted to do was go to bed and never wake up. I listened to him and talked with him a lot, and often he would start out depressed but cheer up a lot by the end of the conversation. The problem was that the minute he went back to his flat - literally the minute, I think, terrible depression would sweep over him again.

Actually, one reason I got into writing my self-help articles was because I didn't know at the time how to help him; I knew there were techniques depressed people could use to calm themselves down, but I didn't know what they were. So I did some investigation, to try and find things he could use in the dark depths of the night or when he was lying on his bed alone during the day brooding and working himself up into a suicidal state again. I did find some useful stuff, but I found several websites that sounded promising at first, but after just a little information, they stopped and recommended people buy their books to find out more, or just gave a little bit of information and no more. I thought there seemed to be a need for some freely-available detailed information. So I decided to learn up about the issues and provide some. Anyone who looks at the articles will see the advice is far more varied than a simple recommendation to do relaxation techniques; but the ones that are there are at least partly aimed at helping people calm themselves down to the point where they can think clearly enough to do the other things that are recommended.

... OK, I'll continue this in another post.

**diana_holbourn** · 1 August 2012, 09:16 PM

OK, to finish off what I was saying:

(I'm well aware that not all relaxation techniques work, at least not for everyone; I've worked on an anxiety help-line, and actually virtually everyone had great difficulty with the few we were actually told to recommend to people, (one of which was a muscle relaxation exercise and one a visualisation, neither of which I've mentioned here).) But sometimes, one technique just won't be helpful at all while others can be.

There was someone on this forum once who I recommended some techniques to but didn't really expect them to work, so I was surprised when she said they'd helped a lot. Here's the post where she said they had, in a thread where I spent some time trying to help someone else who I afterwards discovered was very grateful. (Her post there only gives the barest outline of what I suggested to her, so if anyone's interested, they can Also read the thread the original conversation took place in.

And here's some research that's found that mindfulness-based interventions - mindfulness-type things were mainly what I recommended in Mark's thread - can be useful for people with anxiety problems, though no one is suggesting that relaxation techniques on their own would be sufficient to rid anyone of their problems. Certainly I've never said that here; a combination of things is clearly needed.

**********

As for saying things to people that are harsher than is fair sometimes, I simply think people should be careful to be discriminating about when they use the "cruel to be kind" technique. That includes everyone, myself being no exception. We're probably all guilty of saying things that are unfairly harsh sometimes. Sometimes the "cruel to be kind" approach is what's necessary, but sometimes it isn't and will likely just anger or discourage people.

The particular incident that started this conversation was when a man posted, possibly still shaken after a horribly scary hoax phone call made to his family's house out of the blue in the middle of the night that said his wife's dad was about to die in hospital. It was a serious escalation of what had previously just been silent calls to his house, nuisance behaviour rather than truly distressing stuff. He'd been told to change his number by someone on here a little while before and had replied that it would be difficult so he'd rather not. The person who'd told him to change it posted back after the truly distressing call, quoting his earlier objection to changing his number and bluntly saying he could expect to get more hoax calls and that he personally was making his family's life hell.

He's since justified his harsh tone. I was horrified by the post about the cruel hoax call when I read it and could imagine how upsetting the experience must have been, and reading the blunt response immediately afterwards, it seemed rather crass. So I posted to the thread, objecting to it, saying it sounded as if his response was blaming the man for the call, judging him as negligent and so partly responsible for it, when all he'd refused to do before was change the number in response to the nuisance calls, not having a clue things would suddenly get much worse.

The conversation could have ended around there, but the person I'd criticised responded, saying he objected to some things I myself had said on the board, such as recommending relaxation techniques. and that's how the conversation began to develop to this point.

I appreciate his points about how sometimes being blunt with people about what they're letting themselves in for is a good thing. But the technique shouldn't be used as standard, which is what he seems to be saying he'll do. It turned out that in this case, the person he was bluntly urging to change his number if he didn't want to put his family through torment had in fact done several things to try to stop the calls since their last conversation, so the harsh tone wasn't necessary. That suggests that people should at least ask questions to find out how necessary harsh criticism is before using it.

I'm convinced his intentions were good. But I know that if I'd been on the receiving end of what he said after I'd posted in a distressed state hoping for sympathy, I'd have had some angry words to say!

Sometimes people can say things they don't intend to sound insensitive and don't realise they sound insensitive, because they're just focused on getting their point across; but if they read what they wrote back days later, they can realise it sounded worse than they intended. That's happened to me before, and it might be quite common. Sometimes proof-reading what you wrote a day or two after you wrote it can show up things you realise could be taken completely the wrong way, that you simply didn't realise were there at the time, though others reading what you wrote did. So pondering what we say more before we say it could eliminate some of that.

Coincidentally, a few days ago, I went straight from reading the man's justification of speaking harshly to people for their own good here to my Facebook page, where I picked up on a conversation where a couple of people who've suffered tragic circumstances were talking about the horrible things social workers have said to them in the past and how they were demoralised, distressed and angered by them and still bear emotional scars because of them years later. Perhaps the social workers thought they were being cruel to be kind, trying to motivate those people to get going and do the decent thing. But the social workers had no understanding of the reasons they weren't doing it and just came across as crass and nasty, lacking empathy. The people in the conversation used rather stronger language.

It would be a shame if anyone here was perceived to be like that, especially when most of the time they are helpful and obviously genuinely care.

Another situation this puts me in mind of is something that happened to me several years ago. My old best friend from school got into drugs after she left and became a heroin addict for years. She managed to come off it for a while but then went back on it. (Unfortunately I heard she died of cancer, but I don't know whether the drugs played any part in that at all.)

Anyway, I phoned her up one day and discovered she'd gone back on heroin a fortnight earlier, but since then she'd been feeling sick all the time and hadn't eaten in two weeks because she couldn't keep anything down. She was just lying around feeling ill. I was concerned that she hadn't eaten anything since she'd been back on the drug, and wondered if someone who knew about these things might be able to advise on what she could keep down. Worried her health might go seriously downhill if she didn't get her strength up, I phoned a drugs help-line. I told them about her and asked whether they could recommend anything her stomach might tolerate. I was hoping for a bit of sympathy and advice, but instead I was immediately told in blunt and critical terms that I was "enabling her addiction" by trying to make life more comfortable for her. Ouch. The person on the other end of the phone probably thought that presenting a bit of stark reality rather than warmth was the best way of motivating me to care about what really mattered - i.e. getting her off the drugs again, rather than making things more comfortable for her, which would mean she'd have less incentive to come off them. But it didn't have that effect on me; I felt dismayed by the critical unsympathetic approach; and after all, not eating anything for two weeks hadn't made her want to come off the drugs more so far, so I wasn't convinced it ever would. It would have been nice if the man on the help-line had tried to present the stark reality ... well, a bit less starkly.

So basically, I'm just saying it might be good sometimes to try to be more aware of the way we might be coming across to others, and to use a harsh approach only when there genuinely does seem to be good grounds for it.

**diana_holbourn** · 1 August 2012, 11:42 PM

Incidentally, I'm sorry things have come to this, where a few people have been criticised so publicly and there have been a few angry exchanges. I don't think anyone needs to worry too much though; these posts will soon be swept into oblivion by the barrage of new posts that'll no doubt follow.

I'm just hoping all of us can learn from this episode and fairly soon move on.

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Is it advisable to recommend relaxation techniques and when is it appropriate to be harsh with people?

Is it advisable to recommend relaxation techniques and when is it appropriate to be harsh with people?

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