Is Kintsugi anti-recovery?

kudos to kathy. i'm really glad she eventually came back, bc the stuff she does for this site usually ends up being very helpful

 

kintsugi might mostly function as a crutch at the moment, but it is a vital crutch, and people here understand that. a lot of people are highly invested in what direction this site goes, bc none of us want to lose the one crutch we can fall back on when things get difficult

 

I think Hobo is right that Kintsugi is best described as "a social forum for mentally ill people." That can be good, bad, or neutral as far as recovery goes, depending on what your issues are and who you are talking to.

While having CTB/DTB resources available and easily accessible would be an improvement, nobody here is qualified to diagnose or recommend treatment to another person over the internet. The mods are nice people who I like talking to, but they aren't therapists. I hope that there will not be an expectation of such in the future, I don't see it ending well.

An aspect of the site that's helped me is knowing I'm not obligated to help any particular person on it. I can if I've got something useful to say, but I can also put someone on ignore and not think about them. That's a good thing.

 

Kintsugi is only as anti-recovery as its users are. When it's been detrimental to me, it's only because I've, for example, read threads I knew stressed me out. I've gotten much better at cutting myself off from things and places I know are harmful to me, so it's become a more healthy environment.
It's given me access to a lot of things I wouldn't have had without it (a place with timestamps to keep track of my days, good or bad, a place to talk about things I wouldn't want to elsewhere, etc) and it's given me language to describe my brain and behaviors outside of just "not normal, bad, wrong, weird, a failure." Overall, it's been a net positive for me.

 

yeah totally, i'm more referring to some aspects of the community that are definitely present where it seems people's lives start to revolve around the website and like.. what happens here, and feeling obligations to help others or get involved in drama or whatever, that's the point it starts to get kinda unhealthy and potentially toxic to their own wellbeing and the wellbeing of others. this site kinda is what you make of it, and that's kind of the joy or downfall of it and its users, most of the people here make it to be a positive force in their lives as much as they can. there are definitely some instances, however, where i've seen it become more than a crutch and DEFINITELY dangerous to others or straight up not a great environment for some, and that's more the potential toxicity i'm referring to and where kintsugi, in alix's original question, could be called anti-recovery.

 

I like that aspect of hands off too. I can help if I feel up to it and think its in my range, even if it just means making someone not feel so alone going through something. There's a lot of overlap here with disabilities as well as mental stuff, and sometimes just knowing others have the shit helps a ton in bad times. But there's no requirement to Do anything. You're not required to participate, you're not required to be happy or show progress if you stumble and nobody you Owe anything to. I avoid places I have to sit on a progress bar because that bar changes constantly and I don't want to be responsible for anyone else's progress bar if I'm not feeling it.

 

tl;dr big agree with dan.

Spoiler: personal anecdote

people are aware i have and had issues with how things have been run. some minor, some major, some resolved, some unresolved.

even so. for me, kintsugi helped me out a lot. but i also feel generally more well-adjusted than a lot of folks here (maybe true, maybe my brain telling me my problems aren’t enough) so ymmv. when i started using the site For Real, things with my abuser were going downhill fast, all my irl friends had abandoned me for being queer, i was struggling in school, and i hadn’t accepted that my mother was and is parentifying me.

kintsugi was really, really good for unpacking things. i’d never been able to talk about the things that hurt me before, and hearing “this is not okay” kept me from feeling like i was just a crazy asshole. it also allowed me to dip my toe into socializing in a space where i didn’t panic over taking up too much space. i have friends now!

for people who need things other than that, or for people where that might not be helpful, i don’t know how useful kintsugi will be. clearly, it’s hurt a lot of people. but it’s helped me!

i think it’s recovery-neutral.

 

I think this is a loaded question, and also that it greatly depends on both what people need for recovery and what other people consider what people need for recovery.

People have competing needs. Some people need a place of solid resources and problem-solving and some people need emotional support and a place to vent, and a website that doesn't support one of those fully will not help one of them. Some people think that people Not Suffering Terrible Consequences Of Great Grievousness for your mistakes is anti recovery, because they believe other people will only get better with TCOGG, despite the person saying otherwise. These people are going to have issues no matter what if other people do not get the consequences they think are adequate, and would not consider it an anti-recovery place even if it would be an incredibly bad place for someone like me who, despite not being prone to violent outburst, has trauma related to being socially isolated and ridiculed.

Like, I'm not going to lie, my own experiences go either way. I dont have a lot of interactions with people here or friends because I have said trouble with being socially isolated, and sometimes yeah, as much as it pains me to admit it does load a bit of my depression sometimes. But I also have gained a lot and got a lot better since using the site.

So it really depends on how you see recovery for yourself and other people, and how you tailor your experience, and stuff like that. It can become a fighty echo chamber, sure, or you could just... Not use it like that

 

takeaway my brain's chewing on: kintsugi is an aggregate of a lot of things not an end all beat all single serve solution for any one single thing.

 

Also unless the admins actually hire an actual therapist for actual real life money or find a volunteer, the idea of this becoming Online Psych Hospital is really really bad and a no-no on several ethical and probably Lawly Legal reasons.

 

i hope nothing i've said comes across as pushing for that. improved resources on kintsugi in my head would mean making it easier for individuals on kintsugi to find and access outside information and resources, and to be able to do things to aid themselves in their own mental health and recovery

 

I imagined it would be like that, but I know jack and shit about US laws wrt online doctoring

 

Could you clarify what you mean by "this behavior does not define you?"

What is a person defined by, if not by their actions? Let's say I'm a good, kind, compassionate person... Except for the part where I drink a handle of vodka and scream at people every night. After establishing that as a pattern of behavior, wouldn't I be that mean alcoholic that screams at people, no matter what I do during the day? Maybe I really need thirty drinks to get me through the evening. Maybe every day I say I'll quit tomorrow.

I don't believe that you can rack up Good Person Points in one area of life in order to make up for failures in another, especially if the harmful behavior in question is causing harm to yourself or others.

 

I can't speak for Seebs, but what I got from that was more that the wording is important? Like instead of yelling at drunk screaming person about how they are bad and evil, tell them that their bad actions are not all they are and that they can work on not getting drunk and screaming at people. Like "this is not cool, but also me telling you that this is not cool is not me saying you are an irredeemable monster" kinda thing.

 

This is fully anecdata but in that vein, behavioral therapy techniques (CBT/DBT etc) not only do not help me, they actively trigger me, and having them more than recommended (which happened ) and aggregated somewhere (seems like it´s being worked on) would be pretty upsetting and unhelpful.
Same with medication. I have reasons for wanting to try therapy rather than medication, and medication isn´t even always the answer for everyone. That doesn´t mean the answer is "nothing, just go on as you are" it means there´s more than one approach to mental illness.
Also nthing the i guess reminder that no one here is a mental health professional.

I think this is is generally pro recovery, but it´s not something that works for everyone and things have been getting out of hand for a bit.