Found this saddening thread, and was wondering if people have suggestions for how to fix?

I think some sort of quiz would be a great idea! I'm unsure which thread you're talking about, but I'd love to read it and be able to add to your insight on this topic.

Thanks for offering such a great solution. As someone who has been rejected by listeners a lot it really really hurts especially because a lot of issues stem from abandonment. So having listeners ditch me because I'm too depressed and negative really hurts.

Thank you for drawing our attention to that thread and offering a possible solution so that similar situations can be avoided in future. I'd like to share a link to our Member Suggestion Box that you can alsouse for sharing suggestions since it may happen that forum posts go missedby people who review these suggestions and have the power to make changes.

@hiimanupa,

This is a brilliant idea. I think this is gonna be helpful. Yes, some listeners may not be able to tolerate offences, that doesn't mean others may not.

And having a bar set in place will definilty help members find the kind of listeners they are looking for. I will write in the Suggestion box as @Maku says. I think this needs to gets highlighted. I am also the type who is ignored or blocked. I would want to search for listeners who are tolerant enough for me.

Oh yeah, I just had a crap experience with several listeners. One was merely unhelpful, the other downright inconsiderate. People really need to evaluate whether they're ready to drop judgment and be helpful.

Okay, I'm writting the Member Suggestion Form and here is the suggestions I wrote:

It will be helpful to create a badge system to reflect the amount of distress a listener can take.
You can number it as for example "Tolerant level 1", "Tolerant level 2", "Tolerant level 3".
Where the listeners can obtain through mock chats or tests.

Or it can be a 1-10 gradual system a listener can themselves choose from to grade their own capabilities to take the members ranging from "I have a problem, can you please help me" to "You are full of shit, you are not paying attention to me" where a member is intimidating and offending but may still need help.

What do you think? Is this doable or easy to be put in place? I want to know what are your suggestions.

@hiimanupa, @supportiveSunshine25, @cattack, @bestSailboat6878.

Hey there @hiimanupa and thank you for bringing this to all our attention! @maku has posted some really good info on the OP but in light of discussing things as a solution by us listeners here...

I believe that no guest or member should just be blocked without a valid reason or explaining things to said user. I can get if it is sexual abuse or suicide threats which we can block without a need for explaining ourselves (though on the suicide part I would refer them to a suicide hotline then end the chat), but to just be blocked because a listener cannot handle the chat or feels uncomfortable without explaining to the user first is rather unprofessional in my eyes. There hasn't once been a conversation yet that I couldn't handle, and there have been some really heavy and sensitive topics discussed, then again everyone does have their own tolerance and I think you make a really great point in that if we could all specify our tolerance or empathy level it could really help gauge which listener can handle which chat. Perhaps this could be more heavily influenced on the already available topics you can sign yourself up for. I would like to think that myself singing up for Self-Harm/Depression chats should make me quite tolerable already, whereby a listener signed up for anxiety may or may not be that tolerable so it is also up to the user to be able to find a suitable listener.

The OP in that thread may have been also going about general requests, and sadly in that way you cannot truly know what kind of listener you are going to be paired with. There may be really tolerable ones, and then there may be sensitive ones and that is perfectly normal. So maybe in this case users should be informed duly that they would most likely get a better match for their specific needs if they were to browse for a custom listener. And I think this is where we can expand upon the search terms somewhat, whereby us listeners can opt in for how religious or how this or how that we are so that there can be an easy understanding. As I have explained in my other thread, if the listener and user are from a different culture, religion or even gender it may make things that much harder to understand and accept.

Though I am sure in time problems like these will become less and less as awareness is raised. It is absolutely amazing that the OP could come here and let us know about his or her issues and I am glad that as a listener you decided to make a thread about this to raise awareness. It is people like yourself that can make a difference, and the rest of us as an entire community to stick together and support each other.

Thank you for bringing this up. This is an issue I have heard from a variety of members on and off this site. It is difficult for certain individuals to empathize with members going through such a emotional time especially so when they haven't ever experiencedthose feelings. Sometimes listeners fear they will get in trouble for talking to someone who is severely depressed because the line between wanting to not be here and wanting to be dead gets very blurry. As others have said, going through the listener list and finding someone who will talk to you is optimal since it gives you some control over who hears your cry for help. But I do like your idea about distress levels. To add onto it, I think checking both member and listenerdistress levels every day would be even better since some days are better than others for every one.

Thanks for tagging me in!

I have a few thoughts on this, but first of all, I think it's a great idea - both having some form of 'distress level' indicated, and the recent idea posted to have the level able to vary over time. For a member, I think it's natural that the distress level you're feeling one day might heighten or decrease over time based on a number of circumstances. And as a listener, there are days when I feel very equipped to handle challenging or longer chats and other days that I would love to help, but I only have a shorter amount of time or I am feeling a bit fatigued and wouldn't be the best listener for someone needing a higher level. Also, if I were to take a chat that was designated as 'high distress', I would want to make sure to not take other chats at the same time in order to give my full attention, so it would be helpful to know from that standpoint, as well.

Also, if we were going to look from the listeners side at having badges to designate the level they are comfortable and prepared to take, we would need to develop some additional training and I think it would be important to have mock-chats at those levels since some might feel they are prepared for any level but have only encountered up to a mid-level, for instance, and I think it would be dangerous and more damaging to have someone effectively say to a member that they are able to take their chat, but then end up overwhelmed and referring them to another listener right away.

Additionally, someone mentioned the idea of 'anti-specialties', both in this thread and the one linked to. I have been thinking about that issue for a while and hadn't come up with a solution, but I like that idea quite a bit. Within the general request pool, a listener can just take chats that are in areas they are comfortable with or that are un-marked, but when a member is looking for a listener, it would be helpful to see if someone is not prepared for the topic at hand, whether because it is triggering to them or because they are not well educated on it (I work a lot with eating disorder chats, and I know it can be particularly damaging to talk to someone who doesn't understand because they miss a lot of the underlying things). Has anyone put that idea in the suggestion box?

Finally, separate from how to designate distress levels and specialties, there have been mentions here and in other threads of listeners blocking members without providing any reason - this is unacceptable listener behavior. It is important for listeners to take care of themselves, too, and to refer chats when they are not able to be helpful to the member, but that should never be done without explanation or without helping the member find someone else (barring actual abuse of the listener by the member - we do get trolls here!). There are a lot of discussions going on in the listener side about improving new listener training and potentially making it a bit harder to become a listener to begin with to avoid having some of these issues and ensure that listeners who are on the site are respectful, empathetic, and prepared to help.

Sorry for the long-winded answer, but I think there are some great ideas in this thread and I hope they are making their way to the suggestion boxes! Thanks for the great solutions offered here. And as a side note, for over-18 members, I am happy to chat if you think I can help. I'm rarely listed as online, so we would need to set up a time that we can both be online, but I promise not to run scared. :) I will follow the rules of the site and refer members who are actively suicidal to suicide hotlines or chats to help protect your safety, but I won't leave you for topic matter or level of distress, barring that.

Please try to understand that we all are not trained counsellors for suicidal people. Dealing with such people requires great training from trained professionals . Sometimes, if ordinary people like us try to help them, this situation can even get more worse, that's why we avoid taking suicidal chats . We don't want to make the situation worse.