My 7 cups dilemma
I love 7 cups. I think it's an amazing community. The support and kindness I've received here has changed my life.
I want other people in my life to be able to have this great gift. I want those I love and care about to have a share of the benefits I've got. I often consider telling them about 7 cups. But then I realise that that would change 7 cups for me forever. I wouldn't know their usernsme, so every time I met someone here, I'd forever be wondering, is this someone I know? It would stop being safe place for me.
I'm sad that I can't share this amazing thing with people who could gain from it. I will just have to hope they find it for themselves.
Have a good day everyone.
@Clio9876
I have had the same thoughts ...... wanted to share so someone else could get some support but if they ever figured my username from discussion i would not feel safe to say whatever.
I have friends in support groups I'm in. Confidentiality gives us safety. If they find it on their own, don't we have the same problem? I would go ahead and let them know about 7 cups and suggest they use a non obvious username. With most of the usernames on the site I don't even know the gender of the person I'm chatting with.
@Clio9876
7 Cups is a big site. People come and go from here all the time. Your chances of running into someone you know *and* recognizing details of their life behind an anonymous username (or them recognizing you) are really slim. The less identifying detail you give, the better. Though this applies for most places online tbf.
I definitely get your fear though and have had similar ones, not because I’ve told many people in my life about this site but because some of the situations I’ve vented about before are pretty specific. It never really used to bother me until I gained somewhat of an online following for one of my hobbies and suddenly felt the need to be more careful if I talked about issues related to it. The solution, for me at least, is being very vague (possibly even changing details around) unless I feel without a doubt that the person on the other end won’t recognize anything.
If on the astronomically small chance my stories got recognized anyway? It’d be awkward for sure but at the same time I would take comfort in the fact that I got to at least present things from what’s meant to be a place of non-judgment in a way I might not get to otherwise express. We’d be there for the same reasons right?
I struggle with the idea also, and it’s quite hard to tell anyone about it, even my partner, because I feels like ‘anonymous chat rooms’ aren’t something adults do for good things. It used to feel like something seedy and anonymous meant you wanted to talk about something illegal or wrong. Confessions are good but my experience is that this place is full of genuine people with real life worries, which they don’t feel like taking to a therapist, or just don’t have that support.
I wish almost there was a referral service that could find you therapy support with a pro for free.