[What Do I Do?] I feel as though the member is making their issues up...

@LavenderHere

even though confusion can occur, i find it extremely important to not force our beliefs onto the member and in no way show them that we do not think they are telling the truth. I personally do not think thats what we are here for. We're here to listen, to give them a safe space without judgement and I personally find it super important to separate our opinion from how we listen to a member. If however a listener feels very unsure about a chat and how to help the member, it is totally okay to refer the chat ❤️ that is my take on this.

@LavenderHere

Hey Lav, thankyou for inviting me to share my thoughts hehe, I like these practice situations, discussing such with our peers would really help in knowing diverse perspectives, as well as learning the best practices. 💜

I like and agree with what Avery mentioned about providing a safe and non-judgmental space and not imposing our own opinions or beliefs in whatsoever way in the chat.

As a general guideline too, we've been told and reminded often that we take all chats as genuine and treat them objectively I.e listening to the member like in any other chat ~ practicing our active listening skills and focusing on providing the member a safe and comfortable non judgemental space to talk about whatever they need support with. We ofcourse wouldn't know if they telling truth or making stories, and would have to trust our member on their word ~ handling the chat just like we usually would do.

I feel a good approach here would be to center the chat to a supportive topic, if the chat flows in a direction away from support ~ we can try asking questions that help member to open up about their "why" of needing chat and how's it affecting/ impacting them.

However yes, it's a good thing to be mindful of our own boundaries too, and in case a chat feels too much and it is getting rather difficult to stay objective then perhaps we can take help from a chat supporter or ofcourse can refer the chat to another listener, if it becomes uncomfortable or simply not tolerable (for the lack of a better word) for us, our comfort matters as well.

Tagging some wonderful coaches to share their thoughts/ approach in handling these situations too:

@kindnessmatters2020 @hopieremi @kindheartedlily6247 @Rosshini

@LavenderHere If I feel that they are faking parts of what they are talking about, this is where my time boundaries come in handy. I let them know that the chat will be wrapping up in about x minutes. I tend to give a chat 30 minutes before I decide it is time to wrap it up so at most I don't feel like I have wasted time with a user and I also don't invalidate someone who's story sounds so fake but is real.

@LavenderHere

@sunisshiningandsoareyou

Thank you for the tag, @kindheartedLily6247 and @LavenderHere for the post!

I haven't really bothered about the "genuineness of chats". I believe the members and the situations they are in. Making up issues might mean underlying issues too, which we cannot analyse and in my opinion, is not what we are here for. Sometimes people might skip or alter certain details to fulfill some objective that they might have (consciously or not). While, this might be "manipulating the chat" in a fashion, that does not mean it is not their reality entirely, for I know this is just human nature usually from what I have learnt from experience! Same goes with other such scenarios for me. People are real lol and so are their issues; I don't like to hover over how they are presenting it externally. This is idealistic and of course bias might come into play–it always does–but just how I like to think/go about it.

Also tagging a few more friends to invite them to see this and join in hehe
@listeningsarinn @HealingBrokenWIngs @Victor04 @WarmLightXO @SkylarListens

@LavenderHere

In this situation, I try to treat it like any other chat. Show empathy, attentiveness, respect, validation- and end the chat if it's crossing my personal boundaries. It's super difficult sometimes to do this, I try and tell myself that it's not my job to believe or disbelieve, it's my job to listen 💚

@LavenderHere Oooh I saw this title and was like oh no, but this is actually a great thread!

I think something that may help listeners to keep a bit of perspective with this is too keep in mind that many things do tend to cluster. So if someone seems to be having a ton of bad luck all at once and it seems like gee probability wise it seems unlikely for those things all to happen to 1 person, as one occurs it's actually more likely for others to occur.

For me, this is illnesses, I have been told by doctors it's not unusual for rare diseases to cluster, even if completely unrelated.

For someone else it might be intergenerational trauma, where many people around them end up dealing with various crises.

Or it could be a geopolitical issue that differs greatly for a listener.

Some things it's also easy to learn about. I have encountered some difficulties when it comes to medical tests/treatments which are really easy to determine that yes, that is what happens simply with a quick Google search.

@LavenderHere

Just like with any other chat, I will listen, validate, and try to understand. Even if they are faking, they usually fake something in an effort to cover up something else. If they trust you enough by your kindness and empathy, sometimes they'll reveal they were faking or tell you the root issue. It's best not to accuse of faking in general, because you don't actually know the truth <3

I am not sure if it is my place to judge the members issues as unbelievable. However, sometimes trolling is apparent. Just support the person. Ask open ended questions. Restate their responses accordingly. It is all good.