About the boundaries of the private facebook groups
I. Questions and pushback I routinely receive:
First a bit of empathy from me: I get that my group rules are very different than what you might be used to from "social media" these days, where just about anything goes.
That must be hard and frustrating. It probably doesn't feel good to be moderated. It makes sense when you're used to a different, unfiltered experience that might feel good for a few seconds or minutes it might feel bad to not get those feel good seconds or minutes because you've been moderated.
I trust you to deal with that in healthy way.
My boundaries are still in place.
Why are you silencing my voice? I need a place I can vent.
I'm not able to silence your voice, you can choose to speak and vent as much as you want, where ever you please, except here in this group.
Members have voiced their appreciation of the boundary because they want a place where free of toxic negativity, focus on the person who harmed us, where we can focus on our own thoughts, feelings and needs. Please free free to choose to speak your mind about the person who hurt you, unfiltered elsewhere.
a. (See the research below about why venting online isn't good for your healing and you need live people instead.)
b. If you need an immediate place to vent, a healthy place to do that is hand-writing it in a journal where you can come back and read it, or share later with a trusted recovery professional or a safe recovery aly.
Why are you so controlling?
I only control my own space of what I allow into my eyes and ears. I can't control you. You're not being held in this group against your will. You had control to enter into it, you have control to leave it. I offered the group rules when you asked to join and you only were granted access by clicking "I agree". I can't control whether you actually read the rules or not.
Why can't I talk about divorcing in this group?
You can. But first let me state, most women who join this group because of it's stated purpose for married or married and separated hoping to reconcile. That's the focus of the scope of discussion we want. It we want to talk about divorce, we can join a divorce support group. If you talk about your divorce like it's the greatest thing since sliced bread I'm going to suspect your motives pretty highly and probably set you to "read only". (It's another loss and trauma on top of loss and trauma, sometimes avoidable, yet, but it's not the greatest thing ever, don't kid yourself. ) So feel free to share that you or your partner choose divorce, but keep in mind that's a scary and traumatizing topic for us. You might want to choose another group related to divorce trauma to get your support.
Women should know it's ok to divorce, that it's an option.
We already know that, we're trying to avoid that. Women are smart like that. We have enough judgmental people telling us we should kick our partners to the curb. We don't or want need reminders of what we're trying to avoid.
Consider this metaphor: You wouldn't go into a support group for parents of children who have cancer, and remind them that their children might die. See the connection? Thank you for honoring this boundary that gives us judgement free place to discuss our deep desire to see our partner and our marriages healed and transformed.
What makes you think you're so smart?
Well, I am smart, and I also believe very strongly, you are too.
Now I'll play the experience card: I've been moderating online discussion groups since the 1990's on CompuServe's forums, specifically the Corporate Adult Educator's discussion groups.
People communicate differently via the written word online. Usually not well, but there are always exceptions. People communicate better when they have strong boundaries in place and know what's allowed and what's not.
Now I'll play the education card: I'm APSATs trained, Door of Hope Peer Facilitator trained, ERCEM certified and trained in the Couple Centered Recovery® model. That means I get to say I'm trauma-informed, and specifically betrayal-trauma-informed.
Now I'll play the personal needs and wants card: I don't want to read other people venting and bashing their partners. You don't want to read the worst about my husband. I don't want to read the worst about yours.
I want to send you snarky message with exactly what I think of you.
Ok, that's your choice but make it memorable, ok? I have several of those already and I'm saving them all up to read live and recorded, much the way celebrities and politicians read "mean tweets" on late-night talk shows. Should be fun.
Footnotes:
Research that supports the concepts that venting about traumatic events online is not productive for long term recovery.
Research supports sharing with while looking at and being seen and heard by live faces helps to reprocess trauma memories and emotions into re-organized memories and emotions.
1. Student Reactions to the Shootings at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University: Does Sharing Grief and Support Over the Internet Affect Recovery?
Key Takeaway: "The current study provides for the first step in this important process of understanding how people use the Internet to cope with such events and will hopefully lead to further investigations as to why Internet use did not affect well-being, despite students’ subjective reports of improvement, and under what conditions Facebook activities and other online behaviors may prove beneficial or detrimental to people’s recovery over time."
Source: Vicary, Amanda & Fraley, R.. (2010). Student Reactions to the Shootings at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University: Does Sharing Grief and Support Over the Internet Affect Recovery?. Personality & social psychology bulletin. 36. 1555-63. 10.1177/0146167210384880.
Download PDF of this study: Student_Reactions_to_the_Shootings_at_Virginia_Tec (retreived 6/21/2024 from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/46578570_Student_Reactions_to_the_Shootings_at_Virginia_Tech_and_Northern_Illinois_University_Does_Sharing_Grief_and_Support_Over_the_Internet_Affect_Recovery )
2. Anger on the internet: the perceived value of rant-sites
Key Takeaway: "Study 1 surveyed rant-site visitors to better understand the perceived value of the Web sites and found that while they become relaxed immediately after posting, they also experience more anger than most and express their anger in maladaptive ways. Study 2 explored the emotional impact of reading and writing rants and found that for most participants, reading and writing rants were associated with negative shifts in mood."
Source:Pubmed NIH National Library of Medicine
Download PDF of this study:martin-et-al-2013-anger-on-the-internet-the-perceived-value-of-rant-sites (retrieved 6/21/24 from https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/pdf/10.1089/cyber.2012.0130 )
3. Venting as emotion regulation: The influence of venting responses and respondent identity on anger and emotional tone.
Key Takeaway: "Practical implications: What is said in response to venting matters. Respondents should be aware of the attributions they use when responding to venting. Originality/value: Venting may persist as a common practice because we “feel better” after the venting interaction not because we release anger."
Source: American Psychological Association - APA PyschNet
Parlamis, J.D. (2012), "Venting as emotion regulation: The influence of venting responses and respondent identity on anger and emotional tone", International Journal of Conflict Management, Vol. 23 No. 1, pp. 77-96. https://doi.org/10.1108/10444061211199322
4. Sorry, But Venting Online Just Makes You Angrier, Scientists Find
Key Takeaways: "Just because something makes you feel better doesn't mean it's healthy," said Bushman, explaining that many people still have the misconception that it's always better to get things off your chest than to bottle them up." - Brad Bushman, a professor of psychology and communication at the Ohio State University, author of study Does Venting Anger Feed or Extinguish the Flame? Catharsis, Rumination, Distraction, Anger, and Aggressive Responding.
"And even though we all vented to friends before we had the Internet, doing it in person or over the phone requires you to wait until the other person is free to chat - which is usually long enough for you to cool down slightly."
Source: https://www.sciencealert.com/sorry-but-venting-online-just-makes-you-angrier-scientists-find
5. Looking at a Human Face Triggers Activity in Our Brains Unlike Any Other Object
Key Takeaways: "While they were doing this, a camera-based eye-tracking system monitored what objects their eyes were looking at, and the electrodes simultaneously monitored neural activity in the amygdala and the hippocampus – distinct parts of the brain that are both involved with different aspects of processing memories, amongst other functions, with the amygdala also important for regulating our emotions.
"You could easily argue that faces are one of the most important objects we look at," says senior author of the study, Ueli Rutishauser, the director of the neuroscience research at nonprofit healthcare and research organization Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles.
It's long been known that seeing faces makes neurons fire in the amygdala more so than for other forms of stimuli, although the reasons for this have remained uncertain.
"One hypothesis is that these signals are transferred from the amygdala via strong projections to the hippocampus, where they elevate and prioritize hippocampal processing of stimuli with high social and emotional significance," the researchers write.
"This may serve hippocampal memory encoding for salient stimuli and events."
Source: Article quotes: https://www.sciencealert.com/looking-at-a-human-face-triggers-a-specific-pattern-of-brain-activity-study-shows
Study: Science Advances
6. Co-regulation – Is it possible in online spaces?
Key takeaways: "While I am now more convinced that co-regulation is possible on video platforms, I remain skeptical about the possibility for it on social media or email, especially when we only have words on the screen to respond to. Most of us have had at least one experience online where something that might have felt relatively innocuous from our perspective activated another person and things fairly quickly erupted into a conflict. (Or we were the person activated and nobody else understood why.) That seems to have become a normal occurrence for anyone who spends time online."
"These are situations where people don’t have the benefit of reading body language, of picking up on the nuances of what’s been said and/or what’s been triggered in a person, or of tuning in to another person’s body signals that might reveal the dysregulation. We sit behind our own screens getting activated by each other’s words and, more often than not, there’s nobody within reach who can help us soothe whatever has been triggered in us. Instead, there are often people who contribute to the activation and sometimes a pile-on starts to happen and it’s like someone has lit a powder keg. And when we don’t take the time to self-soothe and move out of fight, flight, or freeze, we can very quickly do harm to people we wouldn’t otherwise want to harm."
Source: https://centreforholdingspace.com/co-regulation-is-it-possible-in-online-spaces/
Heather Plett is a leading expert on showing empathy to other humans. She is a coach, teacher, and author known for her work on the concept of "holding space." This concept involves providing a supportive environment for others without trying to control their outcomes or impose judgments. Plett emphasizes the importance of allowing people to make their own choices, offering unconditional support, and maintaining humility and thoughtfulness in guidance. Her teachings on holding space are widely recognized and have been featured in various publications and workshops globally