Intrusive thoughts about destructive/self-destructive behaviour

[Sparkle1984]

Hi all, it's been a while since I last posted here as I've been mostly doing fine lately. About a month ago, under the guidance of my doctor, I reduced my citalopram dose from 20mg to 10mg.

My period is due to start any time now, and I often feel more anxious around this time of the month anyway.

So, last night I had a disagreement with an online friend. I help them to run a Facebook page along with a couple of other people. They had posted something on the page which was off-topic and I thought plays into pseudo-science. Several commenters had written comments underneath the post, complaining about it. So I expressed my concerns to the page owner, saying I didn't understand why they'd posted it, and how I thought it's best if we stick to subjects we know a lot about. I was concerned that some of the page followers would find these sorts of posts off-putting and that it would harm our reputation. But the page owner seemed rather dismissive of my concerns.

I didn't feel comfortable being associated with such a post, so I made some replies saying that it doesn't represent the views of all supporters of our cause. I noticed then that Facebook had posted these replies as the page's name rather than my own name, and as I was on my phone rather than my PC, I couldn't easily fix this. I was worried that the page owner would be angry with me for posting my disagreeing comments as the page's name rather than my personal name.

So then I started having thoughts that if I just deleted or hid the entire thread, would the owner and the other page admins even notice? However, if they did notice, I'd probably be banned and our friendship would be ruined. Then I started thinking that maybe I should quit anyway as I don't want to be associated with these sorts of views. I did actually press the Delete button on the post, but thankfully a confirmation box popped up. I hovered over the confirmation box for a couple of seconds but I didn't have the guts to go through with it, so I left the post there.

Later I started thinking "thank goodness I didn't go through with deleting it" as I wouldn't want to ruin everything and upset everyone through one disagreement. If I had gone ahead, people would probably never trust me again and it could ruin my career if they had told other clients and employers that I'd been caught deleting something.

It scares me how close I came to doing something so destructive. I worry that what if I actually do something self-destructive in the future and can't stop myself?

[MyNameIsTerry]

First thing...I'm going to post the wisdom of someone who I think can help you here:

http://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/showthread.php?t=171187



If he isn't concerned with the risks of losing people, unless further trends change his mind there may be little you can do. Highlighting the concerns by customers is all you need to do. If he wants to make money out of this venture, listening to customer feedback is crucial.

Honestly? Yes, he might be annoyed with you. You represent them when you log in & comment under their name. You can get around this by adding on "these are only my personal thoughts and don't reflect my role in this cause" however he may still dislike that as it can be seen as a bit of a cop out by some Admin types who may seek to undermine an owner. It depends how he feels there.

The simple solution would be to delete it and repost it under your private name. However, I would be wary of saying "not all supporters in this cause" because you are speaking for others. This may appear to undermine the owner's beliefs. I would also be wary of posting that anyway as they may claim to support him and drop you in it. If you redo it under your own name, just let him know you made the mistake of doing so under the site name. It's then just a mistake.

I wouldn't delete threads or pages. You might find that annoys customers too. Some FB "guru" types delete comments not praising their products, for instance, and it just tells people they are trying to hide real feedback. If these are people that have commented under your site name, so you can't delete the post without deleting the string, then maybe just adding a disclaimer about it being personal opinion or redoing this in some way will help (as above)?

Can you talk to a friendly Admin person to see what they think? I say this because it's obvious you are catastrophizing here. You've ramped the issue up into breaking up friendships and even wrecking your career. If something as simple as that wrecks friendships, how on earth were they friendships in the first place? AND what sort of influence does this one guy have on someone's career? Either it's a very small pool of work or it's someone so high up he's one of the top industry bods in the country?

I'm not trying to patronise there, just trying to point out that I think it's likely the anxious brain is running away with itself. I really can't see how deleting a thread, page, comment, etc would ruin your reputation? Employers tend to be accepting of minor things, it's not like you've defrauded anyone. And disagreements are a daily thing in business, in fact they are necessary in improvement as you need to understand what people will think and that's not just what a "Yes Man" would think who would let you fail. You did the opposite, you gave that alternative opinion and you did it because you want things to succeed. So, he should understand that and actually be grateful.

It could even be as simple as him having a bad day himself and not coming across how he would want to. Is it an isolated incident?

[Sparkle1984]

Thank you for your reply. Looking back at this incident a few days later, I do think I was catastrophising and blew the whole thing out of proportion. For the last few days, I have tried to stay in the background and not get involved in any heated discussions. I'll see how things go before I decide on my next steps, ie whether to continue working on this or not.