Originally Posted by
Mindprison
I do think that we need to be a bit tougher on the reassurance seeking if it's becoming a regular occurrence from a poster.
However, I won't disagree that it's been taking a lot less for things to get heated, so to speak. There is a very fine line between being hard for the greater good and just being malicious.
As Axolotl says we've become hardened and it's making us look like we're doing it for the fun of it when we're actually trying to help in what feels like the only avenue left to us.
It's all well and good saying that we need to be tougher because it's better than the alternative (keeping the anxiety cycle going) but part of me doesn't even know if we can go back now and wondering if we shouldn't have let it go this far to begin with.
The health anxiety is the most frequented board on the forum because reassurance has been easily accessible there for a long time. But...where do we go from here? If we try to be tougher, one half will say it's cruel. If we continue to give constant reassurance, the other half will say it's cruel.
I once saw a thread descend into complete chaos, members fighting each other over who was right and who was wrong when it came to how to deal with the reassurance cycle that was obviously happening. While the original poster disappeared for months while everyone fought among themselves, only for the poster to come back with a completely different problem after everyone had completely burned themselves out on each other.
I don't know if it's even possible, but some kind of unity about this issue is needed between everyone before we'll get anywhere.