Have I got rectal cancer?

[Dommy]

Honestly, I entirely get it. And I'm not even prepared to say that shutting the thread down definitely wouldn't help him because it is, of course, all hypothetical at this point. I've been aware of this thread since the start of my own bout of really aggressive health anxiety last year but haven't really engaged with it much so I totally get that I also speak from a place of privilege, having not been subjected to it half as much as most of you. I just think that, however insanely frustrating it honestly must be to see the earnest advice not taken and the self-defeating practices of its recipient continuing time and time again, a better option would be to just let it stay and those still willing to try can do so. Perhaps even with these last few pages as a reference point to illustrate the need for him to take the action recommended.

Because something that I do think would come of this discussion is that it really should stand as a clear message to Toby. Not only that he's testing patience and running out of "chances" with some but also that we're prepared to talk among ourselves about what we genuinely think is best for him. Which I hope he takes to heart when receiving future advice. We want to be here for him but it's perhaps time he took his treatment as seriously as you all have.

[Carys]

a better option would be to just let it stay and those still willing to try can do so

Thats what has been happening Dommy, then people turned up out of the blue, who generally don't even reply on it, and asked for it to be closed. Oh well.......you have some good thoughts above and this struck me most -

I'm not even prepared to say that shutting the thread down definitely wouldn't help him because it is, of course, all hypothetical at this point.

Thats where I come from, but you've said it many times better than I could - it may or may not help Toby shutting down a thread, but it is not known and only opinion either way. Clearly we all have strong opinions as individuals LOL, and I can also see where the opposing views come from, but as they are only opinions then by default the situation should just be an application of the aims of the forum - to be inclusive, patient and leave threads if you are frustrated.

I don't know, just as others don't, with certainty, what the right thing is for individual posters on this forum. We aren't psychiatrists in real life, we don't even know the posters personally in real life nor do we have responsibility for their behaviour or life choices. This forum allows people with mental health problems to post, why should he be treated in a different way ? Its not our business, as members, to decide who and can post and for how long.

[pulisa]

It would be good if threads had a limited number of pages though..Get as much advice as possible and work on it if you want, ignore it if you don't but don't keep trying to engage on the same themes/topics. As Quinn says certain threads on here are FADH (flogging a dead horse) territory.

[Dommy]

Thats where I come from, but you've said it many times better than I could - it may or may not help Toby shutting down a thread, but it is not known and only opinion either way. I don't know, just as others don't, with certainty what the right thing is for individual posters on this forum. We aren't therapists in real life, we don't even know the posters personally in real life. This forum allows people with mental health problems to post, why should he be treated in a different way ? Its not our business, as members, to decide who and can post and for how long.

Yeah, I certainly agree here! But I don't necessarily think it's bad or wrong to have the conversation or for people to vent - not that you've said that - because I can see why someone would be infuriated with the way things have been going. This thread is over 250 pages long. It is at this point, in some perverse way, a study of how aggressive and even crippling health anxiety can be - especially when the sufferer seems bereft of the will to make use of the advice given to them. People will want to drop it, having exhausted their patience and their best efforts. Others will stick around. But I just hope that Toby will now see how much we have invested and are investing in his struggle and, if only for our sake, start to make changes.

I know it's bloody hard once you're in a rut, but to repeatedly, almost willfully fall into the same rut while seeming to not heed the advice offered by people who have been through the same thing is a little bit silly. But I do believe he can and will get there in the end, with a bit more willingness on his end to seriously engage with the help. For real this time.

[MyNameIsTerry]

For those who want the discussion, why not use the actual thread about this very issue? It's on Misc. This isn't the first time this has happened on this thread and we all all just adding more pages to the thread some are complaining is too long and clogs up the forum filters. Ironic?

This is what I tend to consider:

- Who is asking?
- Why are they asking?
- Will it achieve anything?
- Is it in the best interests of the one person it needs to be aimed at?

Admin have been quite clear, click the x and walk away. There are threads from them that are completely ignored about this and every time something like this happens it will be Admin themselves, fellow sufferers, who are forced to monitor and intervene at a cost to their time and likely mental health. I don't believe that is fair either but some will not listen to Admin's rules.

Why are people returning to a thread to complain? There are plenty of threads around. For those who dislike this thread because of the lack of movement why not head onto one of the many other threads and help someone else who might do? Why leave advice on here, or frustrated comments, and not help others with that time? Some do both but some clearly follow threads/members. There is someone obsessive about that.

Will shutting this thread stop the anxiety? And who is trained to make that decision? When this has been raised on that other thread I wanted to know who here was suitably qualified & experienced to make that call? This is why I asked whether Admin could take advice from charities who have the support & links into medical professionals. What is you make a bad call?

They can stop someone posting completely or ban them from posting in their own threads but does this work? In the case of one recent member we know this to be a complete failure and achieved nothing. I can think of another time where all it did was push the OP onto PM and I spent some hours getting PM's that caused me to complain to Admin why the complaints of frustrated members had made this my problem just because they can't click the x? All the while those members could be seen on several threads saying that Admin had taken a positive action and the forum was better for it. Guess what? Just because I was one who disagreed with closure, and spoke to the OP on those threads, didn't mean it should become my responsibility to deal with helping them or stopping them PMing me.

This is something that concerns me about a thread like this. There are some that thread closure might stop a compulsion. This might mean more anxiety but it might halt them and be a good thing. But there are some that it just doesn't work for and as seen recently one just headed off to another forum and in my example here another just switched to PM to continue it. That's not a resolution! All it does it reduce the frustration of a small number of members and can be to the cost of others. Think of other forums too. It is not responsible to shift your issues onto them if you believe in only considering NMP. Of course, these types of members tend to be on multiple forums anyway or switching between as the frustration starts up and we've seen how some members on here are on those too or even follow them around.

Who will be next? Dislike a thread, get it stopped. It becomes a clubhouse. And who exactly has taken a poll of what members think about this? All we see here is the usual poll of a few members for and a few against. That's hardly a consensus. It must be frustrating for Admin who see a few people generating the most threads and few people generating the most discussions about them? They can hardly take much action against hundreds of members due to the voices of a few.

Whatever Admin decide - you won't fix the issue. That has been proven. The only way to do that is remove certain members. Some can be helped by closure, others won't. I'm not even sure that's purely about anxiety either and there are potentially issues about not seeing something as being inappropriate so it just starts off where it ended.

Maybe Toby should start lots of threads? But no, Admin don't want that either. I can just see comments about starting too many threads by frustrated members too.

Yes, he needs to deal with this. Yes, he needs to change what this thread is about, as suggested by several before, so it becomes about recover and not about a reassurance cycle. But I think it's naïve to assume that will come from closing this. I also have my concerns over whether that will just shift it onto other threads or into PM forcing a smaller number of members into a situation where they feel obliged to help rather than now where we all have the ability to click the x or just scroll past.

Try to be neutral about it. Whatever happens to Toby doesn't impact on my life and therefore it will only be allowed a certain amount of my time & energy. I've learnt this lesson in these places otherwise you get sucked into things and end up frustrated. That's not about Toby though because anything in life can be doing that to us. It's an important lesson I've had to learn, often from my parents, about investing energy where it is needed and not getting wound up by the nonsense that so often goes on around us in daily life. And that's possibly why I don't haunt the bottom of newspaper articles yawping on about something daft that has happened because that's just life and it was like that long before me and will be long after me. It's like the wolf that feeds and how some anxiety advice is about reducing the negative dramas that some people bring to your life if you can as it just feeds your own negativity.

[MyNameIsTerry]

Admin's take, something I doubt many have ever read:

https://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/showth...ns-please-read

https://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/showth...(well-from-me)

Thread on Misc about all this. Like all such threads opinion is split and we get nowhere:

https://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/showth...-do-we-fix-NMP

[BlueIris]

Nicely put, Terry.

I'm not a mod, therefore I don't particularly see it as any of my business whether or not a thread is closed. Do I think there's hope for Toby? I think there's hope for everyone, although my gut instinct is that this thread offers an artificial safety net that prevents him reaching a point where he's motivated to make the life changes he needs to feel better. I've seen similar with a young work colleague, who leads an exceptionally sheltered and cosseted life that I worry will cost him a fulfilling future as an adult.

It's sad, but past a certain point it isn't my problem because as Terry says, it's a waste of much needed mental energy to worry about things we can't influence directly.

All this said, I feel kind of a jerk for talking about Toby on this thread and I'd love it if he could come in, give his opinions and take back ownership. He's the one in this situation, after all.

[MyNameIsTerry]

Blue, there is no reason to feel that way about yourself as you are only raising the possibility this is not in Toby's best interests. That's important but not all requests for thread closures (that I've seen across the boards over the last few years) are even about the individual so it's important to ensure things are done for the right reasons and that should only ever be the OP.

It's quite possibly a crutch that keeps someone locked in. We can easily see he is chasing for reassurance and trying to obsess his way into more spirals.

Long running threads can be positive though as proved by a couple of others on here. On that basis maybe rather than closure there can be a policy of getting threads more on topic and the topic is recovery rather than symptoms. However, whether Admin have the time for that is up to them.

We also need to consider false comparisons to other posters. Toby will acknowledge anxiety and has at least taken some steps. On that basis he can't be considered the same as those who refuse, deny and wont even entertain it let alone pursue any sort of treatment for it. This is again why there is no one fix for all repetitive posters.

[Toby2000]

Sorry, I had no idea all of this was going on. I sleep at about 10pm now and wake at 7am, to try to bring normality and routine into my life.

I should start off by saying, thanks to everyone who truly understands the purpose of this thread and understands ME.

And then I should say that I am NOT playing games. Certain people seem to think that I come on here to stir, to use it for fun, manipulate people... almost suggesting that I think the idea of having bowel cancer is fun?

Let's use this as an example: the times when I don't post for weeks. THAT'S me having fun, because I'm finally able let go of this worry for a short while before another trigger sucks me back in. My idea of fun is not making a spectacle of myself on a thread about bowel cancer and checking what's in the toilet and googling symptoms

Secondly, in terms of the 'bragging' about the length of this thread, I did NOT brag. It was a passing joke, I was making light of a bad situation and it was ONE comment that people have since taken way out of context.

Thanks to Terry, Carys, Scass, Dommy and maybe some others who are the only ones who seem to understand that this thread HELPS me, a lot- the alternative is me not having anyone to talk to about this, and I keep the worrying to an internal monologue which will cause more googling and stress. This thread saves me from falling into a lonely pit, because I can talk to people who are/have going/gone through similar situations and it reminds me that at the core, maybe it's health anxiety

Bruce and co; honestly if you don't like me or like this thread, why comment? I don't put up a sign saying "PLEASE COMMENT x AND x". You shouldn't be concerned enough to start a witch hunt against users, whether that be me or someone else

And why get so angry when you see evidence of anxiety and panic on a forum about anxiety and panic?

I honestly feel targeted just because this thread- and my symptoms, which is why I'm here and worrying- have gone on so long. Yeah, the page count is high, but it's just a number. And as others have said, it beats me trying to make several threads about the same issue. Which I've tried a few times before and Admin moved everything back here to this thread. So I've just taken the hint since then, to keep things in one place.

I don't really know what else to say, except if you don't like what I post, then don't reply. The most important thing is, no one here is forced to reply. So I think that would be the best way forward for you Bruce, and anyone else who doesn't like me.

In the meantime, I'm trying, but it's hard. I think time will be the only thing to stop this worry (assuming that it's not bowel cancer)- but like, imagine how scary it is to see blood with a bowel movement numerous times... and then you start to form theories and draw links between different symptoms until you convince yourself that you have stage 4 cancer. I'm sorry that this is happening but honestly, I'm no different to the many others out there who post about their symptoms and health anxiety. This is the purpose of this forum. Yes, it's also about getting better and recovery, but that can be difficult. I'm trying. I'm on 150mg sertraline/anti-depressants, I've done therapy (although it didn't really work for me), I've made an effort to get back into education, which I currently am, and recently I've got into a sleep routine.

But the main point is that this thread is a life saver for me, without it I'd still be worrying but I'd just have no one to talk to. I think everyone deserves the right to keep their thread, even if it has got a high page count. As long as they're not being abusive to others, which I don't think I ever am, then they should be able to keep their thread and of course NO ONE is forced to reply. I'm grateful if you choose to reply but no one is obligated to this thread or any thread. If you don't like me or the contents of the thread, don't read or reply to it.

[pulisa]

You express yourself very well, Toby.

How would you feel if no one were to reply to your thread though?