FYI

[Sheldon]

With the lack of participation here, I checked out a Web based forum. I
noticed a lot of postings from people with problems but very few answers
posted. Not sure what's going on with the world.

[Mary]

Post by Sheldon
With the lack of participation here, I checked out a Web based forum. I
noticed a lot of postings from people with problems but very few answers
posted. Not sure what's going on with the world.

Sheldon, some web based forums are ok depending on what the subject is that
you are looking for, but from what I've seen in the way of anxiety/panic
forums, IMO, this newsgroup and other newsgroups on different subjects were
more beneficial. We didn't all have the right answers all the time, but at
least it was good support interacting with other people with some of the
same common problems who felt they had a place to go where people
understood. That is not something always easy to find anywhere. I can't
understand why people did not want to particiapte here any longer. Its not
like there was no need for a group like this or that it wasn't helpful to
many people. Maybe people got tired of the type of group, or maybe just got
tired of talking about the subject of this group. I really don't know. Of
course people are free to go where they want on the Internet and participate
in whatever groups they want or don't have to participate in any groups.
Maybe some of the old crowd here if they still lurk, will tell us if they
found any other anxiety/panic groups/forums or did they just get tired of
this newsgroup? I still go on a few other newsgroups, and some are not as
active as they once were, so its not just this newsgroup, but others as
well. It seems like people started to drop out when blogs and more forums
came into the picture. Two other newsgroups I still participate in, are not
as busy as they used to be, but still quite active.

Mary

[_TJ_]

Post by Mary
I can't
understand why people did not want to particiapte here any longer. Its not like there was no need for a group like this or that it
wasn't helpful to many people.

hi mary.

a few years back i noticed a general trend of people moving away from usenet to other
forms of one-to-many communaction. many news groups, if they were on the small size
like asapm, collapsed almost overnight, whereas bigger ones tend to be quite busy even
today (though none are as busy as they were at their peak before the rise of
blogs,forums etc.) it is very sad in the case of asapm because this type of support and
sense of community is very helpful and indeed it has helped me greatly more times
than i can remember!

i suspect it's too late to do anything practical about it now and i'm not even sure what
solution we might have attempted even when we had the chance. perhaps we could have
chosen to mass-migrate ourselves to one of the bigger mental health forums - somewhere like
www.depressionforums.org. maybe we could have made accounts with 'asapm' in the username like
asapm-TJ or whatever so we could have found each other again.

who knows how long usenet will survive? my last two ISPs didn't even have a server and i
currently have to use aioe! still, as long as people still pop their heads in here sometimes
looking for help i will try to be useful in some way. 8)

[Dennis]

Post by _TJ_

Post by Mary
I can't
understand why people did not want to particiapte here any longer.
Its not like there was no need for a group like this or that it
wasn't helpful to many people.

hi mary.
a few years back i noticed a general trend of people moving away from
usenet to other forms of one-to-many communaction. many news groups,
if they were on the small size like asapm, collapsed almost overnight,
whereas bigger ones tend to be quite busy even today (though none are
as busy as they were at their peak before the rise of blogs,forums
etc.) it is very sad in the case of asapm because this type of support
and sense of community is very helpful and indeed it has helped me
greatly more times than i can remember!
i suspect it's too late to do anything practical about it now and i'm
not even sure what solution we might have attempted even when we had
the chance. perhaps we could have chosen to mass-migrate ourselves to
one of the bigger mental health forums - somewhere like
www.depressionforums.org. maybe we could have made accounts with
'asapm' in the username like asapm-TJ or whatever so we could have
found each other again.
who knows how long usenet will survive? my last two ISPs didn't even
have a server and i currently have to use aioe! still, as long as
people still pop their heads in here sometimes looking for help i will
try to be useful in some way. 8)

Hello everyone! I'm still here. I've just been lurking for a while.
More in a little bit.

I agree that ASAPM is highly valuable, it always meant a lot to me and I
haven't seen anything comparable to it.

Dennis

[Mary]

Post by Dennis

Post by _TJ_

Post by Mary
I can't
understand why people did not want to particiapte here any longer.
Its not like there was no need for a group like this or that it
wasn't helpful to many people.

hi mary.
a few years back i noticed a general trend of people moving away from
usenet to other forms of one-to-many communaction. many news groups,
if they were on the small size like asapm, collapsed almost overnight,
whereas bigger ones tend to be quite busy even today (though none are
as busy as they were at their peak before the rise of blogs,forums
etc.) it is very sad in the case of asapm because this type of support
and sense of community is very helpful and indeed it has helped me
greatly more times than i can remember!
i suspect it's too late to do anything practical about it now and i'm
not even sure what solution we might have attempted even when we had
the chance. perhaps we could have chosen to mass-migrate ourselves to
one of the bigger mental health forums - somewhere like
www.depressionforums.org. maybe we could have made accounts with
'asapm' in the username like asapm-TJ or whatever so we could have
found each other again.
who knows how long usenet will survive? my last two ISPs didn't even
have a server and i currently have to use aioe! still, as long as
people still pop their heads in here sometimes looking for help i will
try to be useful in some way. 8)

Hello everyone! I'm still here. I've just been lurking for a while.
More in a little bit.

Hi Dennis, nice to see you are still lurking and posting.

Post by Dennis
I agree that ASAPM is highly valuable, it always meant a lot to me and I
haven't seen anything comparable to it.

I haven't seen anything comparable to it either. I haven't looked around
much though. This group was quite unique and very helpful people here. You
felt people here really cared about your struggle with anxiety/panic and
offered helpfull advice. You felt there was always people here who
understood the dynamics of anxiety/panic as lots of people don't know what
it is and have no understanding and think you can control it and sometimes I
can, but many times you can't control it. IMO, I think that is because it is
partly physical and partly mental. If the physical part comes first and is
strong, the mental part is not likely to be able to control the thoughts and
feelings which can be various symptoms, dizziness, faintness, fear, anxiety
about how you feel which is what I have some days and not others. I have
some triggers and situations which cause it, but other times in the same
situation, I don't have it at all. Its a very strange and puzzling thing. I
hate it. I still check and lurk here and sometimes post.

Mary

[Mary]

Post by _TJ_

Post by Mary
I can't
understand why people did not want to particiapte here any longer. Its
not like there was no need for a group like this or that it
wasn't helpful to many people.

hi mary.
a few years back i noticed a general trend of people moving away from usenet to other
forms of one-to-many communaction. many news groups, if they were on the small size
like asapm, collapsed almost overnight, whereas bigger ones tend to be quite busy even
today (though none are as busy as they were at their peak before the rise of
blogs,forums etc.) it is very sad in the case of asapm because this type of support and
sense of community is very helpful and indeed it has helped me greatly more times
than i can remember!

Hi TJ:
Yes, IMO, asapm is very well suited to people with anxiety/panic attacks
than any other group I've seen. It is more personal and the same people
always came here. I can't see how a blog or forum could replace it, but
maybe people who used to come here, with the exception of a few of us,
decided that they found somewhere else more helpful or maybe they just
wanted to move on and didn't feel they were getting the support here they
needed. I really don't know, but whatever reason, most of them from this NG
left and the group doesn't have many people left here now. I still check
this group every day and occasionally post or reply to someone who posts
here. Its really too bad that its deteriorated because so many people need
help with anxiety/panic/depression which sometimes all go together.

Post by _TJ_
i suspect it's too late to do anything practical about it now and i'm not even sure what
solution we might have attempted even when we had the chance. perhaps we could have
chosen to mass-migrate ourselves to one of the bigger mental health forums - somewhere like
www.depressionforums.org. maybe we could have made accounts with 'asapm'
in the username like
asapm-TJ or whatever so we could have found each other again.

It's an idea.

Post by _TJ_
who knows how long usenet will survive? my last two ISPs didn't even have a server and i
currently have to use aioe! still, as long as people still pop their heads
in here sometimes
looking for help i will try to be useful in some way. 8)

I've been with Aioe news server for several years now since my own ISP
stopped providing a news server for Usenet and I find Aioe very good. He
tries to keep everything running well and it's free.. He is just one person
in Italy who runs a news server and many people went to him when their ISP's
stopped providing Usenet. Eternal-september another free news provider for
Usenet is also very good. I still go on a few newsgroups. Most of them don't
have as many people as they used to, but a couple still have quite a few
posts (not asapm though :)

Mary