People are frustrating....

I agree with what you are saying but. Some people on here think they are Doctors and like they been skinny all their lives.  I made a post a couple days ago and I did get offended because people are telling me about myself and trying to diagnose me.

That's why some of the newbies and oldies get bent out of shape about it.

If that were the case in one of my posts, then that would be the time I'd laugh, roll
my eyes or whatever & move on. I will not let anyone ruin my day by some post. Only
you know what's going on with you & only you know what you are doing, nobody else.

No, no one thinks they are doctors (I assume you mean physicians rather than PhDs) and everyone here is very much aware that they spent much of their lives fighting their weight. 

If you are referring to those of us who strongly warned you and the other poster about chewing and spitting, I would like to point out that several of the people who attempted to warn you about the psychological dangerousness of this are mental health professionals.  No one attempted to diagnose you, just warn you -- for your own good and for the sake of other people considering starting that nonsense -- that you are playing with fire. 

Clearly you think you know more than we do about eating disorders, though... hopefully someone else will benefit from the warnings.

Lora

There are quite a few people who post on OH who have medical training (Doctors, Nurses, NP's, Midwives, EMT's, etc etc) as well as a few qualified psychologists and social workers.   They offer you their knowledge, not as YOUR Dr, Nurse or Therapist but as a peer.

There are also people that have no qualifications but are usually upfront as to where they get their knowledge (research and experience).

You get all this knowledge and no co-pay - it helps not to dismiss EVERYONE as an amateur.

I have been on here since 2004 and believe me, this place is unicorn farts and rainbows compared to those days ... I have seen people's jobs and personal lives threatened by people on OH - it *can* be a very ugly place and for every poster there are probably 10 x that who lurk!

In the 8 years I have been here, I think I have started one, maybe two threads on this board - not because I know everything but because I have been able to find the answer to every question I ever had by looking at past posts, and often by reading back a page or two!!!!!.

I do talk about my private life but I don't treat this like my twitter account or FB - I'm not comfortable putting my **** out there for everyone to pick over and dissect. This IS a public forum and with the exception of some people on here who I have met IRL or are FB friends, I have no clue who anyone else really is ... why would I want to lay out my deepest fears etc??

We really should just put what we are comfortable having strangers pick over and expect to get all and every opinion on whatever we choose to post!

Agreed

AGREED 2nd

It's one thing to come on here to get the answers you want to hear or think you are
gonna get & another to come on here to learn. I choose to come on this forum to
learn from others. The only local support I have where I live is my husband & kids
& a local support group. My family is all the way on the east coast, which they are
supportive but they are still far away & don't know what it is to go through this. So I 
come on here. I love this forum & it has been so helpful & I have learned so much
& am grateful for every response that someone has taken the time to give me.

One of the things I think is that it's so much harder to convey real emotions or I should say the "Tone of your Voice" when people are reading posts and because you can't really hear the voice telling you this information although they are saying it from their heart we can misinterpret it as the opposite tone very easily.  I have often seen how my moods could affect how I read answers to posts on here. Maybe I'm in a bad mood and I think everyone on here can be posting in a bad mood and therefor their responses could be said in the mean tone of voice.  But since I recognize how easily it is to not know the tone of voice in which a post was made I make myself be conscientious of this and not let things bother me too much on here.   If I'm having a bad day I'll step back if I feel otherwise and come back at a later time are reread the post and I read it in a whole different frame of mind and it really doesn't sound as bad as it did when I had read it earlier.

 Exactly!