I feel like once a month these same kind of posts come up about what is supportive or not supportive.

I think the question is actually somewhat loaded. Because I'm going to go on a limb and say we are all here to be supportive. That is our intent. It is not our intent to be unsupportive.

But at times, because we disagree or have differing opinions or perspectives, it may come across as unsupportive. I think as listeners who are asking for support, it would do us all good (myself included) to breathe and remind ourselves that whomever said something hurtful probably did not intend that. And I think that if we can calmly say, "thank you for trying to be supportive, but I do want you to know that that line of thinking is invalidating to me and not very helpful right now, so let's go this way." Just like you'd tell your therapist, "hey, I don't want to talk about that right now, I can't handle it."

I think it's common that we are so upset (again, myself included) that we believe everyone who even looks at us means to harm us. So we lay that context of being defensive on every reply we read.

My therapist always tells me to slow down. We want to shoot off a reply to hurt the other person the way they've hurt us. But they're trying to help us, even if they don't fully understand or are even misguided by old traditions, whatever.

I think it would be helpful for us all to remember we are all here to help each other. I really don't think anyone is here to intentionally hurt other members (aside from the few trolls that get in occasionally, as any place).

I know it's hard to ask ourselves to be compassionate to others and think of others when we are the ones hurting, but it's what is necessary for effective communication here. (And yeah, I know I'm not always the best at this. I'm learning too, and human too.)