I've eaten soup, crackers, and apple juice.

Sick food is boring.

I also bought some of that frozen rice that I've been mocking for years.

I've found warm pajamas and a snuggly blanket, and now I'm watching SVU.

I'm about to head to bed, but first...

I have a confession to make. I set up this "tapes" discussion this afternoon for use and analysis for a project I need to do for school. I will be having this same conversation in three different discourses (here, by e-mail with a friend, and in person with a different friend) to analyze how the different discourses allow the conversation to progress and the meaning made during the conversations.

Please let me know if you have a problem with me using your posts for this analysis. This is just for a class at school. This is not for anything further than a project that will be seen by one of my professors, and maybe some classmates.

I hope that no one has a problem with me setting this up in the way that I did. I think it was a really interesting discussion, and I enjoyed it. I’m looking forward to analyzing it further. But, I hope it doesn’t break any trust that I have built with the board.

I don't know where to begin with my problems with this. I mean, I didn't say much in response to your topic, because it felt false to me from the get go, and because I'm already so tired of watching this thread turn to doom, gloom and drama on such a regular basis.

When I thought it might be organic, I confined myself to expressing my frustration off the board. When I thought it might be organic, I confined my reactions to thoughts along these lines: I was already feeling down today, but that thread is killing me. It's the all-therapy-all-the-time thread. I can't take it.

Now that I know it was staged for a project, without an explanation up front, I'm just pissed.

When we turn (devolve) into what I think of as "The couch," organically, I don't publically object, despite the fact that I often think it gets way unhealthy in here. I realize other people feel differently, and I am glad that people I care about have a safe space to talk about what's weighing on them, even if I think too much fluffing happens here, for HUGE drama over small issues, on a regular basis.

But this? Projects aren't safe space. Manipulating the community into participating in the project isn't friendship. It's puppet mastery.

It's the quintessential risk of hanging out with psych majors.

Cindy, I get where you are coming from, and if it is the wish of those who participated in the conversation that I not use it, I won't. That's why I'm asking.

And yes, I did set it up to a point. But, it came from something that was said by someone. It didn't come out of nowhere.

I do not like the idea of a conversation generated for homework.

I do however, think the conversation itself was interesting, and I'm glad to have read it. I've never done therapy. I don't know these terms--so not only was it further insight into the posters of the thread, it was insight into the mental health process.

vw, you need to give people the choice of whether or not to participate in something before they participate, not afterwards. That's the basic principle of informed consent.

Taking part in a project, no matter how informally, can't be based on the manipulation of events by the investigator. It invalidates your data.

Jen, you're right. And I didn't do this right at all. And, I know better. I'm sorry guys. I'm taking this off the table. I'm sorry.

It was a good discussion. And, I'm not sorry that we had it.

It was a good discussion. Thanks for stepping up and apologizing, though.

It was amazing how many of those "greatest hits" I recognized.

I really have to agree with Cindy. I didn't even post about my mental bad-talk tapes, and now I'm glad that I didn't. As for the people who got truly upset by this exercise, I feel really sorry for them. If I had been one of them, I would be furious. You basically asked people to talk about what makes them feel shitty about themselves. Who wants to deliberately dredge up painful issues? And then, to find out that they dragged their ugliest monsters out of the closet of angst, simply for a project?

vw, I understand the type of project that you're working on, but the subject you chose is one that manipulated people's feelings in a huge way. That's not fair, to do that and then reveal after the fact that you initiated the topic because it was a homework project.

Was there no other type of question you could have asked? Or was it part of the homework assignment that it must be an emotionally charged question?

I'm already so tired of watching this thread turn to doom, gloom and drama on such a regular basis.

That was my first thought, actually -- "This is the exact wrong thread and the exact wrong group of people to be asking about all the rotten things they tell themselves."

But then it seemed to go well for quite a while, until people started mentioning how reading other people's mental tapes, and thinking about their own, really upset them.

I know my tapes. I've hauled them out in this very thread time and again. But I did so knowing that I would be met with sympathy and kindness and genuine concern -- not treated like an experiment.

I don't care...I write about myself all the time. But I do think that means whatever you got wouldn't be worth much as research material.