I thought I made a real friend on here... As it turns out... I made a fool of myself.

I'm sorry you are hurting. There are many good people here as well. I don't know exactly what to say but I didn't want to let your post go without response at all.

Thank you. x

Karlat, I'm really really sorry to hear that. It sounds like maybe it was private messages with someone possibly. I have questions for you, but don't post your answers, just for you to consider. Were your messages with a regular poster here, or somebody new? If it was someone new, and you think they are like a predator, please send your information to steve and marsha if this is someone that needs to be banned from the forum. I'm sorry for how you are feeling, it's hard if we take someone into our trust and then they throw it in our face. I've never met a regular person on here that isn't a good person, yes I have my spats with people, but they're still good people. But we have in the past had new people come along that were felt to be predators and were banned. I think using pm's can be a great way to get extra support, I think a good rule would be to see if the person has done many posts on the forum, and to read some of their past posts, to give you a better idea if this is someone you want to confide in. You can do that by clicking on their name and that will bring up their profile info. Whatever it is, lots of love to you hon (((hugs)))

I am so sorry that you were let down. Would you like to PM me with more information?

I really feel sad about this. I met my husband and my best friend in the MGH HD chatroom and some life long friends here in the forum so I know that it is possible to make good friends in the HD community. Perhaps the two of you seemed to be on the same page but really were not; that happens with neighbors and people we meet in person too. However, if someone is an actual user or scammer, we need to take action. I know that years ago there was a man who pretended to be all sorts of characters in the old Lighthouse chatroom and that happened again on facebook last year (different person).



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/16/2014 01:52PM by Marsha.

Yes a few private messages and I made him my facebook friend shared about my family etc.

Sorry I just dont know what to think.

One thing that I learned early on in the HD community is that people's participation varies over time and that is okay. There are caregivers, for example, who participate regularly and then a crisis occurs and we don't see them here or hear from them because they are busy with extensive caregiving duties. There are people at risk who reach out for support when they decide to test and after awhile they decide to focus on career, hobbies, in person relationships because they aren't symptomatic or caring for anyone and they don't want to give HD too much of a focus in their lives before they have to.

This is fine; if HD community participation is helpful to people, they should participate and if they need breaks, they should take them. There is always support and information to be had, it just isn't necessarily going to be from the same individuals over time.

And in fact, it was time for me to take a break from writing about research and I have been doing that for about a year and a half. I need to organize my house and life and I have new grandchildren and it isn't a good time for me to be getting up and starting my day by reading several research articles.

I too sometimes am in the mood to offer support, but sometimes I need a break from this site to re-charge. For my situation the person I love isn't really affected by HD yet (maybe just in the first mild stages) and there is not a family history, so I'm not dealing with it day to day and it's sort of easy to put it on the back burner and take a break sometimes. It doesn't mean that I don't care about it. But it has to hurt when you think you have found someone who seems to give you comfort and strength and then they abandon you. Sorry that happened to you. Please don't feel like a fool...try to get rid of that negative energy. That person should feel badly for causing you hurt. Whenever something throws off my son, I tell him to learn what he can from it and then let it go and move on.

Thank you everyone...