The Mental Help Net Community is provided as a public service of CenterSite, LLC ("CenterSite"), a Columbus, OH based company which publishes the Mental Help Net website, and also provides website services to Community Mental Health Centers and Employee Assistance Programs via CenterSite.Net. "Mental Help Net" is a registered trademark of CenterSite, LLC.

The Mental Help Net Community (the "Community") is an online peer to peer support forum and blog system composed of various individuals (the "Members") who have explicitly signed up to interact and communicate with one another for purposes of mutual support with regard to mental health or life issues. The Community may also be consumed in a "read-only" fashion by other individuals ("Readers") who read the contents of the Community but who do not participate.

Membership in the Community is a privilege and not a right. The Community reserves the right to expel on a temporary or permanent basis any Members who are non-compliant with these Terms and Rules, and/or who otherwise abuses the Community.

Members are responsible for reading and understanding the Terms of Use (the "Terms"), and the Community Rules (the "Rules") appearing in this document. Members who persistently violate these Terms or Rules may be subject to disciplinary action, have their membership revoked, or be permanently banned from participation.

The minimum age to qualify for Membership in this Community is 16 years. No Member may be younger than 16 years old. Members who are found to have lied about their age are subject to immediate cancellation of their membership. The reason for this age restriction is to enable the community to discuss topics of a mature nature including sexuality which are not necessarily appropriate for a prepubescent audience.

This Community does not provide medical advice. No attempt is made by CenterSite to verify any claim of any sort made by any Members as to their qualifications as mental health professionals or otherwise qualified advice givers. It should be assumed that Members are not mental health professionals and that Members may not be capable of providing sound advice or counsel. Consequently, Members should exercise extreme caution when acting upon advice received from other Members, and should check with their doctor, nurse, therapist or other mental health professional before making any changes to any treatment plans that may be in place. Members' reliance on any information contained in this Community should be undertaken solely at their own risk.

The content of this Community is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified mental health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical or psychological condition. Never delay seeking professional treatment or advice because of anything you may have read on this site! If you think you may have a medical emergency, call your doctor or the emergency telephone operator immediately (in the United States dial 911).

CenterSite does not recommend or endorse any specific theories, tests, doctors or therapists (e.g., physicians, psychologists, social workers, counselors, or any other mental health professionals), products, interventions, procedures, opinions, or other information mentioned on this site.

This Community does not maintain medical or psychological records. CenterSite explicitly disclaims any duty to maintain any sort of medical or psychological record on behalf of any Member.

Pornographic or otherwise sexually exploitive content will not be tolerated within this Community and will be deleted upon discovery. Nevertheless, the Community may contain content that is sexually explicit, reflecting discussion of Member's difficult sexual issues. CenterSite denies responsibility for any damage Members claim to sustain as a result of consuming such material. Members and Readers who may find sexually explicit material to be offensive should not participate in or read content from this Community.

Pages within this Community may contain advertisements. Members and Readers who who may find advertisements to be problematic should not participate in or read content from this Community. Members who are offended by a particular advertisement should make their concerns known to Staff who might be able to do something about it.

The Mental Help Net website's privacy policy document is incorporated into these Terms by reference. The privacy policies described in that document also apply to this Community.

This Community is the private property of CenterSite, and as such, decisions about the disposition of community issues will be ultimately decided by authorized representatives of CenterSite who may include paid contractors and employees of CenterSite (the "Staff"), and Members who have been selected by authorized representatives of CenterSite to take on a community moderator role (the "Moderators").

Ownership issues aside, the Community ultimately exists by the grace of and for the benefit of its Members. Community Staff and Moderators shall always endeavor to take Members' wishes seriously when making decisions that affect the Community.

In all interactions related to this Community, Members must conduct themselves in a manner that shows respect for other Members and for Readers. Members should avoid judging others or devaluing their feelings and beliefs. Flame wars, harassment, disrespect and premeditated offense will not be tolerated and may lead to disciplinary action, loss of membership or ban. Examples of disrespectful behavior include but are not limited to personal attacks, character assassination, back-stabbing, name calling, posting of demeaning comments, posting of personal or private communications not intended for public exposure, repetitive preaching or evangelizing, expression of prejudice, etc. Racism and prejudice toward ethnic groups, sexual orientation, religion, disability or toward any other groups or categories will not be tolerated.

Censorship will happen from time to time to preserve order within the Community. The Community reserves the right to censor members' comments and contributions when they are judged by Staff or a Moderator to be inappropriate. When it is judged necessary to censor some content, the Community will endeavor to do so in a manner which is transparent to Members. When possible, a rationale will be published explaining why content was removed.

There are certain topics of discussion that are known, based on past experience, to threaten community order (e.g., to create great and unnecessary upset within the community). Discussion of such topics will be regulated and/or censored by Community representatives so as to protect the community from such upset.

For purposes of regulation of sensitive topics of discussion, all discussion occurring in the Community shall be divided into three categories based on the appropriateness of that discussion within the Community. All discussion content shall be rated as 1) Safe, 2) Triggering, or 3) Unsafe

By default, all topics of discussion are considered Safe unless they are explicitly listed on the Triggering or Unsafe lists appearing below (which may be amended by Community representatives from time to time as new circumstances develop). It is perfectly okay to discuss any topic that is considered Safe, and no censorship should occur.

At a minimum, assume that any discussion of the topics listed below is always TRIGGERING, and that such discussion may also be UNSAFE. Discussion of these topics can easily trigger other Members.

• Suicide. Suicide occurs when people takes action to end their own life. Suicidal Ideation occurs when people think about taking their own life.
• Self-Injury. Self-Injury occurs when people cut, burn, scrape or otherwise intentionally physically damage themselves.
• Violent Acts. Violent Acts occur when people intentionally harm or otherwise take action to inflict pain upon another person in a non-consensual physical or sexual manner. Examples of Violent Acts include but are not limited to: physical and sexual abuse, murder and attempted murder, combat, rape, torture, assault, trauma, etc. Violent Acts may have been committed or perpetrated by the poster, or the poster may have been the recipient of Violent Acts.

Discussion of topics in the above list is TRIGGERING if these topics are mentioned in passing and/or in not much detail and if the intent of the post is to aid the healing process and the process of grieving and moving forward, or to support others by way of cautionary tale.

It is okay to publish and/or discuss content judged to be TRIGGERING, but any posts containing such content must be marked as triggering by posting a Trigger Tag within the titles so that Members who are feeling sensitive or vulnerable can easily identify and avoid viewing them. If a special forum area exists for the purpose of segregating triggering topics from other safer topics of discussion, Members should try to make their triggering posts within that special forum area.

The following Trigger Tag should be used to mark the titles of posts which are defined below as triggering:

• [!]

For Example: " [!] I want to cut but I'm stopping myself "

The following varieties of discussion should be considered UNSAFE at all times. Unsafe discussion is never appropriate to post within the Community at any time, due to the frightening or disturbing nature of such discussion. Any posts which are judged to be unsafe are subject to immediate removal.

• Any detailed or otherwise graphic description or depiction of suicide, self-injury or violent acts
• Any post that attempts to glamorize, or justify self-injury, suicide or violent acts
• Any active plan or intent to commit suicide, self-injury or violent acts.

The Community is divided into multiple forums which are containers for discussion that allow discussion on one topic to be kept separate from discussion on another topic. Each forum is described by a title indicating its purpose. For instance, there is a Depression forum intended to be used by Members wanting to discuss Depression, and Schizophrenia forum intended to be used by Members wanting to discuss Schizophrenia. A General forum will be maintained for discussion of topics that do not have a specialized forum. Any discussion or content that is made to the Community in any forum is called a post. Whenever possible, please post within the forum most appropriate to your topic of discussion. If you are discussing Personality Disorders, for example, please post within the Personality Disorders forum. Community representatives may move posts to more appropriate forums if they were originally misclassified.

Religious and spiritual convictions (or the lack thereof) are a fundamental part of people's identities. Consequently, it is appropriate for Members to make religious or spiritual comments in any forum, subject to the general Respect for Members and Readers rule. It is never appropriate to put down another's religious or spiritual convictions, or to insist that your own convictions are more correct than another's. Posts which violate the Respect for Members and Readers rule are subject to censorship.

Apart from CenterSite-placed advertising, no other advertising of products or services is permitted on the forums. Members may, however, mention medications, treatments, books, programs, items, etc. they have found helpful as a means of discussion and support. Posts which are judged by Moderators to be more about promoting products than offering support may be removed or censored.

Scientific researchers wishing to make contact with Community Members are welcome to become Members themselves and to interact with other Members. However, content posted within the Community may not be used for research purposes unless special advance arrangements have been made. Community representatives will be happy to consider requests for data collection and may make special explicitly marked forums available for this purpose.

Please do not make duplicate posts in multiple forums.

Please do not "hijack" someone else's post. Hijacking occurs when someone replies to a post on a specific topic in such a way as to turn the emphasis of discussion within that post towards another topic. If you want to talk about a different topic than is being discussed in a given post, please create a new post.

Please do not use the Community as a dating service. Developing relationships with other members through private means is acceptable, but posting about it is inappropriate. Posts which advertise for a sexual or romantic relationship will be removed.

Staff may appoint multiple Moderators to help out with the administration of the Community. There is no formal nomination process for becoming a Moderator; anyone can nominate themselves or someone else simply by contacting Staff. Ideal Moderators will be responsible, reasonably emotionally and cognitively stable and oriented, compassionate and fair minded. There is no term of Moderation; instead Moderators serve at the pleasure of Staff who may remove Moderators from office as proves necessary.

Members should please show respect for Moderators at all times! Moderation involves work conducted on a volunteer basis for the good of the community and at the risk of making one's self a target for other Member's upset. Members may not always like or agree with what Moderators do, but they should always treat Moderators with respect for their contribution.

Disciplinary Action Against Moderators

"With power comes great responsibility" or so Peter Parker's Uncle Ben once said. Moderators have power within the community and they are held responsible for using that power fairly, wisely and within the boundaries set out by these Terms and Rules. It is a common problem within Communities that some Members come to believe that some Moderators (or Staff) misuse power for personal benefit. Complaints of misuse of power should be made at the earliest possible time so that problems do not fester or linger unnecessarily. So that the complaint process is maximally transparent to all, complaints, complete with any evidence that can be found to document them, should be made within the About The Community forum if possible. If this is not possible (because the complaining Member(s) are worried about retaliation), complaints may be emailed directly to Staff. All complaints will be evaluated carefully and dealt with as fairly as Staff and the collective group of Moderators can manage to make happen with an eye towards maximizing community stability. If a Moderator/Staff group cannot come to a consensus as to what to do, then Staff will make a final decision in consultation with one another.

Administrative decisions seldom please all interested parties, and thus dissenting voices are going to happen. It's okay to post dissenting opinions, but please make sure that all such posts are respectful and polite in nature, are designed to state personal opinions rather than to inflame or rally, and are made exclusively within the About The Community forum.

We'd very much prefer it if you can limit yourself to a single account and username per person. This is not a hard and fast policy right now and people should use their judgment (for instance, if someone who has Dissociative Identity Disorder feels the strong need to have more than one account). In general, however, please try to represent yourself as a single consistent person. More than one account and username per person tends to cause confusion within the community.

Please be mindful of other's sensitivities while creating or editing your accounts. Please don't create usernames that are likely to trigger other Members, or post pictures or avatars that are likely to be offensive to Members. If you alter your account in any substantial way, please make an announcement of that fact in the About The Community forum so that other Members know what has happened.

Moderators must be notified of any email change. Without doing so, the community software may automatically set you back into validation-required status.

Disciplinary Action Against Members

Most Members attracted to this Community will either be suffering from various mental and/or emotional disorders or illnesses or struggling with life crises that can lead to mood swings, temper flares and hypersensitivity. Under the circumstances, it is relatively easy for Members to find themselves attacking one another or to feel attacked by other Members. Members' actual bad behavior within the community is not excused by their various disorders, illnesses or crises, although such context will be used by Moderators and Staff in determining how such bad behavior ought to be dealt with.

Members who receive repeated warnings from Moderators or Staff regarding their behavior, or who demonstrate their inability to let go of an attacking posture towards other Members may have their membership disabled on a temporary basis or, if the situation warrants it, revoked on a permanent basis. Disabling a Member's account means that the Member will temporarily become unable to post to the community. However, the public contents of the community would still be available to them to read, and within a defined period of time, that Member would be able to rejoin the community and post again. Revocation of a Member's account means that the Member will be permanently banned from rejoining the community. Any permanently banned member who attempts to rejoin the community under a different name will have their new account revoked as soon as the subterfuge is discovered.

Substantial and permanent disciplinary action will never be decided upon by one individual Staff or Moderator. Instead, Staff and Moderators will discuss individual complains and take action when a consensus has been reached about what to do. If an incident is of severe enough nature, immediate action may have to be taken by a single Staff or Moderator such as temporarily suspending a Member's account until the group decision can be made. Such group decisions will be made as expediently as proves possible.