Rio Fantastic
Bluelighter
Hello,
I'm sad to say that tonight I had an experience on this forum that shocked & disappointed me. I've always loved Bluelight, I thought it was a fantastic forum and the best of its kind by far. I did (and still do to an extent) consider it a great place for knowledge, advice, support & entertainment, and it has become indispensable to me for learning, debate, sharing opinions and just to have some fun, and it's become one of the very small & exclusive list of websites that I visit daily.
I have always assumed that if I was in need or required help that there were so many caring, informative and intelligent users here that I'd always get some kind of help. I figured if I had a general question about drugs than the huge amount of intelligent & smart users would be an invaluable resource in either answering it outright (BDD/focus forums) or providing clues or some small amount of knowledge that would help put the pieces in the puzzle together (NPD). I figured that I ever needed a little support when it came to my mental health or addiction that I'd be able to get *some* here from one of the warm & kind people who spend time everyday to help people frequenting here (TDS, sober/healthy living). Bluelight also was my go-to place whenever I just wanted to shoot the shit with some strangers and toss an idea round or start a debate with like-minded people (DC, OD, EADD) and obviously there's no better place to find people who are really on the cutting edge when it comes to interpreting and discussing the results of new research in psychopharmacology and discussing brand new psychoactives that have just been made available for public consumption.
So I hope it's understood that I really do appreciate the value of this forum, and that I always will. However, when I needed this forum the most, I was completely let down. Today I was with two friends and one of them unintentionally took an overdose of heroin, and (somewhat bizarrely considering it was an intravenous injection) he was fine for about three minutes before he started nodding mid-sentence and then within a minute he had lost consciousness. We both started slapping him and poured cold water on him, and when he wasn't coming round we started to panic. Obviously, we called an ambulance, and then my friend remembered Dave mentioning he had naloxone vials. The problem was that neither of us knew how to administer an I.V correctly, and at this point with Dave still being unresponsive, we started really panicking. Whilst Andreas was looking for the naloxone, I frantically posted a thread here begging for help on how to IV. I ensured the title was capitalized as I wanted to get the attention of the people browsing. In my blind panic, I cross-posed it to every subforum I could, refreshing each in the interim. I figured, considering the subject matter and due to the fact that it was such a simple request for anyone who's injected drugs, I was sure to get a few replies.
I must have posted the same thread to like ten subforums. Whilst I was doing that my friend tried to do it, missed him and shot one of the vials into him anyway and nothing happened. I had a suggestion to IM it, which I tried. The ambulance did arrive eventually and they managed to revive him and then took him to hospital, which is where he is now. I was totally, totally shocked to find I still only have two replies. Nobody bothered to answer the original thread question, there was one guy be nice and kind enough to reply and check the thread and elaborate on what he said, and I am eternally grateful to the guy. Truly deserving, IMO, of his moderator title, a really genuinely nice dude. The other person who replied was basically just looking to show off how smart she was and didn't even bother to reply when I asked her to tell me what on earth she meant with her acronyms and specialist terms.
My point is that even with by the forums own count hundreds & hundreds of people looking at the subs, with THOUSANDS at least who must have seen the thread come up on their feed or when browsing (it was a thread in all caps cross posted to a bunch of forums) only TWO people out of THOUSANDS could be bothered to help someone in a literal LIFE OR DEATH situation. Most people were so apathetic that they couldn't be bothered to type out a reply that could save someone's life. I am 100% certain I would have gotten four times as many replies if I posted a thread like "What does MDMA effect in the brain?", I would have probably gotten twenty replies in that time period, because everyone on this forum knows MDMA effects serotonin, but a ridiculously high amount of people think that they are intelligent for knowing that, and just can't wait show everyone how fucking clever they are (I'm sure plenty of people have noticed this, thus why in every single thread like "how long do cocaine comedowns last?" instead of a simple timeframe every dumbass will answer "well u jus gotta wait for ur dopamines to come back up, so usually a couplke of hours" and feel like fucking Albert Einstein for it), but when I was asking a question that I'm certain plenty of people know the answer to, based on how many shooters we have here, only two could be bothered to answer, and out of the two only one actually really gave a fuck.
My suggestion is simple - a forum for truly urgent questions that is highlighted in some ways so that it stands out against the rest - for instance one that's at the top of the forum so it's seen straight away and where the thread titles stand out in some way (perhaps bold or italics) when looking at the feed of new post to demarcate it from the rest, and I'm sure there are other ways that can be figured out to make it more noticeable. The forum could be reserved for truly urgent questions for example obviously imminent ongoing overdoses, accidental drug ingestion, potentially dangerous combinations that have been combined, a friend exhibiting dangerous/suicidal/psychotic behavior on an LSD freak-out etc. I think questions like mine shouldn't be totally ignored by an entire forum centered around harm-reduction, and I just think that the apathy in the face of death, even of a stranger, is absolutely shocking for a message board who's entire ethos is the prevention of harm. It's really made me "wake up and smell the coffee", so to speak. Perhaps I was being naive in thinking that's what this forum was about, and maybe I was being a little childlike thinking that in the first place - perhaps lip-service is paid to the concept of "harm reduction" to justify a forum that's centered around the discussion of an illegal subject. But alas, I figure even if the so-called "focus on harm reduction" is a bit of a smokescreen, my suggestion would still be a positive thing for this forum.
In addition to, or if preferred maybe instead of, maybe a chat room could be added to Bluelight as well, where anyone who's knowledgeable can stay on in order to provide real-time harm-reduction based advice for urgent & ongoing situations, and perhaps anyone's who generally caring and so inclined could spend time there to help people, and could be notified in some way when people sign onto there. I know I for one would spend time on there whilst I'm browsing BL and help people any way I could. I'm a generally solution-oriented kinda guy, and I figure there's no point bitching and moaning about how horrified and disgusted I am with the uncaring apathy I received here tonight, and instead should at least try to make sure that in the future nobody has to go through the same infuriating & depressing ordeal.
I'm sad to say that tonight I had an experience on this forum that shocked & disappointed me. I've always loved Bluelight, I thought it was a fantastic forum and the best of its kind by far. I did (and still do to an extent) consider it a great place for knowledge, advice, support & entertainment, and it has become indispensable to me for learning, debate, sharing opinions and just to have some fun, and it's become one of the very small & exclusive list of websites that I visit daily.
I have always assumed that if I was in need or required help that there were so many caring, informative and intelligent users here that I'd always get some kind of help. I figured if I had a general question about drugs than the huge amount of intelligent & smart users would be an invaluable resource in either answering it outright (BDD/focus forums) or providing clues or some small amount of knowledge that would help put the pieces in the puzzle together (NPD). I figured that I ever needed a little support when it came to my mental health or addiction that I'd be able to get *some* here from one of the warm & kind people who spend time everyday to help people frequenting here (TDS, sober/healthy living). Bluelight also was my go-to place whenever I just wanted to shoot the shit with some strangers and toss an idea round or start a debate with like-minded people (DC, OD, EADD) and obviously there's no better place to find people who are really on the cutting edge when it comes to interpreting and discussing the results of new research in psychopharmacology and discussing brand new psychoactives that have just been made available for public consumption.
So I hope it's understood that I really do appreciate the value of this forum, and that I always will. However, when I needed this forum the most, I was completely let down. Today I was with two friends and one of them unintentionally took an overdose of heroin, and (somewhat bizarrely considering it was an intravenous injection) he was fine for about three minutes before he started nodding mid-sentence and then within a minute he had lost consciousness. We both started slapping him and poured cold water on him, and when he wasn't coming round we started to panic. Obviously, we called an ambulance, and then my friend remembered Dave mentioning he had naloxone vials. The problem was that neither of us knew how to administer an I.V correctly, and at this point with Dave still being unresponsive, we started really panicking. Whilst Andreas was looking for the naloxone, I frantically posted a thread here begging for help on how to IV. I ensured the title was capitalized as I wanted to get the attention of the people browsing. In my blind panic, I cross-posed it to every subforum I could, refreshing each in the interim. I figured, considering the subject matter and due to the fact that it was such a simple request for anyone who's injected drugs, I was sure to get a few replies.
I must have posted the same thread to like ten subforums. Whilst I was doing that my friend tried to do it, missed him and shot one of the vials into him anyway and nothing happened. I had a suggestion to IM it, which I tried. The ambulance did arrive eventually and they managed to revive him and then took him to hospital, which is where he is now. I was totally, totally shocked to find I still only have two replies. Nobody bothered to answer the original thread question, there was one guy be nice and kind enough to reply and check the thread and elaborate on what he said, and I am eternally grateful to the guy. Truly deserving, IMO, of his moderator title, a really genuinely nice dude. The other person who replied was basically just looking to show off how smart she was and didn't even bother to reply when I asked her to tell me what on earth she meant with her acronyms and specialist terms.
My point is that even with by the forums own count hundreds & hundreds of people looking at the subs, with THOUSANDS at least who must have seen the thread come up on their feed or when browsing (it was a thread in all caps cross posted to a bunch of forums) only TWO people out of THOUSANDS could be bothered to help someone in a literal LIFE OR DEATH situation. Most people were so apathetic that they couldn't be bothered to type out a reply that could save someone's life. I am 100% certain I would have gotten four times as many replies if I posted a thread like "What does MDMA effect in the brain?", I would have probably gotten twenty replies in that time period, because everyone on this forum knows MDMA effects serotonin, but a ridiculously high amount of people think that they are intelligent for knowing that, and just can't wait show everyone how fucking clever they are (I'm sure plenty of people have noticed this, thus why in every single thread like "how long do cocaine comedowns last?" instead of a simple timeframe every dumbass will answer "well u jus gotta wait for ur dopamines to come back up, so usually a couplke of hours" and feel like fucking Albert Einstein for it), but when I was asking a question that I'm certain plenty of people know the answer to, based on how many shooters we have here, only two could be bothered to answer, and out of the two only one actually really gave a fuck.
My suggestion is simple - a forum for truly urgent questions that is highlighted in some ways so that it stands out against the rest - for instance one that's at the top of the forum so it's seen straight away and where the thread titles stand out in some way (perhaps bold or italics) when looking at the feed of new post to demarcate it from the rest, and I'm sure there are other ways that can be figured out to make it more noticeable. The forum could be reserved for truly urgent questions for example obviously imminent ongoing overdoses, accidental drug ingestion, potentially dangerous combinations that have been combined, a friend exhibiting dangerous/suicidal/psychotic behavior on an LSD freak-out etc. I think questions like mine shouldn't be totally ignored by an entire forum centered around harm-reduction, and I just think that the apathy in the face of death, even of a stranger, is absolutely shocking for a message board who's entire ethos is the prevention of harm. It's really made me "wake up and smell the coffee", so to speak. Perhaps I was being naive in thinking that's what this forum was about, and maybe I was being a little childlike thinking that in the first place - perhaps lip-service is paid to the concept of "harm reduction" to justify a forum that's centered around the discussion of an illegal subject. But alas, I figure even if the so-called "focus on harm reduction" is a bit of a smokescreen, my suggestion would still be a positive thing for this forum.
In addition to, or if preferred maybe instead of, maybe a chat room could be added to Bluelight as well, where anyone who's knowledgeable can stay on in order to provide real-time harm-reduction based advice for urgent & ongoing situations, and perhaps anyone's who generally caring and so inclined could spend time there to help people, and could be notified in some way when people sign onto there. I know I for one would spend time on there whilst I'm browsing BL and help people any way I could. I'm a generally solution-oriented kinda guy, and I figure there's no point bitching and moaning about how horrified and disgusted I am with the uncaring apathy I received here tonight, and instead should at least try to make sure that in the future nobody has to go through the same infuriating & depressing ordeal.