Child Abuse Survivor

My wife, and a bunch of her friends, have been using the social network Pinterest for awhile now, and being involved in the online community, I couldn’t help but notice how popular it is becoming. Always being one to want to check out new online tools, and a bit of a geek, I knew eventually I would give in and try to understand what all the fuss is about.

The one mental hurdle I needed to get over what that Pinterest was mostly for sharing recipes and fashion tips. Oh there’s plenty of that, but you won’t find that on my profile.

I did, however, think that Pinterest could be an interesting way to share some resources, and reading recommendations, for abuse survivors. They are still in the early phases, (at this point I’ve shared a couple of resources and have added a few of the books we’ve reviewed on the News and Reviews site in the last few months to the pin boards.), but if you’re a regular Pinterest user, you can either follow my profile, or just the pin boards aimed toward survivors.

It’s all part of trying to take some of the things we share here to you, wherever you are online. You can also check us out on other social networks:

Become a Fan on Facebook!

Add Site to your Google + Circles

Follow on Twitter

If you read this site through Facebook or an RSS reader, you will need to click over to the actual blog to see this, so I thought I would point it out just to make you aware of it.

With this being a new year, I thought it would be a good time to try and highlight some of the posts that have been written here in the 10 years this blog has been around, in one form or another. So, I’m using a WordPress plugin called Time Machine to create that list of posts written during the current week of previous years. You can see the list over on the right-hand sidebar, under the “This Week In…” heading.

Try not to judge those early writings too harshly!

You may have noticed the weekly “links” post that gets dropped into the Survivor News and Reviews feed and picked up in other places like Facebook and Twitter on Sundays. If you’re interested in seeing those same links, only in real time when I add them individually instead of in the weekly wrap up, you have myriad choices to do that as well. They start out on my Diigo account, then through the magic of If This Then That, they go out on both my Twitter, and the Facebook page for this site.

If you’re following either of those, you’ll see the links as they get added, give or take 10-15 minutes. You’ll also see various other things I share as I come across them in those channels, that aren’t necessarily showing up here on the blog.

I’m also toying with a few other ideas, but not ready to commit to them just yet, and trying to figure out how a Google+ page fits in here as well. I’m trying to use it more, both my own profile and the pages, but that lack of automated import is hard to get over!

I’ll be sure to keep ya’ll posted!

Now that Google has released Pages for Google Plus, I’ve gone ahead and made a page for this site. Now, you can be “connected” to things around here, anywhere you want.

Google Plus Page

Facebook Page

Twitter

RSS Feed

Subscribe by Email

There you go, we’ll keep writing here, you follow whatever way works best for you!

Due to some spam, and possible hacking attempts in the installation of the Survivors Network, I’ve taken the whole site offline.

It may not be coming back. A big part of the reason for this happening was my inability to keep up with it, and keep the software installation up to date. Since there hasn’t been much activity over there in recent months, it’s very much been out of site, out of mind. Perhaps I will make another attempt at hosting a discussion forum or some other tool for survivors who wish to remain anonymous, but for now, if you aren’t afraid to put your name up as a Survivor, you can follow the latest updates to the site, and have some conversation with other survivors, over at the Facebook page.

Just wondering if there are any survivors using Google Plus? I was thinking of creating a survivor circle on there and using it to share articles or other interesting things that I either don’t take the time to write up as a blog post. Mostly I want to see if it’s easier to use that as a sharing service than the current way I’m using Twitter and the Facebook fan page.

So if you’re on Google Plus,  look me up and let me know you’re out there so I can add you to the Survivors Circle and share things with you. If you’re not on there, and want to check it out, leave a comment and fill in the email address, and I’ll send you an invite. If you really don’t want to use yet another social network, feel free to connect on Twitter or the Facebook fan page too. I will still be sharing some things there as well.

Also, in case you’re wondering, with all the various social networking tools available now, I’m not seeing much of a need for the Survivors Network. Frankly, hosting it and keeping the software up to date might be more work than the value anyone seems to be getting out of it right now. I haven’t made any firm decisions yet, but someone is really going to have to convince me to keep it around.

It’s not just you. The network site is not loading for anyone. I know that it’s not working, but I do not have any idea what’s causing it.

Unfortunately, this being my last week at my current job, and next week being when I move to another state, I’m also at a loss for time to investigate what’s going on and get it fixed!

I will look into it as time allows, and post an update when I know more. I’m sorry for those of you who have been checking in there regularly!

Just wanted to get a post out to address a couple of things that have come up now that a few folks have started wandering in to the Survivors Network site.

First off, if you try to register and never get the email confirmation, please check your spam filters and see if it’s getting filtered. If you still are unable to locate it, drop me a line with the username you want to use, and an email account to send the login information to.

Secondly, yes, you have to enter both a username, and a name when you register. (It’s a function of the software that I cannot change, and there are some logical reasons for it..) No, it doesn’t have to be your real name if you don’t want to use your real name. However, if you do, feel free to. Also, yes I need you to enter a real email address, but I am the only one who will see that. In the future, there may be other site admins who would have access to it as well, but it will never be public unless you choose to make it public.

Once you’ve gotten registered, feel free to join the different groups, or form a new one. That’s where the discussion forums come into play, within the groups. If you have any problems, feel free to join the Network Help group and post a message there. I do check it fairly often for new messages.

As many of you know, back in September I shut down the Survivors Network as it existed, due to some issues with the level of privacy and anonymity of the Buddypress infrastructure. As I mentioned then the Facebook page has been getting quite popular, and there had been some interaction going on there as well, but I wasn’t completely satisfied with that as the answer for creating a community of survivors. Mostly, that’s because you have to have a personal Facebook profile and use it to “like” the page in order to interact, so if you’re looking to remain anonymous, that’s not a great idea.

So, after some searching, and much testing, I have found a way to lock-down the Buddypress install. In a nutshell, if you don’t have a profile on the network, you can’t see anything. Nothing will be seen, nor can it be indexed by search engines, so no worries that someone will find your Survivors Network information on Google.

Now, since this really is a re-launch, and I know some folks weren’t thrilled with suddenly having a profile here when I migrated everything over from Ning, I’ve also decided to start over from scratch. I deleted all the members, all the posts, all the forums, etc, and started a wholly new network.

So, I present you with the all-new Survivors Network. If you’re interested in joining the community, feel free to create an account and check it out. If you’re happy to just follow along on the Facebook page, feel free to continue to do that as well. If you just want to read the blog posts, and comment here, feel free to do that as well. The Network is simply another option for Survivors, and their supporters, to connect and share information and support. It will be what the members decide it will be much more than what I decide.

See you over there!

Ken from NursingSchools.net was kind enough to send me an email informing me that this blog was included in their 40 Excellent Blogs for PTSD Support.

I’m touched that they thought this little blog of mine was worthy of being included, and I highly encourage you to go take a look at he whole list. Some of them are folks that I’ve read before, but quite a few are new to me. I’m looking forward to reading them as well!

Thanks Ken!