PsychMoo.com Gives Mentally Disabled Social Media of Their Own
When you're hurt, really hurt, you can get mad, you can get even, or you can get better — if it's not too late. When cyberbullies rough handled the Deutsch's autistic and bipolar daughter Marcie, she was driven into dark suicidal space.
Her family intervened to deal with the alternatives and chose the most unlikely way back: to create a social media site for the mentally disabled, their relationships and focused support.
Marcie's mother Robin explains, " PsychMoo.com like Facebook is safer and more protected" but PsychMoo is focused on the mentally interesting. It even gives access control to them.
"So many people out there with a mental illness are afraid to go onto the forums because of the cyberbullying," says Robin.
The Deutsch's live in Yelm, Washington, which Marcie says, " has more cows than people." And they also have cable. So the new broadband venture's logo is a cow.
Standing at Tulip's head is son Scott
, who built PsychMoo's software from scratch, using HTML, PHP and MySQL with the help of one friend during six months last year.
"The site is not only for people with mental illness," says Robin, "but also for families, friends, caregivers or anybody else who would like to offer help."
Family and caregivers in direct contact with the disabled often find the closeness stressful — sometimes resulting in their own isolation, or mental illness or both.
Robin, pointing to the screenprint's Emoticons below, says "PsychMoo is a fun place to go. It's easy to use, and you will be helping others who will be helping you. Who better to help than someone who is going through the same situation?"
The odd, the mentally ill, the disabled live at the fringe — some cast out as homeless or into prisons or mental hospitals and others, the lucky ones, settled with relatives, where they may be kept in a back bedroom.
The mentally interesting who keep their cool in somebody's home find isloation and electronic media — radio and TV, then e-mail, websites, blogs and social media.
Facebook's relationships and security design offers a suggestion rather than a model for PsychMoo. It's trying to be the shepherd, to break through isolation, stigma and mental disabilty to enable coping relationships.
Watch this one, see whether it succeeds.
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