[E] Top 7 [online] Fora
Reddit
Aether.app
GuteFrage (German)
Quora (EN)
Woman.ru (RU)
Stackexchange – EN language
Stackoverflow – Coding
What was I thinking back then? [it’s been a long time since I’ve written this list!]
1. Reddit
Reddit has outstanding subreddits such as:
- https://www.reddit.com/r/CPTSDNextSteps/
- https://www.reddit.com/r/restofthefuckingowl [noooo, it’s GONE :(] that pic served as its inspiration: https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/eccj2/how_to_draw_an_owl/
- https://www.reddit.com/r/thanksimcured/
- https://www.reddit.com/r/CPTSD/
- https://www.reddit.com/r/NoFap/
- https://www.reddit.com/r/degoogle/
- https://www.reddit.com/r/deapple/
- https://www.reddit.com/r/DeFacebook/
- https://www.reddit.com/r/wowthanksimcured/
- as well as many others
2. Aether.app
Aether.app is AMAZING – its privacy features are top notch. Furthermore, after you’ve posted a question it’ll be deleted after a certain time period, meaning, just like disappearing messages work on Signal, you don’t need to panic about having posted sth. inappropriate a long time ago; the downside of course is that due to evanescent nature of the posts, good ones are also only allowed to sojourn. I had a few very interesting discussions over there.
3. GuteFrage
In Germany, GuteFrage is a nobrainer; there are indeed great posts out there and you can expect help of sb. else. For CPTSD though I find English or Russian posts to be more useful. As for suicidality, it’s shocking how frequent posts occur for acute help.
4. Quora
For the English content, I’ve found Quora to be a great GuteFrage equivalent. There is a great much content incl. on topics such as CPTSD and abuse. Furthermore, I believe Quora is also a great platform to publish your own blog [posts].
5. Woman.ru
Now you may laugh because of the droll choice of the domain name, LOL. When it comes to CPTSD, abuse as well as other topics, people on woman.ru often give really good advice, incl. links to great Youtube videos in Russian. Overall, I find the website to be a great resource on the Russian-speaking part of the interwebs.
6. Stackexchange
Initially I only had 5 items on this list but I desperately wanted to expand it to 7. I was able to find a great much of help on Stackexchange when I had a question regarding learning English. I still believe though that exchange with friends, particularly with Natives will give you overall faster learning experience and I use the following websites when I’m having a question alongside a conventional Startpage search where Stackexchange if often listed at the top:
- Cambridge Dictionary online: too look up the meaning of new word (phrases and idioms in particular) as well as see examples of how a specific word is used; I believe it is the best dictionary out there not to mention the option to listen to the pronunciation as well as see it phonetics both in British and American English.
- Thesaurus by Cambridge’s contender Oxford/Lexico is hands-down the best resource I know for looking up synonyms empowering me to use more sophisticated words every now and then.
- dict.cc is my favorite translator from German to English and vice-versa; it also has a great app (to be used offline) but psst, don’t tell your English teacher.
- DeepL Deepl has become a gold standard for translating longer texts. It is outstanding for languages such as German and English and from what I know even professional translators use it day and night. To preserve privacy and not store your results in Deepl’ local database they offer you a Pro subscription
- Linguee These days I use this website very rarely but it offers a great search functionality to see how the words are used across the interwebs.
- **Youglish **is a great website which will show you random videos using a particular word. I remember once friends of mine wrongly criticized me for using a word ‘also’ instead of sth. like ‘too’. Via a quick search on Youglish, C. was able to find out that not only was ‘also’ a correct word to be used in that context, but, moreover, it used significantly more often.
- Urbandictionary. Particularly when watching CameraConspiracies but also other Youtubers I am often unable to fully grasp the meaning of certain slang they are using. For these purposes I use urbandictionary. Be aware though that some explanations are crazy and not to be fully relied on.
7. Stackoverflow
Finally, Stackoverflow is an absolute nobrainer when it comes to finding answers to technical problems incl. coding; despite my aversion towards IT, I’ve found myself on Stackoverflow night and day trying to fix my linux issues.