This community is built on respect and kindness first. People arrive here on some of their hardest days, and how we treat each other in those moments matters more than being right, being clever, or having the last word. Disagreement is fine; contempt is not.

We hold this as a judgment-free space. Mental health struggles, medication questions, relapses, family conflict, and hard feelings are all welcome topics — no one here should be made to feel ashamed for what they're going through or how they're coping with it.

We also treat lived experience as real expertise. You don't need a license to know something true about anxiety, grief, or recovery — you just need to have lived it. At the same time, lived experience is personal, not universal: what worked for you may not work for someone else, so share as your own story rather than as a prescription.

Meridian's community is anonymous by design, and keeping it that way is everyone's responsibility. Never share your real name, date of birth, home address, phone number, email address, employer, school, or any other detail that could identify you or someone else — including a provider, a family member, or another community member. This applies even if you're trying to be helpful, such as offering your own contact information to someone in distress.

Use a display name only, and treat it the way you would a username on any public site: it shouldn't contain your real name or other identifying information either.

If you see a post or reply that includes someone's protected health information (PHI) or other identifying details, please report it right away using the report button so a moderator can remove it quickly. Don't quote or repeat the information in your reply, even to warn others — reporting is enough.

If you or someone else is in immediate danger, don't wait on a moderator. Visit the crisis resources page for numbers you can call or text right now.

Moderators review flagged posts and replies and remove content that violates these guidelines — harassment, spam, PHI or other identifying information, and dangerous medical advice all get taken down when reported or found in review.

Moderators do not provide clinical advice or crisis intervention, and they aren't a substitute for the crisis resources above. Their role is to keep the space safe, not to answer medical questions or manage a mental health emergency.

Moderation here also respects the same anonymity everyone else gets: moderators cannot see your IP address or any identifying information about you. Reports and reviews are based only on the content itself.

Every post and reply has a report control, marked with a small flag icon. Clicking it sends the content to the moderation queue for review — it doesn't remove anything immediately, and it doesn't notify the person who posted it. If you're ever unsure whether something crosses a line, it's always fine to report it and let a moderator make the call.