Healthful Chat

Fairly new still. I've struggled with bipolar for years and truama. Grief and loss. They seem friendly. Idk was looking for a place to belong when not ok and feeling bad. Chatters and mods alike have tried to help me. And slowly seeing a difference in how I feel. Just not being alone in my head is huge. Thank you Astrid for your help. Won't forget it.

I've been using this site off and on since 2013, and while I've met some less than great folks, the mods will always handle them if you ping them. And they have an /ignore feature that I've had to use more than once. But the rooms themselves are nice, especially for a free support website. I hang out in the lounge a lot, but go to ptsd, lgbtq, and bpd for the support I need on bad days. Philo is a mess though, stay out of there if you can. It's all just racists and bigots in there.

The site is filled with individuals claiming their disorders and whatnot. However, none of them are professional mental health specialists. So, they bring their own ignorance and character faults into the chatroom. The Moderators and Room Assistants show favoritism towards certain long time members and abuse their power in standing against a targeted party. So, bullying does occur among chatters and moderators. I would not support this room. Please seek a licensed professional for mental health concerns.

Though some of the users can be nice the mods tend to be over zealous, there are many things you can't discuss and if you discuss any one topic for too long they'll ask you to stop- and if you don't your banned. This hasn't happended to me but I've seen it with issues about parents, abortion, addiction, LGBT issues. So I would say this service really isn't inclusive and others have highlighted that the mods can and actually do bully.

The healthfulchat lounge, is the worst chat site I have ever visited. It's a wonder they are still in operation.
The mods are all power hungry and show favortism certain chatters.

I've been a chatter on the site a number of years. I found it when I was in a bad way. It helped me feel like I wasn't alone. That I wasn't defective. When the right people are in, it can be a very supportive an amazing place. I read the rules so I knew not to talk about certain topics. Yet, I was able to talk about why I felt the way I did. It's not a crisis place. No professionals. Chatters and mods alike have seen me through at times I didn't think I could make it or want to make it. I will be always be grateful.

It bothers me that just about anyone can become a moderator of the site if they go through the trouble to do so. They admit, in fact, that the people who apply for it are mostly previous room members who suffer from mental health issues like many who view their site do.

They are by all means regular people. Like regular people, they can sometimes get a bit aggressive toward others. They can be snarky, cruel, dogmatic, single-minded, and all those not so wonderful things.

But they shouldn't be. I find in my experiences the moderators of this site can be very sour individuals who often put others into adversarial positions in which they hold power over them.

They aren't above kicking someone when they're down and making smart-$#*! remarks either. They aren't above a lot of things. Which is why you can't expect them to react with the regard for others you would expect them to in all their interactions. They don't hold themselves to that kind of standard.

This is the worst mental health chat room to join. The members of the mental health chat rooms are very judgemental. If you say something they do not like. The members will ignore you, and mistreat you, They will judge you and hold it against you. The moderators are enforcers. The moderators constantly abuse their power. The goal of the moderators is to enforce the rules and to punish people who break the rules. The moderators do not care about the members. They have no compassion, empathy, mercy and forgiveness. The moderators also have favourites. The also have favourtie people they bully as well. The members are very negative.

To, be prefectly honest this chatroom oveffers any kind of support at all. This chatroom is nothing short aof a joke. The chatters constantly bully and harass other chatters for being gay, etc. I cannot believe in this day and age there are still a lot of ignorant people in this world.

While most of the mods are okay, but they do nothing, except Strawberry-Maiden and Forever.
All of the mods do not take your complaints and if they do not like what you are talking about, even if it is a netural topic, they say: MOVE ON! MOVE ON!
There are a lots of weirdos, especially in the bpd chatroom who basically talk about sexuality (despite there is a room about sexuality - the LGBTQ) and asking if you are a ''gay'' person or not.
Generally in most of the rooms you are only allowed to do small talk, nothing about mental health issues, like you' ve lost your job, you were raped, hurt, beaten, feeling suicidal or any other form of excessive complaining.
The users in bpd chatroom are especially vindictive and make fun of you and invalidate your negative experiences, woes, sorrows in life.
If they do not like the intensity of your complaining and feelings they will call you a troll and you will be kicked for 48 hours or more.
Basically, the site is pointless - you are not allowed to talk about suicide, mental health issues, depression, anxiety, self-harm, traumas in the rooms, only in private messages - but you got to ask in main if anyone is wanting to have PM with you.

Worthless, worthless site, power-hungry admins and mods, lots of invalidating and offensive folks.

The mods are corrupt on this site and tonight was the worst for me. I love a lot of the folks here and was talking to a girl but got muted and couldn't continue and despite my protests, this particular female moderator by the name of Forever decided that I was spreading too much shade and banned me for 48 hrs. As of this Saturday evening. I said enough was enough and decided to put this here. I have autism, depression, and anxiety from years of childhood and teenage abuse and despite my story, most of them couldn't have cared less. This has happened every night non stop all week long and this weekend was hard as I lost a dear friend and didn't know it till yesterday.

The contact form doesn't even work when I tried to complain, this person said "I don't know why." Without a verification image, it won't go through. This clearly to me was intentional as a year ago the form worked properly and I used it to report a user who abused me online. This site is broken by design and the mods are too heavy handed and want to play favorites. Literally, we're at the mercy of them but with few other options what can be done?

The place is ok for distraction like if you want a chat to distract you then it's ok, but no real support but that's because there are no professionals and it's like just talking to a bunch of people who don't know anything about working through problems. They all say "distraction helps" but it doesn't.
The moderators are not like when you go to group therapy, they're there to kick people etc not to help you with your issues, so no point asking them for help, because they're not counsellors or trained.

Don't know about the moderators in general but did see Forever kick a guest for making a joke by saying "peer support and pear support, because pears need support too" first she said don't make that joke then the chatter did it again and she kicked them - seemed ridiculous especially since a guy called Stayahome78 was calling someone else a d--k and she didn't say anything to him, so it's understandable why some reviews say she doesn't like guests.

Anyways, if you want real help you have find somewhere with professionals or people with some kind of training because this is only peer support so it's regular people and all they say is "distraction helps" but it doesn't really help because after distraction, you're still no better off.
If you want distraction then it's fine but for real help you have find somewhere else.

Yes, as you can see I borrowed from Dante Alighieri to emphasize my words of warning to anyone who decides to use Healthful Chat for emotional or social support. I have been a chatter therein for a number of years; I am an educated adult and hold a professional degree and current medical license. At the same time, when I found myself in personal and medical crisis, I looked to this site for camaraderie and as a source for practical tips and pointers. To be clear my role at Healthful chat is that of a chatter; I do not disclose my clinical background. My experience resonates with just about every other reviewer's here: the moderators are unqualified: they have no knowledge of group theory/practice and are woefully uninformed as to clinical issues. While a number of of moderators misuse power in place of wise discretion, other moderators are simply just ignorant, and would have been better off remaining in the role of chatters. As for the chatters themselves, most (in my experience) are people in need of support. However, many chatters end up in the wrong rooms and remain undirected -- often resulting in chaos to the room in which they are misplaced. Admittedly, there are a few so-called "trolls" however, these appear to be former chatters who at some point erupted in frustration, or were falsely accused, and now remain to lick their wounds. Overall, most chatters are human beings in need of fellowship and solace. I remain out of loyalty to a few fellow chatters. However, I strongly issue a cautionary note to those considering using this site: "Buyer beware... you get what you pay for."

Don't believe the good reviews here, most likely fakes to boost the rating.

The first month I used the site, I literally just logged in when I got kicked by Astrid, a mod, rudely accusing me of terrible behavior. I logged in again and asked her in main chat of depression What's up with her kicking me out and accusing me of something when I just logged in. I got no reply. I was upset so I left.

My experiences in this site are horrible. Men wanting sex talks, scammers, even pedos. I've noticed that people in the main chat are primarily composed of people who have no jobs, in disability or relying on gov't funds, entitled people who hates rich/wealthy people and thinks gov't should be able to give them better support/more financial benefits, men who treats the site as a dating site, and those who constantly just complain about their life without making real effort of changing their situation, and adults acting like kids. I've also encountered porn links on site, and mods can't do anything about it.

Mods are all volunteers and also have mental health issues as they are chosen from regular chatters on the site. People who got kicked out can just log back in within seconds. Even banned people can somehow still log back in. Ignore feature does not really work because every time you log out or the ignored person log out and back in, the ignore is gone so you have to do it all over again.

This is the site to go to if your purpose is just to complain about everything in public. If you are serious about getting help, this is the worst site to go to as you will just get constantly triggered. If you stay in this site for a long time, your mental health issues will not get better, and would just get worst.

7 cups has better support as you can find normal (not mentally ill) people who gives great advices.

I actually liked this site. It helped to see that I wasn't alone. I guess I got what I needed from it. It also helped kill time when I had trouble sleeping or I was having bad anxiety. Now I'm back to feeling alone.

I can never be sure why I was banned but the only conclusion I could come up with was that it was due to my internet being down. The internet was down and I didn't know it so it connected me to a saved hotspot nearby. It said connected so I thought I was good. It must not be allowed to do so. If you do use it delete your saved wifi hotspots before you do. After it said banned I thought it was a mistake so I used it from someone else's house and it was okay. Well then I went home and it said my ip had suspicious activity. I don't know what that means but I'm guessing it had to do with me using it from different homes and maybe due to the internet switching to a hotspot. Either way when I got that error I was like oh that sounds awful. Suspicious? It just sounds horrible. Didn't help with my mental health at all. I agree that the moderators can be a bit too harsh but they usually give people second changes. They will say stop talking about this or that and if you don't you are temporarily kicked out of the room. I didn't have any bad experiences with them. I tried using the contact us button to try and explain what it could be but I never got a reply. It's my own fault for not reading the rules carefully I guess. Although for something that can get you banned I'm surprised they don't put it in the chat rooms