Depression Forums

Giving this site two stars because, while the folks here are very supportive, the general environment is not conducive to any sort of healing. After reading through many posts for a number of years, it's apparent people are there only to vent and not to get better. I have been on numerous sites and most hold people accountable for their actions (or lack thereof). Most also provide some sort of stability so that, if someone is dealing with a serious issue, they have access to the very best information and the site members adhere to strict guidelines. As an example, a member of this site posted, over several months, about his intent to kill himself, providing a date he intended to be gone. The members responding to him over time, in most circumstances, provided encouragement and suggestions to help him make arrangements. This person killed himself. This was reported to 2 separate admins/mods and they gave no more than a shrug. Please don't visit here if you are feeling bad.

This forum is nothing but one big advertisement. I was a member there for a number of years, and there are/were some wonderful people there, many of whom helped me through some rough times. But over time, the place became deluged with ads. I shouldn't have to be coerced into donating with the the promise of an ad-free site. I post on many sites that are ad free and donating is strictly voluntary. One of them is a mental health/suicide prevention forum.

Mental health support shouldn't be a commodity and running such a site as a 'for profit' business is just wrong.

The draconian moderation and ridiculous censorship just adds insult to injury..

If you run into issues or need help, the TOS claims that you can report to them, but you are actually ignored. There is also no "delete account" button or any way to deactivate your account on DepressionForums without reporting it to an admin, and good luck with that if you do, because they don't reply to reports, and they provide no help whatsoever. You can't edit posts or delete them, you can't change your username either - you have to ask an admin or moderator to do that for you, and again - they will not get back to you. I have been waiting for over a year for them to get back to me and they still have not. Save yourself the trouble and find a different forum.

I think they are supportive but am thinking that they are funded by drug companies and could be biased by head moderators. Other sites probably sponsored by therapist as a way of getting customers. I'd like to find a real non biased not for profit.

Been on the site on and off since 2007. Old account from 2013 to 2020. Majority of the members are lovely people and help support each other. And have helped me throughout the years.

My first run in with Lindsay the site owner I messaged her after being advised to by another moderator to regarding a topic made last year. I wanted to know if she could delete it or possibly edit it. The next morning i logged on after nicely ASKING if she could help and she didn't understand my message. I explained again and she replied 12 hours later saying she was tired. I explained again and she copy and pasted the 'TOS' terms of service. It didnt say anything about not editing posta out so i asked her AGAIN.

I was then shocked when i had an inbox back with her accusing me of telling her how to run her website that she has been running for 15 years. Basically i dont matter and she has other members to deal with.

I replied at this point telling her who she thinks shes talking to and that she must enjoy bullying people. Obviously used to people being scared of her. She also inviting her wntire mod team to help back her up. Next day after I told her what i thought of her my account was banned.

Very strange lady. Again the community is lovely and i even donated stupidly. I have saved the prnt scrn but honestly wouldnt recommend visiting there.

I'm pretty disgusted. Certain members can post negative comments about other members, or hate on women and nothing gets done. I get a vile member who preys on vulnerable people, nearly push me over the edge and he gets protected, it is all swept under the carpet, yet his posts slandering a member stays. Very damaging atmosphere, toxic. Also no links aloud, but link asking for money for member of staff is, sounds iffy.

The site owner, Lindsay, is an abusive and unstable person. Sometimes it sounds like her sense of reality is pretty distorted, hence she definitely shouldn't be an admin on a mental health peer support forum. Misogyny is rampant on these boards, yet members asking for e.g. name change get scolded. The atmosphere was better some years ago, when there were a few sensible mods around who actually cared for the people of the community. Nowadays this site is a hellhole and I'd never recommend it to anyone suffering from a mental illness.

This forum's motto: "No one should be alone in this. We can help." offers a very powerful - and even life-saving - message: even if your depression has rendered you socially withdrawn and isolated, we're here for you online with help and support.

Unfortunately I recently learned that this just isn't true.

When my brother's secret battles with horrific emotional turmoil finally came to light, I was forced to confront tragedies about his reality which I never thought possible.

Going through his emails, I found that he'd joined depressionforums.org a couple years ago. That was sad enough, but then I found his replies to comments written by other members of depressionforums.org. The same kind, caring, and helpful big brother that I've always admired and loved had been giving other people his encouragement and offers of support. I guess it's like they were trying to redirect their focus, from negative to positive - instead of suffering alone in their depressing thoughts, this forum was their safe place to connect over the illness they share in common and help each other get better.

It appears my brother only got to post a few times on depressionforums.org before he stopped using it altogether. His email inbox only shows me his initial registration on this forum and any replies from other members who were reaching back out to whatever my brother posted. The replies from these members were really nice and it taught me a lot.

I signed myself up on depressionforums.org and searched the site for my brother's posts, and then I realised why he never got the help that this site markets itself on: he was banned.

I spent hours that afternoon combing through depressionforums.org to make sure that I hadn't missed anything that my brother posted there which violated the site's rules. He truly only got to post 3 separate times before they banned him without explanation; two of his posts were merely his words of encouragement to others battling this illness, and the other post was where my bro opened up (to a bunch of nameless, faceless strangers) and began sharing some of his experiences with feeling sad and how none of his complaints to his doctor were ever taken seriously.

As a newly registered member of this ridiculous forum myself, I made sure I read the rules and regulations carefully so that I could comprehend what could lead a support group to ban someone who was seeking the support they promote themselves as offering.

It's sickening that depressionforums.org has reserved itself the right to ban any member without warning and without explanation.

My brother's three posts were not offensive in any way, nor did they violate any of the forum's stated rules.

So the moderators at depressionforums.org reserve themselves the right to unilaterally ban any member without notice and without explanation. And once a member has been banned, the site's functionality is no longer available to them.

Googling "banned from depressionforums.org" will, sadly, reveal that my brother truly wasn't "alone in this" after all. DepressionForums.org has a history of banning other sufferers as well. But we can only learn of depressionforum.org's ridiculous practice from those brave few who survived to warn us about it online.

This place is rampant with abuse, from the site owner, to the members to a few of the site moderators. I had a very bad experience on this site and will NOT be returning. I got in trouble for reacting to someone else's extremely rude and harsh comments towards me by a heavy handed moderator, while that person skated away scott free. This particular moderator seems to change her mind frequently and cannot decide how she wants to be. I've seen her initially support a member who is getting abused, then punish that same member for not letting the conversation die, clearly being upset about it. I had been a member a while there, and experienced toxicity from many members. It made my mental health worse, not better. They also seem to ban members they simply don't like. Unfair treatment. They make up TOS that are not even written.

There are a lot of nice people on this site but the owners and administrators, in particular Lindsay, are abusive and unstable.

The site is plastered with ads which are often moving and flashing. The site is obviously making money off the advertising but still solicits donations, which bothers me. I found another site which is ad free and prefer this.

I'm surprised by the negative reviews cos i've been to this site for a decade and they are very supportive people. Sure the mods had irritated me a few times but as a person with mental illness i always find only myself to blame and i really had no one else in real life and i always end up coming back here and they took me back with warm open arms. Rules and rules, get over the fact that some rules are there for a reason. The people here are very nice and helpful.

Beware. The top admin administrator of this site, Lindsay, is a mental psycho case who should NOT be running a site for mental health support. She clearly does not understand nor follow the simple and basic rules of mental health services herself: compassion, understanding, and support. She is abusive towards members for minor incidents, she far overreacts in situations of conflict, is not objective, and is not supportive when someone is clearly in serious need of mental health support. She clearly has some serious mental health issues herself that interfere with her ability to remain objective and compassionate towards members. She should not be running this site! I give one star because the members themselves are for the most part truly wonderful, along with the website moderators, but the site owner should not be in mental health services, so beware!

I joined a year ago after having reviewed several similar sites. I have found members to be very supportive. People share ideas and experiences. Moreover, it's a place for something we all need - to know we're not alone. Members also share their successes, no matter how small. The staff does monitor the postings on the site to create a safe space, which I consider great benefit, especially considering how vulnerable people using such sites can be.

They are making profit from it, wanting donations and then wanting staff to work for free and money isn't getting spent on the site
Greed is ruining the site and the owner living off of the income

This skte is great in the setup, much of the content, many of the members of the community there and what you can do. However, the site has been around for a decade or more, a lot of the material that has been posted in that time has not been organized or edited. Just about any information you might be looking for is hard to find. Users can be quite informative, supportive, uplifting and sympathetic. However, the people who run the site ARE irrational and verbally abusive. The volunteer moderators are not getting paid and are essentially her "hench men." They are quite heavy-handed on the site and abuse their power frequently. While most of the users are pretty nice, some can be quite manipulative and malicious. I ultimately found that my mental health was better off by not spending time on the site. It's a pretty unfortunate thing. Hope this is helpful.

I've been part of this forum for several years and am stunned at the negative reviews here as I have experienced it as a fair, positive space.
No forum/ setting works for everyone and I guess giving exaggerated negative reviews can be a form of venting about personal disappointment.
Check out the forum and see for yourself if it's a community that will provide you with good depression support.

DepressionForums.org considers ourselves a safe haven and does not permit "wine" and "beer", etc., and replace "substance" instead as we have many recovering members who do not need to see the improper posts against the TOS before they are moderated.
We protect our members.
Be well-
Forum Administrators

I was a member for several uneventful weeks. That was until I posted a question about why there is no discussion on a relevant topic. A couple of persons posted that discussions about depressionforums itself was not allowed. Fine. I posted something to the effect that that is stupid, I am done, delete my account. I sent a message to the administrators to delete my account. I thought it was all over. I was in for a surprise.

I received multiple page long abusive emails from the owner of the website going into great detail about why I am the world's worst person. As a sign of peevish childishness he told me he was refusing to delete my account he will ban me instead. Fine. I thought it was all over.

After I was banned I have still received long abusive emails detailing how awful I am. I have told him to leave me alone, never contact me again and stop the harassment. He has refused.

If you have depression that last thing you should do is go to this website run by bizarre abusive persons.

I posted something on that anhedonia subforum last year. It was horrible. People there said anhedonia is not a part of depression because depressed people can still happy. That is so wrong. And some people often talk bad things about their own therapists because they think their therapists are stupid and the people on those forum are mental health experts.

Lack of supportive people on that relatively small forum, and the forum mods are not active there either. Don't trust that site, guys. There are lots of better support forums on the internet.

I go to 7cups.com now, they're way much better. Lots of supportive people who are willing to listen. This is not a promotion, by the way. It's up to you whether you want to check it or not.

I had a similar experience the first time I posted. I wanted to share a success story about a medication that others were interested in. Part of my post made mention of pretty bad headaches I got with draft beer and red wine. The words "beer" and "wine" got auto-changed to "alcohol" which made no sense at all! I thought I was crazy, and that maybe I was just tired and kept typing the word "alcohol"! It also confused me into thinking that the editing function was broken.

I came back an hour later and was unable to edit my post any longer. I started to ask the mods for help, and each time the story was the same: sure, I can help. Then I would give them my corrected text and they would just disappear. It's now 24 hours later and I have approached 7 moderators without success! I have now asked the board admin for help, which surely will ring the death knell for my account there.

The only useful info I have found out so far is that the forum software is set to replace the names of types of alcohol with the generic term "alcohol". This, according to site policy, is to prevent fragile ethanol abusers from hearing the trigger-word that their CIA handlers have implanted in them via mind-control techniques. Say "wine", "beer", or "Hennessy" and they will reflexively top themselves. FFS.

Update: I ended up in their "moderation queue" for being a troublemaker. As others have said, this heavy-handed approach is no way to treat people who come and give freely of their time for the benefit of other people in need.

This website is horrible, which is a shame because there are a lot of terrific people on there who I wish I could talk to some more.

On my first day, one of my posts was moderated. I replied to somebody who mentioned they want to stab themselves in the chest. They removed any reference I made to the act. I understood this at first, because there ARE suicidal people reading who might feel urged to hurt themselves.

But it just kept going from there. Nitpick after nitpick.

Their censorship policies are also very questionable.
At one point, I misspelled "post" as "pot" and noticed it was auto-changed to "urn." I questioned this, and they said that discussion of drugs is more or less forbidden on the forums. I found this hilarious due to the fact that not only is a "pot" a common kitchen utensil (and a topic that could come up in every day conversation,) but "urn" is nowhere close to being a suitable replacement for the word, and that for some, urn could be a reminder of death and a trigger.

I got a very snarky response back, this time from the founder of the site (meaning the person I spoke with about it actually relayed it back, as if I was some sort of a problem member) telling me nobody is forcing me to use this site, and that I'm lucky my username ("joshdammit" which she let me know she found offensive) wasn't changed, and that my "demands" are "unreasonable." She explained away her reasoning behind why "urn" is a suitable word ("you can also pour water in an urn." OH YOU CAN?) and ended with sarcastic "We hope you find this definition of the word suitable. We go out of our way to make sure you are 'comfortable.'"

Inexcusable behavior from the owner of a site that encourages its users to purchase premium subscriptions.

On top of this, the site is atrocious to use, bogged down with ads and needless coding, and difficult to navigate.

I will never return to this site again.

I have bad experience in this site too, I recieved a disappointing private message. I didn't reply to try to reason with them, coz I don't think things will get better, and also I don't want to go on and on. But instead I got a second letter from another staff, which is very firely. I was total shock that they would send me a second letter.

They falsely accuse me and blame me. But there was nothing to be blame.

I wouldn't discuss the colour of orange juice with the admin of this website.

I was given a "warning" for daring to discuss with an admin (very clearly and abuse free) why I had started a particular thread under a particular section. When I then tried to message one of her peers about it I was sent back a "ROFL smiley" and told not to waste his time. When I told the website owner about this I was banned from the website altogether. No explanation no discussion. Poor.

You would think being a depression website they would be a bit more understanding but nope!