Texting for Help During the Coronavirus Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting isolation have spiked anxiety, stress, and grief—and a text-based crisis hotline has strategies to help people cope.

[light music][dramatic music][cell phone ping]- [Nancy] We were kinda built for this moment.We've always been an army of amazing crisis counselorsat home on their couches in their jammies.Crisis Text Line is 24/7 help at your fingertips.It's all things, so suicide, depression, anxiety,eating disorders, domestic violence,it's a one stop place for people whoaren't able to cope productively.One of the best things about Crisis Text Lineis that it's not an app.You don't have to download it,you don't have to go through an intake survey,or pay something, or fill out a long form.Um, it's just text.It's like texting your best friend or your mom.It's, in the United States, 741-741.And the first question we ask is,"What's your crisis?"We're here for your pain and so, that's where we start.[melancholic music]- From the very beginning,we believed that there should be an organizationthat crisis is based built from the ground uparound data and technology.We use date internallyto inform our decision makingand improve our training.So, insights like the wordsbrave, smart, and proudare three of the most impactful wordsthat you can share with anyone in crisisbecause it shows them how to be strong.It helps them stay safe in the future on their own.The second way we use data is externally.We believe that the entire space of mental health,associated journalism and researchersneed compelling rich data sense that can informnot only identification of a problemso, rate to suicidality, depression, anxiety.But also what works is solutions.- This is a moment for physical distanceand social connection.There are these physical things that happenso the virus, the loss of a job,and then the quarantines happenand that's good for flattening the curvebut there's also these echoes of mental health issuesthat we expect to see for a very long time.We've also, we've seen the COVID traffic in two waves.Basically the first wave was,is still anxietyand that's largely following the map of the stateswith the largest number of testing positive cases.Um, so we're seeing a lot of anxiety there.And we always knew and it has now surfaceda second wave.The second wave is two fold.The impact of the virus itself.So, things like grief.Things like, asking about their own symptoms.And secondly, the impact of the quarantines.So, before this we saw 6% of our texterswould reference the word "home".It would talk about things happening at home.Now 14% of our texters reference the word "home".And home has a 2x increase in domestic violence,child abuse, substance abuse.All these unintended consequences of franklybeing trapped at home with abusersand trapped at home away from yourself care routines and mechanisms.- The language that they're usinginclude words like fear, panic, frantic.Intense words of anxiety stemming from Corona Virus.And more intense than we've seenin the past associated with anxiety.- The pain is magnified in the most marginalized people.We're seeing the percentage of our LGBTQ texters increase.Um, so now more than 50% of our texters identify as LGBTQ.Um, secondly, the percentage of our texterswho are low income has increased.Right now 32% of people texting ussay that their household income is under $20,000.So we are talking to the poorest people in America.Normally, about 5% of our texters identify as Asianand now that's north of 10%.And that's identified a lot withbullying, harassment, depression.It's a tough time right now withpeople being particularly cruelabout the origin of COVID-19.But the beautiful thing is typically about10% of our applicants to be crisis counselorsidentify as Asian.

But right nowpeople applying to help strangers in pain27% of them identify as Asian.It's inspiring and beautiful to see thiscommunity of people who are being targetedand harassed and are feeling a lot of pain right nowturn that pain into wanting tovolunteer to help other people.- Coping in the case of COVID meansidentifying a short time frame.- Shrinking this giant overwhelming thing,this giant unknown overwhelming thing into smallerbites of time, like, "What are you going to do tonight?"to distract yourself."What's your plan for tomorrow?" To stay strong.So tonight and tomorrow is really helpfulin people feeling stronger.- Another one is how to create routinesand establish habits.

So talking about sleep,talking about exercise on a regular basis.And the third thing I would saythat we've seen helping texters is normalizing pain.So,using phrases like"It's normal to fee freaked out right now."or, "Yeah, it's okay to be stressed out today."Saying, "it's okay to feel it, it's normal."- There's some good news here.There's some things that we've discovered.So, in the 15 states with the highest COVID rateswe've seen a word that is pretty hopeful.They're using the word "courage".That's pretty nice to see.And then there's one word that really makes me feel goodthat we're seeing that is a positive word.And that's the word "mom".It's that grounding and family relationshipsand uh, that's kind of great.