Category: Articles

Please read through our Internet Safety Tips. We do our very best to keep our chat room safe. You can safely click on URLs we have posted on our website, but we can't guarantee that URLs posted from chatters are safe.

1. Avoid posting any personal information online, like your address, email address or phone number.
2. Before you click on a URL, check what the URL says. Be sure that it is a URL from a domain you can trust, or use a tool to check if the domain is safe.
3. Never give your password to anyone. No matter if it's a friend or a family member.
4. Be careful when posting pictures or videos of yourself online. Once a picture is uploaded to the Internet, it will stay there forever.
5. Don't befriend people you don't know on social media, like Facebook, Instagram or Snapchat.
6. Remember that not everyone online is who they say they are. Always be careful about trusting people you don't know online.
7. If someone is making you uncomfortable online, block the person or leave the website. Our chat room has an ignore function that you can use to block members who are making you feel unsafe.
8. You can contact one of our hosts if someone makes you feel uncomfortable or unsafe, or you can contact us through email.
9. Think before opening email attachments. Do not open email attachments from people you don't know, or companies you don't trust.
10. If something sounds too be good to be true, it probably is.

If you get an email from Depression Sanctuary, make sure that the email domain is @depressionsanctuary.org. We will never send you an email from any other domain.

Useful websites

Snopes.com - A fact checker website.

Scamadviser.com - Check if a website is safe.

Nomoreransom.com - A website that can help you if you get a "Ransom Virus". Is a project by Europol and other international law enforcements.

Whois.com - Let you find out who owns a domain

Facebook.com/safety - Facebook's Safety Center

We are proud to introduce you to our brand new chat room software. The new chat room have all of the old features, and some new.

# Chat everywhere - Our new chat works in the same way on all computes, tablets and phones.

# Friend list - You can now make your own friend list. This allows you to send messages to your friends even if they are offline.

# Private chat - We are reintroducing one of our previous functions; private chats. You can now have a private chat with other chatters.

# Chat rooms - You will find all our current chat rooms; main room, chit chat and sensitive topics.

# Profile picture - You can now upload your own profile picture. It will be displayed in your profile, and will be visible next to your username.

# Text settings - You can now personalize your messages even more! You can now add text color, background color and more!

.. and much more!

If you need help using the new chat, feel free to contact our technical support.

Dear Members,

You may have noticed that we have added a new chat room: Chit Chat. We realize that people have many different needs. Sometimes, you need to discuss very serious topics and know that you have the full support of the room. And, sometimes, you need to simply be around other people and distract yourself with lighter conversation. Most of the time those two things coexist with each other quite well. But, sometimes the room topic becomes too heavy or triggering. Or you just don't feel like talking about depression, but want to be around people. Or you're having a good conversation with someone that's off-topic, but you really want to continue it without disrupting the support that's going on. Now, when these situations come up, you can grab a friend and head over to the Chit Chat room.

We hope you like it!

There are some new features on Depression Sanctuary, and we hope you will like them!

What's new?

Private messages - You can now send private messages with other users on the main site. It doesn't matter if the user is offline or online. Don't want the private messages-feature? No worries! You can easly turn them off in the settings.

New profiles - We have freshened up the profiles. You can now write a short biography, select gender, country and languages you speak. Don't want anyone to see your profile? You can change your privacy setting in the settings.

Notifications - If someone messages you, you will now get a email notification. You will only get this notification if you haven't been online in one week. You can turn notifications off in the settings.

Verified profiles - Not sure if a user is a host/staff? Users that are hosts/staff now have a verified profile. After the username there is a blue icon!

Contact a Host - Do you want to send a private message to a host? No problem! You can now see a list over all the hosts, and send them a private message. Click here to find the list.

Have you seen our other features?

Questions & Answers - Did you know we provide a "Questions & Answers"-service? No questions are too big or too small. Our staff and members are answering your questions - and it's free!

Ask a question - Something you want an answer to? Try to ask us a question. Our staff and members are answering your questions - and it's free!

Calendar/Schedule - Sometimes the chat room can be empty. You can check out our calendar to find out when a host will be online in the chat. Every time we update our calendar you will get a notification on our website.

In need of technical support? Click here, and we'll help you.

Ever wanted to add an avatar to your profile? It's possible with technology from Gravatar.com. Here's the basic information about Gravatar and how it works.

Click here to get started with Gravatar.
Click here to read Gravatars "Help"-section.

Dear Depression Sanctuary Members,

Unfortunately when we migrated our site to a new hosting service we found that our old member database was built with outdated tools and could not be salvaged. What this means for you is that you will need to register again before you can use the chat room. Please register using the same username as before. We apologize for the inconvenience and really appreciate the fact that you stuck with us through the past few weeks as we sorted things out.

Nancy and the Depression Sanctuary Staff

Having trouble with using the site or chat? Contact us at tech@depressionsanctuary.org.