Two women in their twenties, Jade and Annabelle, sought online peer help for their mental health struggles.
Both discovered an unorthodox source of aid: a Discord channel operated by It All Begins Hear SG, a social company established to give community mental health support.
The online platform Discord, which is mostly utilized by gamers and hobbyists, was created in 2015, but gained popularity during the Covid-19 pandemic.
It enables the creation of servers that like-minded individuals can join to communicate by voice, text, or video. Channels can be curated for diverse interests or themes on the servers.
The Sunday Times discovered multiple Discord servers established in Singapore in recent years with the intention of providing a venue for young people to seek peer assistance for mental health.
Despite the tiny user base, anonymity and enhanced user safety are cited as important advantages of the platform by both users and server administrators.
They include servers by IASH.SG, the young mental health charity Limitless, and the Singaporean-founded mental health startup Huddleverse.
Annabelle, who declined to provide her full name, stated that she joined the IASH.SG server in October 2022 in order to discover individuals with similar mental health issues.
She had previously attended an in-person peer support group, but felt it did not meet her needs. She stated, "I am too introverted and shy, but the individuals there were really expressive and eloquent."
"Due to my social anxiety, it takes me time to warm up to new acquaintances. Being anonymous allows me to be more vulnerable."
Dr. Ang Hernping, a psychologist and the founder of IASH.SG, stated that the server was created to provide an anonymous space for peer assistance, while also encouraging at-risk kids into its support system.
Since its inception in January 2022, it has grown to 425 members, most of them are between 15 and 30 years old, according to Dr. Ang.
"Via server and private conversations, we've helped individuals feel comfortable enough to seek treatment, such as at the Institute of Mental Health, with private psychiatrists or therapists, or through IASH.SG's counselling and therapy services," he added.
In 2020, Annabelle Psychology also created a server. Now, there are over 120 users, according to the chief clinical psychologist Annabelle Chow.
"We wanted to help facilitate these talks by having a psychologist contribute to them when appropriate, and by providing resources where they would have the greatest impact," she explained, adding that her team strives to deliver psychology-related information that is tailored to the local audience.
Like with any online site, particularly one that enables anonymity, there are fears that users may be subject to abuse, cyberbullying, spam, or catfishing.
Discord itself contains protections. It notes on its website that the great majority of its servers are invite-only and private, and that in order to receive a direct message from another user, the receiver must accept the sender as a friend or join a server that the sender is a member of.
It also contains a filter that automatically examines and deletes media submitted to servers that contain explicit content like as nudity or gore, and it may take action if a server is "raided" by a large number of rogue users or bots.
Administrations of IASH.SG strongly discourage direct messaging. The server of the social enterprise also employs bots to monitor language.
Mr. Asher Low, the founder of Limitless, stated that the Safehouse server operated by his organization actively promotes whistleblowing if a member makes another feel uncomfortable. The server was established in April 2021 and has about 500 members.
He stated that if the administrators find prohibited behavior on the server, individuals would be warned or banned. Discord provides for the temporary or permanent banning of members.
The server invite URL is also only displayed publicly when the charity gives a presentation at a secondary school or university, to guarantee that only young individuals join.
All users who join the Huddleverse server, which was established in early 2021, are required to have an email address and phone number validated by Discord.
Mr. Spruyt stated that there are around 40,000 members from all over the world, with roughly a third of them being Singaporeans.
He noted that Huddleverse has a tough, no-nonsense approach to server moderation and has banned over 3,000 members to date. We have dealt with trolls, harassment, unwanted advertising, bogus news, and more throughout the years.
Mr. Low feels that the platform's advantages exceed its disadvantages, notwithstanding the platform's ongoing difficulties.
"One of our guiding principles at Limitless is to go where the youth are. It resembles in-person employment in which we visit to the location of young people to conduct counseling "he stated.
He noted that the platform is safer than others such as Telegram, where it is impossible to develop various channels inside a group, or WhatsApp, where it is more difficult to remain anonymous.
He has witnessed situations in which a young kid battling with suicidal thoughts posts about it on the server, and other members intervene to dissuade him while alerting volunteers and staff to provide professional help.
Mr. Low stated that Limitless has three staff members dedicated to the Discord server — a counselor, a peer support specialist, and an associate psychologist – who are complemented by more than twenty volunteers, and that the organization is attempting to recruit more.
Mr. Spruyt stated that Gen Z members are more willing to communicate their mental health issues online. "This is the outcome of this generation being the first to have access to social media from birth," he continued.
As a result, people gravitate toward online groups and venues where they can relate to, connect with, and learn about the experiences of their generation.
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