I’m extremely frustrated by this bug. Sometimes my messages won’t send, but it won’t tell me or notify me until 10 minutes later when my counselor has already ended the conversation. I thought that my counselor just straight up gave up on me and didn’t care anymore, and I went to the conversation transcript and scrolled and it said that my message didn’t send. PLEASE at least just make it so it notifies me when my message doesn’t send. The notifications are inconsistent, sometimes you get one and sometimes you don’t which means that I don’t always know if my counselor has replied to ask if I’m still there and before I know it the conversation is closed because it never sent my message reply. It is EXTREMELY frustrating and it has put me in some very devastating situations because sometimes talking to counselors on this app is my only outlet. Please fix it.

My school has always pushed the Safe UT app. I’ve been increasingly depressed over the past few months to a year and late last night my mental state had me miserable. As a desperate last resort I decided to open the app. I used the Chat option as it was very late at night and I hadn’t been able to sleep from torturous thoughts. As a cry for help I sent a message saying I felt very suicidal. The response I got was stiff and fake. It felt as though a robot was responding and though, better than nothing, it felt nothing close to helpful. I proceeded to see if the responses would change as I continued talking. They didn’t. I just admitted myself into the hospital that night. (Hospital wasn’t much better either. Hours of waiting and a whole lot of nurses who didn’t really care and you could tell they felt awkward about why I was there to begin with) After being discharged from the hospital the following night has left me feeling much better. I decided to try the app again. I messaged I needed help and continued to get no response for 20 minutes. When they had responded I hadn’t been notified (already having given up on that idea) and didn’t see the message for a few minutes. After checking for the 3rd time if they had responded I saw they had and began explaining my situation. I finished my note and pressed the send button only to be greeted by a “this chat has expired” sort of message and the operator had ended the chat. I was left once again disappointed. They had taken so long to respond but in the midst of my response within a 5 minute window the chat just checked out on me while typing my explanation. I don’t mean to smother this page with a “Pity me Message” but I feel this is just unacceptable for a crisis line since those often using it are most likely in REAL need of immediate help. Suicide does not have minutes to waste and should be treated with utmost urgency.

Honestly when you get a good counselor this app deserves six stars, but sometimes they just don’t seem all that interested or qualified for the job. One kept asking me questions I’d answered, saying at least you....and didn’t respond one time for like thirty minutes. One counselor helped me a ton when I had a panic attack, another helped when kids bullied me, and another tried helping calm my panic attack by asking me to list the worst outcomes. I believe they were hoping to help me rationalize but if someone is having a panic attack DON’T MAKE THEM LIST BAD THINGS THAT MIGHT HAPPEN!!! They even asked me to recount the worst thing that did happen in that scenario and for the life of me it was top three worst moments in my life hands down!!! It did the opposite of helping!

I was really skeptical of downloading this because I thought they were going to send police the second I reached out, but turns out they don’t do that unless you’re actually in total danger of yourself. When you reach out connection with a counselor is usually pretty fast. I can tell that the counselors are really great people who love their jobs and are just trying their best :). They’re so kind and they validate everything you’re feeling while also helping you to work through it. I received some really helpful feedback about self-care and trauma response during a mental health crisis. So glad that these amazing people are here to help 24/7, honestly mighta saved my life.