Hi Leora and welcome to Psych Central.

If you find you want to chat, often if you go into the chat room and just wait for a while someone will show up to talk to you. People will see the "1" next to the chat menu and know someone is in there waiting.

You can also check "Who's Online" to see how many people are currently online, obviously at times of the day when there are more people online it is more likely that there is someone willing to chat. Sometimes you do have to wait a while until someone shows up.

Bear in mind that not all members are comfortable in chat, some don't like chat at all and others only when they are feeling up to it... so if you see a lot of people online and no one shows up in chat don't take it personally... it is not that they don't want to chat with you, just that they aren't up to chat at all at that time.

If it is really urgent you can also call a hotline. There is a list of resources on the homepage of this forum. If you ever feel like you are in danger of hurting yourself, calling one of the hotline numbers is more appropriate than chat or the forums, as stated in the guidelines in the depression forum.

But for times when you are not in any danger but do feel an urgent need to talk, hanging around in chat will usually attract someone.

If there are other people in chat, and you have something specific you want to talk about, don't be afraid to speak up and say you need some support. Sometimes someone will move into one of the private rooms with you. Other times just participating in the ongoing chat can be helpful and distract us, so don't be afraid to chime in on the current conversation either.