Where to Find Help If You're Feeling Down: A Survival Guide for Times of Crisis

What should you do if you're feeling anxious but there's no psychologist or support system nearby?

Clinical Psychologist Yegor Burtsev It shares specific self-help methods for those who find themselves in an emotional rut: from working with AI and art therapy to simple physical exercises and face-to-face interaction. This isn’t a substitute for therapy, but it’s a starting point if things feel overwhelming and you’re on the brink. A simple, honest, and practical conversation—about how to get back on your feet and move forward, even when it feels like you can’t.

Remember: you're not alone, and there are steps you can take right now!

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It’s tough when you need a therapist but there isn’t one nearby. Hi, my name is Yegor Burtsev. I’m a clinical psychologist, and I’ll try to offer you some advice if you’re feeling down and there’s no psychologist around.

Let's start with how much the world has changed. These days, it is virtually impossible to say that there is no psychologist available to you. They are, objectively speaking, always within reach. Some work online, some offline, and psychological support services continue to operate in various languages. If you search even a little, there is a good chance you will find someone. At the very least, you can certainly find some free crisis support and receive at least three or four counseling sessions. 

But people often say that this short-term crisis assistance is not enough for them. What to do in this case? I will offer you a very simple method that almost everyone can use. New technologies may not be available to everyone, but Google is what most of us know and can use. Google now has access to artificial intelligence and gives you a bunch of tips for the simplest query in the search bar. Google tells us in response to any of our requests how to act and what ways we can help ourselves. Of course, if you have been subjected to acute trauma, if you have heavy thoughts or you feel that you are unbearably ill, you need to look for a crisis therapist online or better offline and contact him. But if you have some kind of conditionally slight anxiety, or you feel that you are sad, but do not yet have severe depression, you can try to work through artificial intelligence, through GPT chat, or finally through the same Google. 

As a rule, almost any AI will suggest appropriate coping mechanisms, with rare exceptions. After all, most of them are trained to help: they assess your situation, compare it with similar cases, and suggest a course of action so that you understand how to move forward. 

The second recommendation is to keep moving. If you are going through a crisis, you are likely to feel withdrawn, cut off from everyone, stuck in your own space, and unable to go anywhere. I do not want to suggest anything too demanding, such as exercise, but I strongly recommend trying to change your surroundings. At least go outside. You do not necessarily have to walk for long, although walking works extremely well. It is one of the most effective activation strategies and can help even with severe depression, provided the person manages to get up and start walking. In fact, the first sign that someone is emerging from severe depression is often that they get up and start moving. 

Suppose you love coffee. Find a pleasant coffee shop, but not one close to home. Choose one that is far enough away to get you moving but still easy to reach. Walk there, sit down, drink some delicious coffee, let yourself relax and unwind, and look around at the people. Do not retreat into your devices. Try to keep your attention focused outward for a while: examine the walls of the café, for example; if you are sitting outside, look at the surrounding landscape, the buildings, the trees, and the people. Try shifting your attention from familiar things to something different. 

Another way to be a psychologist is to remember that everything bad is temporary. If you can't find a psychologist now, most likely, after some time you will be able to find one. Try to just sit down and make a rough plan for yourself of what you would turn to a psychologist with. How can this be done? It is clear that just writing and just thinking is sometimes difficult. But you can use some methods of art therapy. For example, take and draw your current mood. You can draw with spots, lines, strokes. You can just take and depict something that comes to mind. Park, trees, houses, bunnies, something else. Then put the picture aside for a while, look at it with fresh eyes and say, what is drawn on it? What is this bunny? Is this my jumping ability? Is it my need to take shelter? Or is it my desire to jump out somewhere? And so look at each object. Think about what this picture says about your mood, about your condition. Then put the picture aside again, return to it again, and draw those details that it lacks. Psychologists call it a resource, but here we do not have a psychologist, so we will create resources for ourselves. Think about what, for example, would help this bunny to jump out into some clearing that is attractive to him. Well, perhaps some stump or some other incentive will help him. Maybe there are some carrots lying there. And if you manage to find something, it will be a hint for you, you will be able to understand what is happening to you and in which direction to move approximately. 

Here is another life hack, one that is both very simple and very difficult: connect with people, and not necessarily with friends. People are different. Some will listen to all your troubles and sympathize with you, but people like that are not always nearby or readily accessible. There are others, however, who can listen to at least part of what you are going through. For example, some people have also been separated from their families after moving, just like you, and they are willing to listen to you talk specifically about that. There are also people you can simply go to a café or bar with, or take a trip somewhere to relax. People and human connection are wonderful. They can help you take your mind off things, shift your focus, and see the problem from a slightly different perspective. 

Another approach is to try to see your life as a journey from point A to point B, with a stop at the point where you are now. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end. You can even draw a line on a piece of paper and mark where you are. Then go back to the beginning and look at what was there, from that point to the one you have now reached. After that, you will almost certainly see the stretch that lies ahead. There is something in that stretch too. For migrants, for example, and for people in crisis, it is often something associated with uncertainty. But if all you see there is emptiness, try to remember what was at that point before the crisis began. Most likely, you had plans, dreams, and ambitions that may now have fallen apart or become impossible to fulfill. But what do you still have? You still have your values, your hopes, your faith, the things you love, the things you know, the experience you have already gained, the education you already have, and the skills you have acquired. All of that is still with you. And if you reconnect with those things and trust that they can still serve you, you will begin to feel a little better. 

Ultimately, you will probably need to see a psychologist, or at least develop a plan for how to earn enough to pay for one or how to find one. I am confident that in almost every country, you can find a psychologist who speaks your language. Migrant chat groups, queer organization chat groups, and other resources can help with this. There is also an English-language crisis support service in almost every country. If you speak English, do not hesitate to reach out. You will certainly be able to communicate and find a way to get the help you need.