Using words like ‘sometimes’ and ‘guess’ - a sign of mental illness

Sometimes our words can reveal more than we expect – and a crisis hotline says that the words we use in texts can reveal people in distress, or at risk of self-harm.

It’s not the words you’d expect – with innocent-sounding words such as ‘sometimes’ and ‘guess’ setting off alarm signals.

The Crisis Text Line (CTL) analysed 33 million messages from users communicating with its text-based counselling hotline.

They have found that, for instance, words such as ‘nervous’, ‘sometimes’, ‘hard’, ‘feeling’ are all indicators of anxiety.

And also found that texting a crying face emoji was a more reliable indicator of distress than using the word, ‘suicide’.

Chief data scientist Bob Filbin said, ‘Before we used the computer, we had a list of 50 words that (we thought) were probably indicative of high risk. Words like ‘die,’ ‘cut,’ ‘suicide,’ ‘kill,’ etc.

‘When a data scientist ran the analysis, he found thousands of words and phrases indicative of an active rescue that are actually more predictive.

‘That’s the whole idea and the power, really, of AI – it gets smarter over time.’

Which words are warning signals?

The Crisis Text Line (CTL) analysed 33 million messages from users communicating with its text-based counselling hotline.

Using the crying face emoji is an indicator of distress.

People tend to use the words, ‘Mum’ and ‘parents’ when stressed, the researchers said.

The researchers found that, for instance, words such as ‘nervous’, ‘sometimes’, ‘hard’, ‘feeling’ are all indicators of anxiety.

Words such as ‘bad’, ‘guess’, or ‘anymore’ are all indicators of stress.

For confidential support call the Samaritans on 08457 90 90 90, visit a local Samaritans branch or visit the Samaritans website.