I am the Creator of a Mental illness support organization called Gamers Fighting Depression aka GFD AMA!

That's amazing :). I played wow for years and I saw how beautiful and ugly the community could be. Are there gonna be numbers someone can call when they hit that low moment? ( Someone screws up a raid,gets called ugly things).

Well our entire support system is pretty well based off our discord server, maybe once we are bigger but this is talking a long way down the line we might but for now the best way to reach out and be there for gamers that we support is to do it on a platform they all use :P

What are your figures so far on patient engagement and service effectiveness?

Also do you have any mental health professionals on board or is it a community run service?

we do not have exact figures at this time of patient engagement,

We do have mental health professionals but as it is a more community ran service and we do say in our rules that most "listeners" are not professionals so we found it best for those with mental health qualifications to help as references etc rather then directly saying im a mental health professional and having everyone swarm to them

Do you feel like video games do any harm to those fighting certain mental illnesses? Is there any side of your organization that is aimed at helping those who have become dependent on gaming?

video games themselves do in a way but its more the dependency people develop with gaming that hurts them the most and the isolation involved in doing so, we do encourage community events and use it as a stepping stone in moving aware from self isolation that comes with most cases of extreme gaming per say

What kind of pratical help you give depressed people, besides a safe place to vent and such? Mighty interested.

well besides a safe place to vent, we also do things a community like structured support talks, gaming nights, movie nights where we host a movie for people to watch and talk to together, we run a little DnD game for those interested and then ontop of it we have a listener system so there is always someone online you can talk to and then we have the general chats where its just somewhere to talk freely and meet people

is there any way i can be involved if i am not a gamer? (i have bi polar disorder)

Ofcourse! Being a gamer isnt a requirement :P its just common group for people to bond over is all

I volunteer to listen/chat with people on this site: http://www.7cups.com/

I would like another site where I can help other people to but where I also have a good chance to make friends of my own. I'm having a busy day today but I will contact you soon. :)

No worries :) i havr actually done the same on 7cups but wasnt my thing tbh

I've actually been thinking about buying a gaming system (or a better computer) to help fight my depression. Are there any games you can recommend that help you through rough patches?

Last system I had was PS2 so my knowledge is extremely limited in this area. Any help is appreciated :-)

Tbh everyone is different, some people prefer the MMO experinece where others just want a quiet corner of the galaxy to build :P my suggestion is look around and watch some gameplay videos of games and just try and work out what interests u :) like for me its gotta be kingdom hearts or mass effect haha

I'd love to help out. I play wow as well, horde side and it's done so much for my depression. I'm just not very comfortable talking in discord. Do you guys have a guild for this?

No we dont as we dont exclusively play one game, u can always jump in the discord server as there are still text channels u can be a part of without needing to actually talk :)