Crisis resources
If things are bad right now, start here.
You do not have to be sure it counts as a crisis to use these numbers. The people answering them do this all day and they would rather hear from you early than late.
The full list
Every number worth having, in one place.
All of these are free. None of them require insurance, a diagnosis, or a referral.
988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline
Thoughts of suicide, a mental health crisis, substance use distress, or any kind of emotional crisis. You do not need to be suicidal to call. Free, confidential, 24 hours a day, in English and Spanish, with ASL and an option for hard-of-hearing callers.
911
Immediate physical danger — an overdose, a serious injury, a weapon, or someone who cannot be kept safe where they are. Ask for a crisis intervention trained officer or a mental health unit if the situation is a psychiatric emergency.
Crisis Text Line
Any crisis, handled entirely over text with a trained volunteer counselor. A good option when talking out loud is not possible or not something you can face.
Veterans Crisis Line
For veterans, service members, National Guard and Reserve, and their family members. Staffed by people who understand military service, and you do not need to be enrolled in VA health care.
SAMHSA National Helpline
Not a crisis line — a treatment referral and information service for substance use and mental health, including help finding local treatment, support groups, and options if you have no insurance.
National Domestic Violence Hotline
If someone is hurting you, controlling you, or frightening you, whether or not it has become physical. Advocates can help with safety planning as well as immediate danger.
The Trevor Project
Crisis support specifically for LGBTQ young people, by phone, text, or chat.
Your Texas local mental health authority
Every county in Texas is covered by a local mental health authority with its own 24-hour crisis line, and many can send a mobile crisis outreach team to you rather than requiring an emergency room. This is often the most useful call in Texas after 988.
2-1-1 Texas
Food, rent, utilities, transportation, medication assistance, and other local help. Worth knowing because a crisis is very often a practical emergency wearing an emotional one.
While you wait
Four things that help in the next ten minutes.
None of this replaces a call. It is for the gap between deciding to get help and help arriving.
Put distance between you and the means
Give the pills, the gun, the alcohol, or the car keys to someone else, or lock them somewhere you cannot easily reach. Most crises pass. Distance buys the time for this one to.
Tell one person where you are
Not the whole story — just “I am having a bad night and I do not want to be alone.” Being physically near another person is protective even when you do not feel like talking.
Change your body’s state
Cold water on your face and wrists, a walk outside, or slow breathing out longer than in. This will not fix the situation, but it can lower the spike enough to think.
Aim for the next hour only
Not tomorrow, not the rest of your life. Get to the next hour, then the one after. The grounding exercise in the library is built for exactly this.
If you are worried about someone else
Ask directly. “Are you thinking about killing yourself?” is a hard sentence to say and it does not plant the idea. Asking plainly is one of the few things that reliably helps, because it tells the person the subject is not forbidden.
Stay, and do not agree to keep it secret. Do not leave someone alone in an acute crisis, and do not promise silence you cannot keep. If they are in danger, call 988 with them or call 911.
Reduce access to means. Offer to hold medications or firearms temporarily. It is a practical, unglamorous intervention and it saves lives.
You can call 988 yourself. The Lifeline takes calls from people worried about someone else, and will talk you through what to do next.
What this practice can and cannot do
Empowered Wellness does not provide emergency or after-hours crisis services. This page is a directory, not a service — nobody monitors it.
The consultation form and the email address on this site are checked during business hours only, and they are not a way to reach anyone in an emergency. If you are in crisis, use 988 or 911 rather than waiting for a reply.
What this practice does do is ongoing, scheduled counseling — which is the right tool for the weeks after a crisis, and for reducing how often you end up in one. If you have been in crisis recently and want to build something more durable, the consultation is free and you can say exactly that when you write.
If you are already a client, the specific after-hours instructions in your intake paperwork are the ones that apply to you, and they take precedence over this page.
Keep this page
Bookmark this page, or take a screenshot of the two numbers at the top and put it on your phone’s lock screen. A crisis is the worst possible time to search for a phone number, and 3 a.m. is not the moment to be reading a website.
It prints cleanly too, if you would rather have it on paper for a wallet or a cabinet door.