CT Clearinghouse

Mental Health

Call 988 if You Need To Talk To Someone. Dial 911 if you have an Emergency.

Mental wellness is not just the absence of a diagnosable mental illness.

Having good mental health helps us cope with the daily stresses of life in a healthy way, allows us to maintain positive relationships, engage in healthy activities, and enjoy life. We can maintain good mental health by:

  • staying socially active
  • eating nutritious foods
  • exercising regularly
  • getting enough sleep
  • avoiding alcohol and drug abuse

While many people experience feelings of anxiety and sadness or great stress at some time in their lives, it does not mean that they have a mental illness. A mental illness is a health condition that changes how a person thinks, feels, or acts (or all three) and causes the person distress and difficulty in functioning.

Each mental illness has its own characteristic symptoms. However, there are some general warning signs that might alert you that someone needs professional help. Some of these signs include:

  • marked personality change
  • inability to cope with problems and daily activities
  • strange or grandiose ideas
  • excessive anxieties
  • prolonged depression and apathy
  • marked changes in eating or sleeping patterns
  • extreme mood swings
  • excessive anger, hostility, or violent behavior
  • abuse of alcohol or drugs 
  • thinking or talking about suicide or harming oneself

Sources: National Institute of Mental Health, and Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General

Fact Sheets

Related Links

Research & Statistics

  • Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System - CT Department of Public HealthReports & publications from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System include: Adverse Childhood Experiences in CT, Behavioral health risks in specific districts, smoking data, and more.
  • Connecticut Data Collaborative

    Users may search by location or topic. Topic selections include: Civic vitality, Demographics, Economy, Health, Education, Housing, and Safety. The Health category includes data sets on mental health, treatment admissions, substance use, mortality, and tobacco use.

  • Connecticut SEOW Prevention Data Portal

    Search, view, and access 200+ indicators relevant to substance use/misuse, mental health, suicide, gambling, and social determinants of health. Explore 30+ data sets relevant to behavioral health, each with multiple visualization capabilities, downloadable data, and metadata.

  • Cornell Research Program on Self-Injurious Behavior in Adolescents and Young AdultsThis site includes a variety of publications - bibliographies, fact sheets, reviews of academic literature - on self-injurious behavior.
  • CT 211 Counts

    Data for Connecticut 211 calls listed by category - including Healthcare, Mental Health and Addictions, Housing & Shelter, and more.

  • Data and Dissemination - SAMHSA

    Find data and reports on mental health, substance use treatment, and drug use from sources that include: the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS), National Survey of Substance Abuse Treatment Services (N-SSATS), National Mental Health Services Survey (NMHSS), and more.

  • Hospitalization Statistics - CT Department of Public HealthThis site includes summary data & tables for causes of hospitalization, by age grouping & gender. Includes mental disorders.
  • Mental Health - CDC FastStats Provides access to data on morbidity, health care use, mortality, and other related data and links.
  • Mobile Crisis Reports-CT

    Reports include Mobile Crisis episodes, number of children served, volume of episodes, demographic data and more.

  • National Institute of Mental Health: Statistics

    Provides prevalence statistics for various mental disorders.

  • PubMed

    PubMed comprises more than 20 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. Citations may include links to full-text content from PubMed Central and publisher web sites.

  • State Lifeline Reports

    These reports examine call volume for each state and the territories of American Samoa, Guam and Puerto Rico to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline from January to June, 2020. They also provide five-year trends and the proportion of callers receiving responses from in-state crisis centers.

  • Suicide Statistics from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Connecticut

    This page provides a table of the number of suicides by age, gender and year. The table in Fiscal Year Statistics includes a column on the number of suicides by year.

  • WISQARS (Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System)WISQARS is an interactive database system that provides customized reports of injury-related data.
  • Young Adult Statewide Survey (YASS)

    The Young Adults Statewide Survey (YASS) was a two- phase, social marketing driven behavioral health survey of young adults(18-25).

    For more information about the Young Adults Statewide Survey, contact: sussman@uchc.edu 

Screening Tools

Self-Help Groups

Locate a Treatment Facility