Taking a Chill Pill Now Possible. Sort of…

Between March 30th and April 11th, 2022, just over 21% of the US adult population reported symptoms of depression. This number is down from a high of over 30.2% from December 9th through the 21st of 2020. In 2019, depression symptoms were highest among respondents aged 18-29, and women were more likely to experience symptoms than men.

Help is on the way for Gen Z women, who spend more than 8 hours online daily.

Chill Pill, a social app available in the Apple Store, is a safe, welcoming online community for female-identifying teens and young adults. Members follow the AA meetings model where they can only share their own experiences and are not permitted to provide advice or feedback. They can attend community-led audio support groups or anonymously post their daily reflections to the app’s judgment-free journal feed.

“Our app was built by our community, for our community,” says founder & CEO Hayley Caddes, who raised over $2m for this project. She is using her experience in Alcoholics Anonymous to create self-run communities members can run themselves. “AA has been around for almost 100 years, is the most successful mental health community in the world, and is run by alcoholics, for alcoholics. There’s a lot to learn from the AA model,” she says.

Chill Pill members seem to agree.

“I feel this sense of community and freedom to be myself and to be vulnerable that I haven’t found anywhere else,” says one of Chill Pill’s teenage members. 

The community has around 500 active members and has had over 7,000 minutes of support groups before the app’s official launch on May 10th.