telekon

telekon

Specialist
Feb 5, 2025
376
Hi friends,

I am developing an app for people who struggle with mental illness and it's almost ready for release.

If you have an iPhone, would you be willing to try it?

I study nutrition and there is a nutrition component so as long as you are able to buy groceries, it might be able to help. There are foods with highly concentrated nutrients that increase neurotransmitter availability and a series of recipes that you would have to make, or at least make some version of them using the foods. Many of us have been prescribed medications that have not helped because these medications are an artificial means to an end that can be much more well-suited if we feed our brains with food instead of chemicals.

Please let me know if you are willing to try because I need testers.

Hope you get well.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Praestat_Mori and heywey
telekon

telekon

Specialist
Feb 5, 2025
376
Define study. Is this something academic? Are you studying primarily through ChatGPT?
I mean... yes. I studied mental health academically and have a degree in psychology so much of the app draws from that and I also have friends who are actually licensed nutritionists who are looking at the app. ChatGPT is actually not a terrible resource to study from!

I made this app because I am very anti-psychiatry and want to help people who are against seeing a psychiatrist but still want the help. It would mean a lot to me if somebody tried it since I haven't had anyone try who was actually struggling.
 
Last edited:
NormallyNeurotic

NormallyNeurotic

Everything is going to be okay ⋅ he/him
Nov 21, 2024
630
ChatGPT is actually not a terrible resource to study from!
Damn, your GPT must be better. I tried that once out of curiousity, and even when I requested it always list sources and only claim things backed up by the study, it would still summarize things that are completely fabricated and worded in a biased/exagerative way. I've even had a better time using Wikipedia and double checking the sources in the footnotes
 
telekon

telekon

Specialist
Feb 5, 2025
376
Damn, your GPT must be better. I tried that once out of curiousity, and even when I requested it always list sources and only claim things backed up by the study, it would still summarize things that are completely fabricated and worded in a biased/exagerative way. I've even had a better time using Wikipedia and double checking the sources in the footnotes
It depends what you are studying. If you want to gain a list of foods that have certain vitamins then it can be good for that. I want to clarify that I didn't build this whole app off of information I retrieved from ChatGPT, I was just able to code it with GPT. It's very good for that.

Also, nutrition is only a minor portion of the app but is one of the things I think that will help people feel better the fastest.
 
Dejected 55

Dejected 55

Visionary
May 7, 2025
2,317
I mean... yes. I studied mental health academically and have a degree in psychology so much of the app draws from that and I also have friends who are actually licensed nutritionists who are looking at the app. ChatGPT is actually not a terrible resource to study from!

I made this app because I am very anti-psychiatry and want to help people who are against seeing a psychiatrist but still want the help. It would mean a lot to me if somebody tried it since I haven't had anyone try who was actually struggling.
Wait... You have a degree in psychology and are claiming that as a credential... but you are anti-psychiatry? How do you square that circle?
 
H

Hvergelmir

Warlock
May 5, 2024
703
I am developing an app for people who struggle with mental illness and it's almost ready for release.
What I've read is something like: "I made this app with ChatGPT! It has nutrition and stuff, and will help with mental health."
Take that not as discouragement, but feedback on your pitch.

What I'd need to find this credible is a breakdown of all the features, and preferably how they differ from other apps on the market.
I'd also want a public link to the software, so that anyone can download and scrutinize it - upload it to virustotal, decompile it, whatever.
The privacy and vagueness is not a good look.
 
telekon

telekon

Specialist
Feb 5, 2025
376
Wait... You have a degree in psychology and are claiming that as a credential... but you are anti-psychiatry? How do you square that circle?
I studied psychopharmacology and for as much as I learned in that course, I know drugs don't help people. I wanted to be a psychiatrist since I was very young but when I saw what drugs were doing people, I knew I wanted to be a clinical psychologist, but now I just want to be a holistic therapist.

Holistic therapists don't prescribe medication and try to treat the problem by viewing the whole person, not just the brain. Hope that helps.
 
  • Like
Reactions: heywey and Dejected 55
Dejected 55

Dejected 55

Visionary
May 7, 2025
2,317
I studied psychopharmacology and for as much as I learned in that course, I know drugs don't help people. I wanted to be a psychiatrist since I was very young but when I saw what drugs were doing people, I knew I wanted to be a clinical psychologist, but now I just want to be a holistic therapist.

Holistic therapists don't prescribe medication and try to treat the problem by viewing the whole person, not just the brain. Hope that helps.
That's fair. I read that a few times and it was confusing me on the surface... but if your divergence is with the over-reliance on medications for treatment, then I am with you on that for sure. I recognize there are some instances and some medicines that make sense... but I see a lot of reliance on "put that patient on a pill and wait to see what happens" and patients endure more suffering while the doctor waits to see how the experiment turns out.
 
telekon

telekon

Specialist
Feb 5, 2025
376
What I've read is something like: "I made this app with ChatGPT! It has nutrition and stuff, and will help with mental health."
Take that not as discouragement, but feedback on your pitch.

What I'd need to find this credible is a breakdown of all the features, and preferably how they differ from other apps on the market.
I'd also want a public link to the software, so that anyone can download and scrutinize it - upload it to virustotal, decompile it, whatever.
The privacy and vagueness is not a good look.
I'm not sure how to make a public link while it's still in the testing phase but I really appreciate your feedback.

The app is built on 9 core tenets of health and wellness which are: light, inner work, fitness, eating healthy, sensory health, purpose, activity, community and creative expression. The idea is that if you can make yourself excel in each of these 9 areas, your mental health will be good. Whenever you want to use the app, each day there is a short little check-up with a short 1-minute questionnaire and based on your answers, you will see a bar graph with your results. Your results will change as each bar either gets better or worse based on how many times you take the short questionnaire or the longer "Lifestyle Survey," which is one of the options in the side menu. This is good because you can see what areas you are lacking in your life and there will be a little "prescription" of the bottom 3 areas that you need to work on most. You also get an Analytics page where you can see which of those 9 tenants is improving or that is decreasing so it's kind of like a snapshot of your mental health.

In the side menu, you have that survey which can be 18, 36, 54, or 72 questions, the "Fitness Space," a To-Do List, a Day Planner, a Budget Planner, a Daily Journal, "My Goals," a music player, and settings.

In the Fitness Space, we have a timer, weight tracker, over 60 body weight + dumbbell workouts that can be done from home for each muscle in the body, a workout planner where you can plan what muscles you will work on what day, and a section where you can take "progress pics."

The Meal Planner is also in the fitness space. I worked really hard to design diet plans that would target the neurotransmitters that would be beneficial for different mental disorders such as Depression, Anxiety, ADHD, and schizophrenia. This is based on Linus Pauling's orthomolecular diet theory that he used to treat schizophrenia but his research was shafted with the introduction of antipsychotics. You can "auto-populate" the meal plan with a breakfast/lunch/dinner for each day of the week, or you can make your own recipes in the Recipe Planner where you can have your own Recipe Book and auto-populate from that. When you make a meal plan like that, there is also a "Grocery List" that auto-populates so you can go there and see all the ingredients you'll need to buy to make your meals for the week, and each meal comes with a detailed recipe to follow. Or alternatively, you can just manually type in meals for each day of the week.

The To-Do List can be imported from your to-do list or any of your lists in your iPhone reminders, and then those items automatically show up in your day planner so you can drag and drop what parts of your to-do list you're going to knock out at what time of the day.

The Budget Planner lets you type in how much you earn a month as well as your monthly expenses and it comes with a "Weekly Tracker" so every time you spend money, you can enter it there and choose what category of spending it is and make sure you dont go over budget. I attached a photo of what the Weekly Tracker looks like.

The Daily Journal is password-protected so you can write journal entries and keep those safe there.

The Goal Setting component has two components, where you choose what goal you want to complete and the app makes sure you plan it out using the "SMART goals method" which is a common concept in psychology and then breaks down your goals using the "5-year-plan method" (another concept) except your goal can take 1 week, 1 month or 1 year. Then, the other component is the actual 5-year-plan where you say where you want to be in 5 years, brainstorm everything you need to do to get there, say when you want to do what, and then you have your goal set and check off parts of the goal when you complete something.

After you see your mental health results, you can go to a "Tips" section where you can get tips on how to improve in each of the 9 tenets. There are also mini brain games like chess, checkers, hangman, and word searches. There is a Sleep Hygiene checklist you can complete to make sure your Sleep Hygiene is good (this is another wellness concept like going to bed at the same time, not spending time in bed during the day, keeping the room dark and cool, not using screens before bed etc.) There is also a drawing board, like a mini-app where you can make art, or a design board which is hard to explain but basically you can take photos from your camera roll and make a collage.

I plan to add some kind of Community component where you can meet up with other people in your area which might be using the app but that's still in the works and not exactly sure if or how I want to go about that yet.

There is also Tips for the disorders we talk about in the app which are anxiety, depression, ADHD, autism, BPD, psychosis, PSSD, and C-PTSD. Each one of these gets its own dedicated page where they have their own sections about signs & symptoms, 36 tips for managing these without meds, nutritional suggestions, and their own cognitive resets. These are for when you're basically having a meltdown and can't move from depression, or having an anxiety attack, etc. and you can use cognitive resets to snap out of it or calm yourself down if we are talking about anxiety & depression.

That's about as thorough as I can be right now but I've been working on the app for months and I would love for someone to try it so if anyone's interested please let me know. 🙏
 

Attachments

  • IMG_3813.png
    IMG_3813.png
    389.2 KB · Views: 0
Last edited:
H

Hvergelmir

Warlock
May 5, 2024
703
I'm not sure how to make a public link while it's still in the testing phase but I really appreciate your feedback.
You've chosen a tricky platform. Apple are very strict about their apps, so you'll need to read their guidelines and requirements carefully.
Here's how you publish a beta:
https://developer.apple.com/help/app-store-connect/test-a-beta-version/testflight-overview

What's you current method of distribution? If I remember correctly, I had to use a cable from a Mac to install things without going through Testflight.
I'm not an Apple user myself, but wish you best of luck. The concept sounds safe and sound.
 
Dot

Dot

Info abt typng styl on prfle.
Sep 26, 2021
3,591
I studied psychopharmacology and for as much as I learned in that course, I know drugs don't help people. I wanted to be a psychiatrist since I was very young but when I saw what drugs were doing people, I knew I wanted to be a clinical psychologist, but now I just want to be a holistic therapist.

Holistic therapists don't prescribe medication and try to treat the problem by viewing the whole person, not just the brain. Hope that helps.

Slf also stdied psychlgy & MH t/ gradu8 levl & whle imo thre = plce fr psychtry slf hve simlr philsphy tht u hve altho slf wantd 2 wrk in mre somatc/nervs systm trma-basd apprches

Ws lernng nutritn alng wth cmbinng psych & attchmnt & develomntl knwldge also

Slf cn also lk @ app if am nt havng t/ dwnload n.ethng rsky or tht rsult in doxxng
 
telekon

telekon

Specialist
Feb 5, 2025
376
You've chosen a tricky platform. Apple are very strict about their apps, so you'll need to read their guidelines and requirements carefully.
Here's how you publish a beta:
https://developer.apple.com/help/app-store-connect/test-a-beta-version/testflight-overview

What's you current method of distribution? If I remember correctly, I had to use a cable from a Mac to install things without going through Testflight.
I'm not an Apple user myself, but wish you best of luck. The concept sounds safe and sound.
That's the route I'm going, but it requires me to add you to the Test Flight beta testers so you will get an email from apple with the download link
Slf also stdied psychlgy & MH t/ gradu8 levl & whle imo thre = plce fr psychtry slf hve simlr philsphy tht u hve altho slf wantd 2 wrk in mre somatc/nervs systm trma-basd apprches

Ws lernng nutritn alng wth cmbinng psych & attchmnt & develomntl knwldge also

Slf cn also lk @ app if am nt havng t/ dwnload n.ethng rsky or tht rsult in doxxng
If anyone is interested in trying, send me your email in a PM and I will add you to the TestFlight beta testers list and you will receive an email from Apple with the download link (of course this only works with iPhone)
 
  • Like
Reactions: Hvergelmir
heywey

heywey

Student
Aug 28, 2025
123
Hey, this sounds pretty cool! It's awesome that you're making an app to help others. I don't have any Apple devices so I can't help test, but if you run into issues with programming, feel free to hit me up if you need a hand. I've worked with Swift before (assuming that's what you're using) and have a decent amount of experience wrangling AI code. Also, I believe you can make a public testflight invite link, where anyone who clicks it can join, if you weren't aware.

Some feedback based on your description: it's clear you've put a lot of thought into this, and you have a strong vision. The nine core tenets of wellness sounds like a great foundation, and there are a lot of ways this could benefit people.

It covers a lot of ground -- music player, workout planner, budgeting, journalling/notes/to-dos, goal-setting, groceries, recipes, games... Each of those is valuable on their own, but in designing software, sometimes too much can overwhelm and dilute the core experience. It has to compete with dedicated apps for each of those things on a user's phone, and though the value proposition is high, so is the cost in flexibility and cognitive fatigue. You're asking users to reshape their life around the app.

I would suggest aiming for something that more easily slots into users' existing lives and flows. I see two central ideas here: nutrition/recipes, and a holistic mental health app. You have something unique to offer for both -- maybe they should be separate apps. It sounds like you have a good handle on the former with your knowledge on nutrition and mental health, and as for the latter, perhaps a more user-driven and flexible approach would be more accessible; base it around goals divided into tenets. You could wrap many of the existing features into suggested goals and 'courses', while also letting users provide their own, all under a unified abstraction. Once you have a MVP you could build up the more specific features as a suite of separate apps that connect to each other.

That's my two cents anyway! I'm just one guy, and I haven't even seen the app of course, so take this feedback with as big a grain of salt as you'd like. I've considered making something like this myself before but it never went beyond the ideas stage, it's awesome that you've got something to show. Have you looked at how other similar apps approach things?
 
  • Love
Reactions: telekon

Similar threads

N
Replies
8
Views
256
Offtopic
Pluto
Pluto
M
Discussion VSED
Replies
3
Views
147
Suicide Discussion
Kali_Yuga13
Kali_Yuga13
1
Replies
0
Views
114
Suicide Discussion
1NSPECTOR
1
bubo
Replies
19
Views
743
Suicide Discussion
badatparties
badatparties
L
Replies
25
Views
1K
Suicide Discussion
InevitableDeath
I