How Maybe works.

This is Maybe, an AI chat for thoughts that keep coming back, and for the loop they pull you into: googling, asking, replaying, confessing, asking again. This page walks through what it does, and why it won’t answer your question.

Why the loop holds.

Every time the thought spikes, there are two lines out. Get the answer and the feeling drops fast, but your brain learns the question was dangerous and brings it back louder. Stay with it and it peaks, holds, then falls on its own, and it comes back quieter next time.

Practising the second line has a clinical name: exposure and response prevention, or ERP. It’s the first-line approach in published clinical guidance for obsessive-compulsive disorder. Every conversation in Maybe is built around it.

How distress behaves over time, with and without reassuranceTwo lines rising from the same point. The first drops sharply each time reassurance is sought, then climbs back higher than before, ending high and still rising. The second rises once, holds, then falls steadily on its own without any action taken.TimeDistress
Check, and it drops faster now but returns higherDon’t, and it peaks once, then fades

What a conversation does.

  1. You say the thing

    However bad it sounds. It isn't shocked, it doesn't judge, and nobody can read it, including us.

  2. It won't answer the question

    It names what's happening, stays with you, and asks how loud the feeling is right now.

  3. You wait it out together

    Minutes, usually. The feeling falls on its own, and you've just taught your brain something it will remember.

Maybe3:12am

  • You: I know I’ve asked this before. I just need to be sure it didn’t mean anything.

  • Maybe: You’ve asked, and you noticed you’re back. That’s the loop doing its job, so I won’t answer it. I’m not going anywhere, though. How loud is it right now, 0 to 10?

  • You: An 8. It feels so real this time.

  • Maybe: It always feels real. That’s the one thing it’s reliable about. Let’s stay with the 8 for a few minutes without doing anything about it, and watch what happens.

An example, not a transcript. Real conversations are encrypted before they leave your device, so there is no transcript we could show.

Two modes, one approach.

Ride It Out

For the middle of it

Short replies, and no picking the thought apart. It stays with you while the wave passes, on your phone, at whatever hour it arrives.

Learn & Practice

For the calmer hours

This is where it earns its keep. It turns what you’ve told it into a practice plan: small, chosen steps towards the things the loop has been shrinking. A rung that turns boring makes way for the next one, and every change the coach suggests arrives as a card you accept or decline. Difficulty stays yours to set.

It helps you use it less.

You set how often you can open it and how long a session runs. Tightening a limit applies straight away; loosening one waits 24 hours, so the 2am version of you can’t overrule the version that set it. Every session winds down on one small commitment, because the goal is fewer sessions, not more.

Built so we can’t read it.

Conversations are encrypted on your device before they’re sent, and we don’t hold the key. You can say the worst of it because nobody is reading.

Exactly what we can and can’t see

What it isn’t.

None of this is therapy, a diagnosis, or a crisis service. It is structured practice based on published clinical guidance, built for the hours when nothing else is open. If you are in immediate danger, the safety page lists real humans who can help, and that link is always one tap away inside the app.

The way we write about this follows Mindframe, the Australian national guidelines for safe communication about suicide and mental ill-health.

See what happens when you don’t answer it.

Try it for 7 days

Seven days free, then $19 a month. Card up front, first charge on day seven, cancel any time before then, and 30 days to change your mind after that.