If things are heavy right now.
A human is the right call, and these lines answer at any hour. This page can wait.
What this app is, and what it can never be.
This app is a coach for one specific loop: the thought that comes back, the answering that keeps it coming. It is not therapy, not a diagnosis, not a medical device, and not a crisis service.
One more thing said plainly, because it is the price of the privacy: everything you write is sealed on your device, and nobody here can read it. That means nobody is watching over you either. If you were ever in danger, we could not see it and could not reach out. An app that watches over you has to read you; this one chose not to be able to.
The help button never hides.
Get help now sits at the top of every screen, locked or unlocked, mid-exercise or not. It opens the same lines listed above. No detection decides when you deserve to see it, and using it is never recorded.
The coach can also offer these numbers itself when wanting to be gone comes up in conversation. Offer is the word: a card you can open or dismiss, not an alarm, and not a report to anyone.
Lines the coach holds.
Practice in this app means letting a feeling be there without answering it. It never means doing something that could hurt you or anyone else, and the coach will not frame harm as an exercise, however the request is worded. When something needs more than practice, it says so and points to a trained professional.
The thoughts themselves stay speakable. Ugly, violent, frightening thoughts are what this loop makes, and saying one out loud here is safe. The line sits at real-world action, not at what crosses your mind.
You hold the ceiling.
At sign-up you decide how often this app opens for you. Tightening a limit works straight away. Loosening one waits 24 hours, so a 3am version of you cannot overrule the one who set it. If your use starts to look like the loop, the coach says so once, then gets on with helping.
When this is the wrong tool.
This app is for adults; under 18 it needs a parent or guardian who knows and agrees. If you are already in treatment, your clinician outranks anything said here - bring the app up with them rather than working around them.
And if you can get to a professional who knows this territory, go. The official services for finding one, in Australia, the UK and the US, are on the resources page, free to everyone whether or not they ever sign up.