I only recently found myself in the conversation surrounding mental health when I began to confront my own. Beginning in last summer, I began coding an app called “crying calendar”, in which a given user is able to record when they cry, alongside metrics like how much food they’ve eaten before, how much water they’ve recently drank, how much sleep they got before, where they are in their menstrual cycle, etc. With each month, the app displays when your mood dips in relation to these metrics – and if it applies, can learn when their emotions fluctuate for the negative based on how these metrics change. Indeed, throughout my time working on the app, I began to realize that technologies like my app have the power to be utilized effectively in order to help people work through and understand their own mental health. As the daughter of a now-retired Marine, the vast majority of my life has been centered around the military, and thereby, many of the struggles that come with being in the military. I’ve learned that toxic masculinity makes it extremely difficult for men in particular to reach out when they need help, and admitting that service-related PTSD is taking a toll on your life means overcoming extremely negative social standards for people of all genders. For many, they don’t know where to start in their mental health journey, or continue to consider it weak, or struggle to find quality support networks. However, in taking my experiences with mental health technology in relation to my own mental health and extrapolating to service-related PTSD, I have also learned over this past year that although technology and apps shouldn’t ever replace professional help, starting small can be equally as impactful, especially for those who struggle to afford professional help. Indeed, working with apps like the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ PTSD Coach would allow me to continue building stepping stones for better mental health. In particular, functionalities on the app like its ability to walk a user through a panic attack, its mood tracker, resource pages, and starting pages for professional help provide the framework for people to feel more comfortable with discussing and interacting with their own mental health, and indeed, can act as a springboard for seeking professional help. Ultimately, I’ve realized that working with service-based PTSD – and working to better mental health initiatives in general – can look different for different people, and in playing to my strengths, going through the tech field is just as impactful. In order to help as many people as possible, tech is the best way to reach far and wide, and by improving apps like the PTSD Coach, we can offer cost-effective ways for people to help mitigate their service-based PTSD.