The byline
Kevin Glover
I'm an indie builder with an RSD brain. I made the decoder because the 2am spiral needed something faster than a meditation app and lighter than a mood tracker, and then I kept writing because the honest version of this topic was strangely hard to find. Everything here is built and written by me, in public, with the receipts on the methodology page.
Why should you trust anything on this site?
Cautiously, and with your eyes open, which is how you should read every health website including the famous ones. Here's exactly what I am and am not. I am not a clinician, and nothing here is therapy, diagnosis, or medical advice; every article says so, every article points to real professionals, and the crisis path is never behind anything. What I am is someone whose own brain does the thing, who built the tool I needed, and who writes from the pattern as it's actually lived plus the published clinical literature, which every article now cites. A licensed, DBT-trained therapist is reviewing the full methodology, including the instruction set the AI runs on and every word of the pre-written decode library; their credentials and any required changes will be published on the methodology page when the review completes. Until then, the honest label for this project is: built on an established DBT skill, written from lived experience and sources, clinical review in progress.
What is this project, exactly?
Three things, all pointed at the same ninety seconds. The decoder: a free, anonymous reality-check tool for the moment after a trigger, with an instant library of ten pre-written decodes and a personalized mode. The writing: plain-language articles answering the questions people actually search at 1am, from "do I have RSD" to "why does a one-letter text ruin my evening." And the Field Guide: a pay-what-you-want PDF, where free is a real option, because ADHD and money have a complicated relationship. The tool stores nothing you paste, requires no account, and is free forever. That's not a promotional claim; it's the design constraint everything else obeys.
Why build this in public?
RSD Decoder is part of SideRoad, a portfolio of small useful tools I'm building toward $1M in public, which means the revenue, the mistakes, and the decisions get documented openly. I mention that here for a specific reason: a mental health tool with a business attached should say so out loud, on its own site, before anyone has to go digging. The business model is a pay-what-you-want PDF. There are no ads, no data sales, no engagement mechanics, and no premium tier on the tool itself. If that ever changes, this page changes first.
Something wrong, or something helped?
Both matter more than you'd think. If an article is inaccurate, if the tool made a bad moment worse, or if something here helped on a night that needed it, I want to know: the fastest route is through SideRoad. This project carries real responsibility for the people who use it, and being reachable is part of carrying it.