Navy Veteran Creates App to Track Mental Health Changes From Psychedelics

After his life as a Navy SEAL ended, Jonathan “Johnny” Wilson found it difficult to function in society.

After deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, his mind racked with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Wilson tried healing his wounds with alcohol. He became increasingly isolated. Even his own family couldn’t understand his pain. He looked fine on the outside but was fighting ongoing turmoil on the inside.

“That was one of the most challenging experiences of my life,” Wilson told Military.com. “That’s where I really hit rock bottom. I lost purpose, I lost my team, I lost the passion for the job.”

Wilson tried conventional therapy to improve his mental health, but nothing seemed to work. He finally opted for an ibogaine treatment that changed his life. While both federal and state funding have opened more doors for research and understanding of the powerful, psychedelic drug, ibogaine remains somewhat controversial.

Wilson admits it’s not for everyone, but it helped him and he’s encouraged other struggling veterans to try it. The former Navy SEAL’s experience led him to ponder: what if there was a way to effectively track mental health before it’s too late?

Hence, he created INVI (Invisible-Visible) MindHealth, an app using continuous biometric and behavioral data allowing users to see meaningful changes in their mental health, prompting them to reach out for help based off real data. Users wear a device around their wrists, sumilar to a Fitbit or Apple Watch, to track the data.

“If you and I were best friends and teammates in the SEALs, I would ask you how you’re doing,” he said. “I knew something was off, but your response was always the same, ‘I’m good, I’m OK.’

“And it’s so uncomfortable, the stigma, that I just left it alone. Now with data, I could call BS. I’m like, ‘No, dude, we’re best friends, what’s going on? Talk to me.’”

The platform recently received a huge boost when it was named as a performer team in ARPA-H’s (Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health) EVIDENT (Evidence-Based Validation and Innovation for Rapid Therapeutics in Behavioral Health) initiative, a federally funded drive to create objective and predictive measures for behavioral health.

How Does It Work?

Along with using biometric trends, the platform tracks behavioral signals through a peer-accountability model called the “Swim Buddy,” taken from SEAL training. Through analysis, veterans receive a MindScore that tracks check-in factors like mood, stress, energy and cognition.

Another reason Wilson created INVI MindHealth is to flip the script on conventional behavioral therapy that relies mostly on scheduled appointments and self-reporting—a system generally ill-equipped for veterans, wired to “just man-up” to suppress feelings of depression, anxiety and isolation.

In recent months, several states have passed legislation to fund new research into the effects of mind-altering drugs like ibogaine. In April, President Donald Trump signed an executive order prompting the Food and Drug Administration to explore more medicinal options for mental health treatment, including ibogaine.

About 30% of veterans meet a criterion for mental health disorder every year, but more than 28% do not disclose their struggles to even close family members or friends.

Personal Experience Ignites Idea

Wilson joined the Navy in 1999, spending 10 years on active duty.

He left the military, picked up a job trading stocks with Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs, and quickly discovered it didn’t provide the type of adrenaline rush and brotherhood the Navy SEALs did.

The loss of a close friend was his signal to jump back into the fray.

“My friend, Nick, was killed on a hostage rescue mission and I remember exactly where I was at,” he said. “I was trading that day, looking up at the TV screens and I started getting texts from my friends letting me know that he had been killed. Then, I saw it hit the news feed.

“Right then and there, I turned to my boss and said, ‘I’m done, I’m going back in.’ Less than three months later, I was in Afghanistan with a team.”

After he left the Navy for good in 2017, Wilson struggled to find his next step.

“I thought I didn’t fit in this world and I imagine that’s a feeling a lot of veterans have. We absolutely do,” he said. “Where do our skills translate? Where do we find purpose? I found it through doing mental health and nonprofit work, but man, that first go at it was so challenging that I had to come back into service and I did another four years.”

Meanwhile, his PTSD included bouts of hypervigilance. While riding the subway, Wilson always tried to sit in the far corner seat in the back so he could be alerted to any potential threats.

It translates to depleted energy and short tempers, comparing civilian and military life.

“I started realizing I shouldn’t be reacting this way to people, especially the people that love me most, my wife and children,” he added. “I shouldn’t snap at them because they didn’t put the glass in the right spot, or they didn’t fold the clothes the right way.

“There’s a big disconnect between how I’m responding and what they’re doing.”

Wilson’s tipping point came when he went to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for treatment, couldn’t find parking, and was a few minutes late. He said the receptionist scolded him. Fed up, he turned around and walked out.

“That taught me that you never ever try to assume what that person’s going through,” he said. “I’m already dealing with quite a bit. I had shown up early and I had a tough experience. I don’t hold it against the VA and I don’t hold it against that woman.”

Therapy has also dramatically changed, he acknowledged. Roughly 10 years training in the veteran realm was not as substantive.

He also tried magnetic stimulation and sitting in hyperbaric chambers before finally turning to psychedelic-assisted therapy. At first, he was very skeptical, but seeing how it helped a SEAL buddy made him think it could be the breakthrough he desperately needed.

Wilson couldn’t believe his friend’s transformation.

“He was on SEAL Team 6—the Bin Laden mission—got kicked out of SEAL Team 6, got kicked out of the Navy SEALs, and then got kicked out of the Navy for drinking,” he said. “So, you have a real big problem if you’re getting kicked out of the United States Navy for drinking, right?”

He last saw him in Virginia Beach, where they went to a coffee shop. He expressed concern about the person he had morphed into. However, his friend “Cheese” had a drastic turnaround—going from being 40 to 50 pounds overweight, to having long blonde hair and “glowing” in a skinnier frame.

The friend contributed his positive trajectory to psychedelics. Wilson said he conducted plenty of research on psychedelics before thinking, What do I have to lose?

MindScore and Buddies

While the ibogaine experience helped greatly, there wasn’t a suitable way to chart Wilson’s mental health changes.

It led him to create biomarkers on a previous foundation he worked for to better understand how stress, anxiety and depression affect both the mind and body.

“We didn’t have a score associated with it, but we knew we can kind of tell their trends,” he said. “Are they trending up or trending down when it comes to sleep or heart rate variability? And then we can intervene and support them.”

It involves pulling data from all wearables—Oura Rings, Whoops, Apple, Garmin—and is rolled into a qualitative score.

That’s how MindScore was developed, monitoring sleep, REM cycles and heart rate variability.

“The whole technology platform is based off trends,” Wilson said.

In the future, Wilson hopes to work with health care providers like the VA to implement the INVI platform.

He said he’s forging ahead, “trying to get ahead of that curve of them getting to that really, really bad spot.”