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"Having seen people dealing silently with their mental health challenges throughout my career, I knew it was a problem, but the true catalyst for what created Glimmer hit me in 2020, and I haven't looked back since...
An estimated 26% of Americans ages 18 and older -- about 1 in 4 adults -- suffers from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year.
That’s crazy. That's 2x the population of California. That’s more than the population of Great Britain. And when you consider that suicide is ranked as the second leading cause of death amongst young people alone, it’s an even more grim statistic.
In my time working in the video game industry, however, I saw this first-hand. I didn’t have to look far to see that mental health challenges were being battled all around me. They were as close to home as my company itself.
And I’m sure that there are many people who can speak to a similar experience in any other industry, profession, or personal life.
"Having seen people dealing silently with their mental health challenges throughout my career, I knew it was a problem, but the true catalyst for what created Glimmer hit me in 2020. During the COVID pandemic, I experienced a life-altering circumstance that shook me to the core."
Lying in a hospital bed, connected to a breathing apparatus, after my COVID had developed into severe pneumonia, I was a coin flip between life and death.
It was a period of time that gave me ample room for introspection.
I made a decision at that time that if I was to survive my battle on that hospital bed, I was going to dedicate my time to a new venture, something bigger than gaming and certainly bigger than me.
" I’d always had an obsessive streak to my character. I believe it’s what helped me build up my gaming empire and it allowed me to delve into the realms of psychological, pharmacological, neurobiological, and lifestyle aspects of mental health care."
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After my fortunate recovery, I committed myself to extensive research in every aspect of mental health.
What I found alarmed me and it made our mission statement all the more important. It turns out that of all people suffering through mental health issues who aren’t institutionalised (which is the majority), only 13% actually discover treatment that works for them.
The reasons for this are varied, but it often seems to be the case that finding the therapies that work for you can come down to something as arbitrary as luck.
And if one therapy doesn’t work out for you, you’re less likely to pursue another avenue of treatment for whatever you’re dealing with.
Having looked into how people typically pursue therapy if they’re dealing with a problem, it became obvious to me that there’s a massive matchmaking failure occurring between patient and practitioners.
Seeking therapy is often a very siloed process. You might google therapists near you, you might ask a friend, you might find a therapist in your neighbourhood.
And if it helps, that’s great. But if it doesn’t, the majority of people simply won’t trial another form of therapy again and go untreated and unassisted in their challenges forever.
However, I believed that with the right data-driven technology and a more holistic approach to mental wellness, I could find a solution to this 87% problem.
Which is when I founded Glimmer.
"The first thing I knew we needed to do was to break down the barriers that prevented individuals from seeking help and create a supportive ecosystem to connect patients with the care they needed."
Glimmer’s aim is to revolutionise mental health care through technology, data, and a holistic treatment approach.
And the way I wanted to do this was with data-driven therapy—a system that accurately matched therapists with clients based on compatibility & trust, whilst continuously monitoring your progress to ensure that you’re on the right track with your wellness.
Rather than being a process of trial and error. Glimmer needed to provide personalised and effective treatment from the outset. That meant we had to:
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"We have the science to heal people, what we need is a business model to deliver it."
Using a combination of telehealth, CRM technology, and data analysis, Glimmer removes the silos, creating a multidisciplinary approach for each patient. Applying innovation from the virtual world, Glimmer integrates measurement based care using standard diagnostic tools that already exist in healthcare.
In doing so we’re creating quality assurance for the patient that their investment in their recovery is working, and if it’s not working, they can make an informed change.
It takes a lot for someone struggling to seek help and it has become my mission to make sure that each person has access to getting the kind of help they need. If that sounds good to you too, I hope you’ll join us on our journey.
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