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The free tool below runs entirely in this browser — no account, nothing stored or transmitted. Redact anything you would not want kept before you type it.
Open the companion tool →Why the useful question is not permission
People use simulated conversations with someone they lost for many reasons: to rehearse something unsaid, to hear a familiar cadence, to get through an anniversary. None of those are automatically unhealthy, and none are automatically fine — what matters is whether the conversation is helping you live or replacing living.
The risk that shows up in practice is narrowing: fewer live conversations, more time with a version that cannot surprise you, and a private habit nobody knows about. Privacy is a reasonable choice; total secrecy inside a grief is what tends to hurt.
The protocol
- Notice when you reach for it — dates, evenings, arguments, or the ordinary quiet — and write that down rather than judging it.
- Notice what it gives you and what it cannot: comfort, a familiar voice, an answer; but never a new memory, never a disagreement, never a changed mind.
- Decide whether one living person should know. A friend, a sibling, a grief group, or a counselor — the point is that the habit is not carried alone.
- Keep one human thread alive in the same week: a call, a visit, a meal with someone who knew the person too.
- If the conversations crowd out the rest of your life, or you find yourself shaping your days around them, put a date on this page and bring it to a counselor.
What the tool does
Work through a short private checklist about a simulated conversation with someone you lost, and end with one human step you chose. It scores nothing, stores nothing, and renders no verdict.
Limit first: This is a reflection aid, not grief counseling, and it makes no judgment about whether grief simulation is right for you. A person is the better resource for this one.
Open the companion tool →One human next step
If grief is running the calendar rather than sharing it, a grief counselor or a support group is the step that helps most; the 988 line can also connect you with local support at any hour. This is not a rule about what you are allowed to feel.
Research log and safety checks
AI-assist path: not applicable — the artifact is a private reflection whose value comes from the reader's own observations; an AI summary of a grieving person's entries would be both presumptuous and less useful. §6.10: not a frontier-pace topic.
§0.5 protection result: category is chatbot-dependency-check; crisis-adjacent: no; fear/urgency/scarcity toolkit used: no. The protective function is free and the paid feature is convenience only.