BRONX, N.Y. — September 29, 2026 — Scarlet Beast, a conscious technology organization, today launched a free psychiatric advance directive (PAD) builder for all 50 states and Washington, D.C., at https://scarletbeast.com/pad/.
A psychiatric advance directive is a legal document a person writes while they are well. It records how they want to be treated if a mental health crisis leaves them unable to decide: the medications they agree to and the ones they refuse, where they want care, what helps, who should be contacted, and who may speak for them. Most states recognize these documents, but the rules for making one valid differ from state to state, and few people who could use one ever write it.
What the tool does
The builder walks a person through eight plain-language steps and prints a directive shaped to their state's law:
- the state's own name for the person's agent, such as "mental health care representative" in New Jersey
- the right number of witnesses (none, one or two), with who may not witness
- the notary rule: required, optional, allowed instead of witnesses, or not needed
- a wallet card naming the agent and the medications the person refuses
For every jurisdiction it shows the governing law, the official form where one exists, any state registry, and the sources behind them. The state-law data was researched in September 2026 from statute text and state agencies, with the National Resource Center on Psychiatric Advance Directives as a guide. Where a state requires its own official form (13 do), the tool says so and links the form, so the printed answers become a worksheet.
Private by design
Nothing a person types is sent anywhere. There is no account and no server storage: answers stay in the user's own browser, can be downloaded as a file, and can be erased with one button. Scarlet Beast never sees them.
Built from lived experience
Scarlet Beast's founder, Christian Scarlet (Bryan Ruiz), lives openly with serious mental illness. He has spent more than twelve years, on and off, at Trenton Psychiatric Hospital, and a medication once put him on life support for fifteen days. He has signed psychiatric advance directives under both New Jersey and New York law and published them, with other people's details removed, at https://scarletbeast.com/who-is-christian-scarlet/.
The builder sits alongside Scarlet Beast's peer-support page, "A Different Approach" (https://scarletbeast.com/mental-health/), which offers a free 30-minute one-on-one session with a peer by call or text at 1.866.695.1750. In an emergency, people should call or text 988.
Not legal advice
The builder is a free drafting tool, not a lawyer. Laws change, and the page asks people to check their state's current law and form, and to have a legal aid office, peer advocate or lawyer look over a directive before signing. Scarlet Beast invites peer-support, legal-aid and advocacy organizations to review their state's details and report corrections to [email protected].
Availability
- The builder: https://scarletbeast.com/pad/
- Peer support: https://scarletbeast.com/mental-health/
- The founder's own directives: https://scarletbeast.com/who-is-christian-scarlet/
About Scarlet Beast
Scarlet Beast is a conscious technology organization that builds production software and publishes its experiments in the open. It describes its purpose as "a source for everyone the world threw away." More at https://scarletbeast.com.
Media contact
Christian Scarlet, Scarlet Beast · [email protected] · scarletbeast.com/press
Not legal advice. In an emergency, call or text 988.
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