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Care Pack #033

Keeping the Ground You Gained

For the slow slide that happens when nothing is scheduled and nobody is checking.

Before you begin, where are you right now?

One tap. It gives you something to measure against at the end.

1, settled10, at its worst

Nothing went wrong. That is what makes this hard to catch. There was no crisis and no decision, just a fortnight of slightly later nights, then a few messages left unanswered, then the walk stopped happening, and now it is two months on and you are somewhere you did not agree to be.

Nobody chooses to drop out of care. The research on this is consistent and it describes people who never decided to leave and simply stopped being in contact with anything. Drift is not a failure of will. It is what happens by default once the appointments stop.

The opposite of drift is not discipline. It is one booked thing and one person who knows.

  1. 1.Drift is quiet. It is not a bad day, it is three weeks of slightly later nights and slightly fewer messages answered
  2. 2.Pick the one habit that held everything else up. Sleep, food, the walk, the medication. Just name it
  3. 3.Do that one thing today at roughly the usual time, whether or not it feels necessary
  4. 4.Do not restart the whole regime at once. Rebuilding five things fails; rebuilding one holds
  5. 5.Slipping is not the same as being back where you started. You keep the ground you covered even on the days you cannot feel it

How drift actually works

It removes the load-bearing habit first

One thing was holding the others up. Usually sleep, food, the walk or the medication. Find that one and reinstate it, rather than trying to rebuild the whole regime at once.

Rebuilding five things fails. Rebuilding one holds.

It cancels the appointment you no longer need

The review you feel fine for is exactly the one that catches the next slide. Cancelling it is how a very large number of people leave care without ever deciding to.

Keep the appointment you think you have outgrown.

It happens below the threshold for asking

You wait until it is bad enough to justify contacting someone. That threshold is the whole problem, and by the time you clear it the climb back is much steeper.

Ask while you still feel silly asking.

Write it down while you are well

Two documents are worth having, and both are much harder to produce while unwell. First, what your early warning signs actually look like in you specifically. Second, exactly how you get back into care: the number, the route, the referral path.

Give the first one to somebody who sees you regularly, and give them permission to mention it. Keep the second one where you will find it at a bad moment.

You keep the ground you covered, even on the days you cannot feel it underfoot.

You reached the end. Where are you now?

One tap, however it landed.

1, settled10, at its worst

Take this one with you

You will not remember which page this was on at three in the morning. Put your email in and this pack comes to you, then one steady letter a month. Never a gate, and it stops the moment you say so.

There is more on the shelf

10 other packs sit alongside this one, written for the stretch you are in. All of them free, all of them yours.

See the other packs

This digital shelf is free for everyone, and it stays that way because people hold it open. You can be one of them, from $12 a month. Nobody is ever charged to read a pack.