Recovery Support Pipe Dream

Seven kinds of family and friend support during recovery, and which ones leak

Level 1 of 3

Recovery fuel

Tap a pipe to select it. Tap a grid cell to place it. Tap a placed pipe to rotate.

💧 source

recovery

Available pipes: tap one to select it

Diabetes Fit and Injury Recovery · Game

Support flows like water, through pipes that connect, leak, or block

The people who love you most can accidentally build the wrong kind of pipeline during recovery. Some support feels generous and still drains your progress. Build the pipeline and watch what reaches recovery.

1Place pipes. Tap a pipe in the tray, then tap a square on the board. Tap a placed pipe to rotate it.
2Test the flow. See how much recovery fuel makes it from the support source to recovery.
3Read what each pipe means. Every pipe is a pattern of family support, and its research opens here. Three levels, then the caregiver roles and a family meeting plan.

Connect support to recovery

Tap a pipe in the tray, tap a square to place it, tap a placed pipe to rotate it, then press Test flow.

The pipes on this level

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The 6 caregiver junctions

Most caregivers silently absorb all six of these roles during recovery. Tap each to expand it.

Many caregivers fill several of these roles at once.

Few people ask them how they're doing. Recovery involves everyone around the person who got hurt.

Ready to build your real pipeline?

A 15-minute family meeting can change everything

Draw your support map

Three circles: inner (daily support), middle (weekly check-ins), outer (occasional check-in). Who is in each circle, and what are they actually providing?

Name the roles

Who is filling which of the 6 caregiver roles, which roles are empty, and does anyone have too many? Say it out loud.

Ask the question nobody asks

"What do you need right now?" Ask it of the primary caregiver, the one holding everything up, instead of the person recovering.

The research-backed pipeline

Here's what an intentionally designed support system looks like

support

recovery

The ideal support system uses empathic responding as the backbone, autonomy support as valves the recovering person controls, structured collaboration as the wide main line, and friend fuel as a separate parallel pipeline.

"No family starts with the perfect pipeline. You build toward it together."