Your Support Map

There is one name that everything goes to. Good news, bad news, the four in the morning version, the thing you are embarrassed about. When that person replies quickly the day is fine, and when they do not, most of the day is spent managing it, which is what people mean when they say somebody's mood has become the weather. This grid makes the routing visible: everyone you know down one side, what each of them can actually hold across the top.

You fill it in from the left. The list of names comes first and it should be longer than feels reasonable, because the point is not to identify your inner circle. Then the six kinds of holding, kept separate on purpose: being good company and being somebody you can tell the embarrassing version to are different capacities, and most people have one and not the other. Marking comes third, the blanks fourth, and the last step is about adding a single name rather than building a network.

Who this worksheet is for

One person currently carries almost everything you bring to anyone, and you noticed it properly the week they were away and you had nowhere to put any of it.

Download the free PDF ↓

Free, printable, no email required. Prints on A4 or Letter.

Filling in the grid

Seven steps. The PDF prints the blank grid on its own page, with room for eighteen names.

Step one: the long list

Everyone, including the people you would not call.

Write down every person currently in your life in any form. Family, friends, the friend you only ever message about one subject, colleagues you like, the neighbour, somebody from a class or a club, people you have not spoken to in months but could. Aim for fifteen names or more and resist filtering as you go, because the filtering is precisely what this exercise is trying to make visible. It is not a ranking and nobody else is going to see it.

Prompts

  • ●Names, fifteen or more, in any order:
  • ●Two people I left off because I assumed they are busy:
  • ●Anyone I have not spoken to in six months but could:
  • ●Anyone on the list I only ever see in a group:

Step two: the six columns

Six kinds of holding, which are not interchangeable.

Practical help, meaning a lift, a form filled in, a dog fed. A hard conversation, meaning somebody who can hear something difficult and stay in it. Sitting with you while nothing is said. Being told the embarrassing version, unedited. Being contacted at two in the morning. And ordinary company, which is the column most people undervalue and which does more than the rest of them on an average week. Read the definitions across the top before marking anything, because the definitions are what make the marking honest.

Prompts

  • ●Which column would I most like filled, if I could pick one?
  • ●Which column have I never asked anybody for?
  • ●Which column do I assume nobody would say yes to?

Step three: mark it as it is

Ticks based on what has happened, not on who is close.

Go name by name and mark only what that person has actually done, or would obviously do. The test is evidence rather than affection. Somebody can be your closest friend and no use at all at two in the morning, and the person who is best at two in the morning is frequently not the person you are closest to. Expect the grid to look sparser than the list suggested. Most people find two or three names carrying several columns and a long tail carrying one.

Prompts

  • ●The three names carrying the most columns:
  • ●Names carrying exactly one column:
  • ●A tick I made from hope rather than from evidence:
  • ●Anyone marked in every column? What is that costing them?

Step four: find the single-name column

The column with one tick in it is the exposure.

Almost everyone finds at least one column with a single name, and that column is where the whole arrangement is fragile. If one person is the only route for the hardest thing you carry, then their bad week, their holiday, their illness or an argument with them removes that capacity entirely, and removes it at exactly the moment you are most likely to need it. This is not an argument for depending on them less. It is an argument for that column having a second name in it.

Prompts

  • ●Which columns have exactly one name?
  • ●What happens to me in a week that person is unavailable?
  • ●Has that already happened? What did I do instead?
  • ●Does that person know they are the only one?

Step five: the blanks, without blaming anyone

What people cannot hold, written down as a fact.

The hard part of this grid is marking what somebody cannot do, because it feels like a judgement about them and it is not. Capacity is specific and it varies with whatever a person is carrying themselves. A parent who cannot hear the difficult version may have reasons that predate you entirely. A friend who is useless in a crisis may be the best company you have. Writing the blank down stops you asking the wrong person and then reading the failure as evidence about the relationship, which is what usually follows.

Prompts

  • ●One person I keep asking for something they cannot give:
  • ●What can they actually give that I have been overlooking?
  • ●Where would that request be better placed?
  • ●Is there a blank here that is really about how I ask?

Step six: the professional row and the row for yourself

Two rows the grid needs and that people leave out.

Services belong on the grid. A GP, a therapist if you have one, a helpline, an employee assistance line, a union representative, a debt or housing service. These hold things no friend can and they are not a lesser category for being paid or staffed. Then add a row for yourself and mark it honestly, because there are hours when nobody else is available and what you can hold alone is part of the picture. That row is usually thinner than people expect, and it is what the self-soothing work is for.

Prompts

  • ●Services and professionals currently available to me:
  • ●One I could put in place this month, and the first step:
  • ●What I can genuinely hold on my own at three in the morning:
  • ●What I do instead at that hour, and how well it works:

Step seven: one name, one column, one month

How a column gets a second name in it.

Widening is slow and specific. Take the single-name column, pick one person from the long list who might hold that thing, and ask for something small enough that a vague answer would cost you very little. A twenty-minute walk. The shortened version of something you would normally tell only one person. What you are testing is not whether they will become a confidant; it is whether the smaller version lands well. Instructions to build a support network fail because they skip this and start at the network.

Prompts

  • ●The column I am widening:
  • ●The one person I will ask, and what specifically I will ask for:
  • ●When, this month:
  • ●What I will make of it if the answer is no or vague:

Before you use this

If the two in the morning column is empty and the nights are getting hard, that is worth taking to a GP or a therapist rather than working around on paper. In the UK, Samaritans answer free on 116 123 at any hour of any day, and most countries have an equivalent line. A grid is a good thing to fill in when you have some room to think. It is not what to reach for when you have none.

Routing everything through one person has a pattern behind it

The single-name column looks different depending on the pattern producing it, and the quiz will tell you which version to expect in your own grid.

What's Your Attachment Style?

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Support Map Worksheet: FAQ

What is a support map?▼
A grid with the people in your life down one side and the kinds of support they can genuinely provide across the top. It is filled in from evidence rather than affection, so each mark records something that has actually happened. The purpose is to make visible how much runs through one person, which is usually more than people expect before they draw it out.
What if there are only two names on my grid?▼
That is a common result and it is a starting position rather than a verdict. What follows is deliberately small: take one column with a single name in it, pick one person you already know, and ask for something minor enough that a vague answer would cost you very little. Widening happens one name and one column at a time.
Is it wrong to rely mainly on one person?▼
No. Having somebody who can hold most of it is a good thing, and this grid is not an argument for depending on them less. The risk is structural rather than moral: if one person is the only route for something, their holiday, illness or bad week removes that capacity completely, usually at the point you most need it to be there.
How do I widen my support without making new friends?▼
Most people do not need new people. They need existing people moved into columns they are not currently in. The long list at step one nearly always contains several names who could hold ordinary company or a practical favour and have simply never been asked. Asking small, and asking the right person rather than the closest one, is most of the work.

Worksheets for the other styles

  • Anxious Attachment worksheet — You re-read messages looking for tone changes, feel panic when replies slow down, or find yourself doing things to get reassurance that you later wish you had not done.
  • Avoidant Attachment worksheet — You need space when things get close, go quiet under conflict, find faults in partners as intimacy grows, or feel relief when plans get cancelled.
  • Fearful-Avoidant Attachment worksheet — You crave closeness then feel trapped by it, end relationships you wanted, or feel like two different people depending on the week.
  • Secure Attachment worksheet — You came out secure and want to know what to keep doing, or you are building earned security and want the target described in behaviour rather than adjectives.

Worksheets by situation

  • The 8-week anxious attachment healing plan — You already know you have an anxious pattern, you have read the explanations, and what you are missing is an order of operations you can actually follow.
  • Attachment triggers worksheet — You keep having the same fight, or you react strongly to things that seem small afterwards and want to know what specifically is firing.
  • Attachment journal prompts — You want to write about your patterns but either end up spiralling or end up staring at a blank page wondering what you are supposed to say.
  • Couples attachment worksheet — You are having the same argument repeatedly, in the same shape, and both of you can predict it from the first two sentences.
  • Attachment styles handout for therapists — You are a therapist, counsellor, coach or student who wants a printable attachment handout for clients, or a client who would like the plain-language version to read between sessions.
  • Healing avoidant attachment (8-week workbook) — You have read the explanations of avoidant attachment, recognised yourself, and still have no idea what to actually do on a Tuesday evening when your partner wants to talk.
  • Healing fearful-avoidant attachment (workbook) — You want closeness intensely and then find it unbearable, sometimes within the same day, and you have stopped trusting your own read on what you want.
  • Printable attachment style self-assessment — You want to work this out on paper rather than on a screen, or you are a practitioner who wants something printable to go through with a client.

Or go back to all free attachment worksheets, including the one-page cheat sheet covering all four styles.

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