“I was very destructive with myself.” told JP, one of the candidates as well as a colleague at Springplank. “All day, I was feeling tense and restless and suffering from a lot of negative thoughts. I felt that there was no solution and things would not work out. At one point I started ignoring the mail because if I didn't open it then my financial problems weren't there for a while.” 

What was the tipping point? 

“I am not good at asking for help, because often I only did this when the need was already too high. This is also due to some shame. I encountered a lot of misunderstanding about my situation and people can't do anything about that either, but it did make me more reserved and my circle became smaller than it already was. Still, I managed to stay in my own network for a long time, but after four years it was still time to raise the alarm and I knocked on Springplank's door. In the beginning, it was very scary. I then had to sleep one night in the winter emergency shelter and this was really an ‘eye-opener’ for me and said to myself: never again! I was motivated to make something of it and start taking steps myself.”