Care includes learning the signs that do not look like requests.

People in difficulty rarely announce it in a usable form. The signals tend to be indirect: cancelled plans, a shorter reply than usual, a joke with an edge, the fridge that has been empty for a week. Someone may not ask because asking costs energy they do not have, or because they are not sure they qualify as struggling. Learning a particular person’s version of that language is most of what attentive care actually is.

Think of one person you know well and name the specific thing they do when they are not coping. Next time you see it, respond to the sign rather than waiting for the sentence.