Marrow Sanctuary

MARROW App Support

MARROW is the mobile app for Marrow Sanctuary, the community led by Charon Normand-Widmer, LMSW, in Livonia, Michigan. This page is how you get help with the app.

There is one route for help with the app, and it reaches a person. No form, no reference number to keep track of, no automated loop that sends you back to an article you already read.

The app signs you in to what you already have access to. Your place in the community is arranged on the website and is handled there, not here. Everything else about how the app behaves on your device belongs on this page.

01   1. What this page is for

Support here is for the app itself. That means what the software does on your device: signing in, loading, showing the community, sending notifications, and behaving the way it should.

It is not a channel for clinical questions. Charon is a licensed therapist, and this is not a way to reach her for care. Writing here does not create a therapeutic relationship, and nothing you send becomes part of a clinical record.

• Support can help with: sign-in trouble, the app not loading, content not appearing, notifications, devices and sessions, accessibility problems, reports about another member's conduct, and having your account removed.
• Support cannot help with: therapy, advice about your health, anything that needs a response in minutes, or anything that was arranged on the website and is handled there.

02   2. Urgent and clinical matters come first

If you are in danger, if you are thinking about ending your life, or if you are worried about someone else's safety, do not write here. This inbox is read during working hours and a reply can take up to two business days. That is far too slow when someone is in trouble.

Use one of these instead.

• Call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline in the United States. It is answered day and night.
• Call 911 if someone is in immediate danger.
• Go to the nearest emergency room, or ask someone you trust to take you there.
• Outside the United States, use your own local emergency number and your own local crisis line. We cannot stand in for either one.

03   3. How to reach a person

Write to [email protected].

Write from the email address your account uses, when you can. It lets us find your account without a round of questions first. If you have to write from a different address, say which address the account uses.

Put a short description in the subject line. Something like "Cannot sign in on iPhone" tells us more than "Help" does, and it gets to the right answer faster.

One message is enough. If you write the same thing three times, all three land in the same inbox, and the newest one sits at the back of the queue.

04   4. What to include so it can be answered quickly

Most back and forth happens because the first message was missing one small thing. Here is what actually helps.

• Your device and its operating system version. For example, iPhone 13 on iOS 18.4, or Samsung Galaxy S23 on Android 15.
• The app version. Open Settings in the app, then About. The version sits at the bottom of that screen.
• The email address on your account, if you are writing from a different one.
• What happened, in your own words.
• What you expected to happen instead. This matters more than people think. It tells us whether the app is broken or simply doing something unexpected.
• When it happened, roughly, and whether it happens every time or only sometimes.
• The exact wording of anything that appeared on screen. A screenshot is better than a description of a screenshot.
• What you already tried.

05   5. When to expect a reply

Expect a reply within two business days. Business days are Monday through Friday. A message sent on Friday evening is usually answered early the following week.

The app is not watched around the clock. There is no overnight shift and no weekend desk. If you write at two in the morning, the message is safe. It will be read, and it will not be read that night.

If a problem takes longer to fix than to answer, you will still hear from us inside that window. A reply that says we can see it and here is where it stands is still a reply.

If two business days pass and nothing arrives, write again and mention that it is a second attempt. Spam filters catch things in both directions, so also check your own spam folder, and any other folder your email app sorts messages into by itself, before you decide you were ignored.

06   6. Try this first: signing in and loading

Most reports come down to a handful of things. These take about two minutes and often settle it.

• Cannot sign in. Use the same email address you used when you joined on the website. The app signs you in to access you already have, so a different address will not find it.
• The sign-in link never arrived. Check your spam folder, and any other folder your email app sorts messages into by itself. An older link may no longer work, so ask for a new one instead of reusing an old email.
• The link opens the website instead of the app. Open the link on the device where the app is installed, and tap it directly instead of copying it into a browser.
• The wrong account appears. Sign out fully, close the app, open it again, and sign in with the address you expect.
• The app closes as soon as it opens. Close it fully and reopen it. Then restart the device. Then install any update waiting for MARROW, which your phone lists on its own app updates screen.
• The app sits on a loading screen. Switch between wi-fi and mobile data. Networks that ask you to accept something in a browser first, like hotel, clinic or campus wi-fi, will hold the app right there.
• A very old operating system. The app needs a version of iOS or Android that is still supported. If your device cannot be updated that far, tell us which version you have and we will tell you honestly whether it can work.

07   7. Try this first: content, notifications and devices

The other common reports are about things that should appear and do not.

• Posts or replies are not appearing. Pull down on the list to refresh. The app asks the server for content, and a refresh forces that request.
• A space you expected is missing. Some spaces are set up for one group inside the community, so not everyone sees every space. If you think you belong in one and it is not showing, write to us and name the space.
• Something you wrote has vanished. Check whether it was in a space you have since left, and check that the app is signed in to the account you wrote it from.
• Notifications are not arriving. Check three places, in this sequence: your device settings for the app, the notification settings inside the app, and any Focus or Do Not Disturb schedule that might be running.
• Notifications arrive hours late. Low power modes hold background activity back. Allow background activity for the app if you want alerts to land on time.
• Signing out of a device. Open Settings in the app and choose Sign out. That ends the session on that device and leaves your account and your content untouched.
• A device you no longer have. Write to us from the email address on your account. Sessions on other devices can be ended for you, and you can sign in again afterwards on the devices you still use.

08   8. Questions about your access

The app does not handle joining. Your place in the community is arranged on the website, and the app only signs you in to what you already have. There is nothing of that kind to manage inside the app, and nothing of that kind can be changed from a phone.

If your question is about the agreement you accepted when you joined, write to the same address and say so. It will be passed to the right person instead of being answered from the app side.

What support can do is confirm what your account has access to today, and work out why the app is showing you something different from what you expect. Those two things look identical from the outside and are usually not the same problem.

09   9. Reporting a problem with another member's conduct

Marrow Sanctuary is a place where people say hard things about their lives. That only works if it is safe. If another member's behavior crosses a line, report it. You are not causing trouble by doing that.

There are two ways to do it. In the app, open the menu on the post, comment or profile and choose Report. Or write to [email protected] with Report in the subject line.

• Tell us where it happened: the space, and the thread or post.
• Tell us roughly when, including the date if you have it.
• Include a screenshot if you can. It is the clearest record, and content can be edited after the fact.
• Say what effect it had on you, if you want to. You do not have to.
• A person reads every report. This is not handled by automated tools.
• Reports about conduct do not wait behind app questions. They are looked at first.
• You get an acknowledgement within two business days, even when the review itself takes longer.
• Outcomes range from a private word, to content being removed, to someone being removed from a space or from the community.
• Your name is not shared with the person you reported unless you ask for it to be.
• We cannot always tell you the outcome in detail. What happens to another member is often theirs, not ours to hand over.

10   10. Asking to have your account removed

You can ask for your app account to be removed, and you do not have to say why.

• Write to [email protected] from the email address on the account.
• Put Account deletion in the subject line.
• Say whether you want your posts and comments removed as well, or left in place with your name taken off them.
• You get confirmation within two business days that the request arrived.
• The account and your profile are removed within thirty days of that confirmation.
• Messages you sent directly to another member may still sit in their copy of the conversation. We cannot reach into someone else's inbox and take words out of it.
• A small number of records are kept where they have to be, such as a note that a report was reviewed. Those are kept apart from your profile and are not used to identify you inside the app.
• Removal is permanent. Starting again later would begin from an empty account with none of your history.

11   11. Accessibility

The app should work with the tools you already use to read a screen. If it does not, that is a defect and we want to hear about it.

• Text size follows your device setting. If you have larger text turned on, the app should honor it without cutting words off.
• VoiceOver on iOS and TalkBack on Android are supported. Buttons, images and controls should be announced with a label that means something.
• Reduced motion settings are respected. Animation is reduced or stopped when you have asked your device for that.
• Contrast is intended to stay readable in both light and dark appearance.
• Audio in the app carries a written transcript wherever one exists.

12   12. What to send us, and what to hold back

Support messages arrive as ordinary email. Please treat them that way.

• Do not send your password. Nobody here will ever ask for it.
• Do not send clinical details. They are not needed to fix a problem with software, and this inbox is not a clinical record.
• Screenshots are welcome. Where you can, crop out anything private that is not part of the problem, including other members' names and words.
• Send what the problem needs and no more: device, app version, what happened, what you expected.