Nobody in my life understood why I would stop

Started 4 July 2026 · 14 replies · 74 hearts · read 1.7k times

GabePhoenix, AZ · 4 July 2026

2 weeks ago

Something I have been sitting with: Nobody in my life understood why I would stop Not looking for advice so much as other people's experience.

Long one, sorry. I have been chewing on this for a fortnight.

My prescriber has been fine, genuinely. The problem is that I get nine minutes twice a year and there is no version of nine minutes that covers a whole stage of this.

My experience of this stage has not matched any account I have read, which I assume means the accounts are tidier than the reality rather than that something is wrong.

What I am trying to work out is whether this is a phase with an end to it or the shape of things now, and I do not think I can tell that from inside it.

Thanks all. Genuinely. This circle has been better company than I expected to find anywhere.

BastianFreiburg, DE

What I found hardest was other people treating it as a failure while my prescriber treated it as a normal clinical decision. Their reaction was the difficult part, not the decision.

5me too 6

FabianBasel, CH

I stopped because my prescriber said so, which is a very different experience from choosing it, and it took me longer to make peace with because it was not mine.

DashSeattle, WA

Picking up Bastian’s point rather than starting a new one.

Six months off and I am fine. Different, and fine. I came back to this circle to say so because when I was leaving I could not find anybody who had.

BenediktFacilitatorVienna, Austria

Adding a marker so the thread does not lose it: when the same practical thing gets named twice by two people who have never met, that is usually the sentence a newcomer needs, and it is rarely the one at the top.

NikoTbilisi, GE

Reading Benedikt, I recognised more of that than I expected to.

Nobody here is going to think less of you for stopping. That was my genuine fear when I posted about it, and it was completely unfounded.

IdaRotterdam, NL

I came off for eight months and went back on, and I want both halves of that on the record because threads that only cover the leaving are only half a story.

4me too 2

SinéadCork, IE

Not a solution, just company.

BronLincoln, UK

Sinéad — yes, and the bit that took me longest to accept was the next part.

Mine was a side-effect decision, taken carefully, with two conversations and a proper look at the alternatives first. It was the right call and it was still sad.

BryonyMalvern, UK

My prescriber's line was that stopping is not a door closing, and she was right in my case. Going back later was a conversation, not a re-application.

TillyHereford, UK

#10

Sinéad — yes, and the bit that took me longest to accept was the next part.

I stopped and did not go back, and I am at peace with it, and I would not present that as a recommendation to anybody. It was my situation and my body.

FenEly, UK

#11

Coming back a year after stopping to say that I am well, that it was the right decision for me, and that I still read here every week.

BramwellRipon, UK

#12

Fen has already said most of this and I want to add the one part that was different for me.

I came off because of cost, not because of anything clinical, and it took me a long time to say that without embarrassment. It is an extremely common reason and it is not a moral failing.

5me too 7

BenediktFacilitatorVienna, Austria

#13

A note for whoever opened this, whether you are still reading or come back to it in a year: there is no obligation on you to update us, and equally you are always welcome to.

Birdie BWhitstable, UK

#14

If you are reading this while deciding, the only thing I would push on is: is anybody clinical in the loop. Everything else is genuinely yours to weigh.