A year off and mostly steady

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.

The practical thing I got right was writing down why I was stopping while I was still on it. Two months later I could not have reconstructed my own reasoning.

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.

The tapering conversation was more nuanced than I expected. It was not simply stop or continue; there were several shapes in between and I had not known that.

I would gently suggest keeping your journal going through the stopping. Mine is the only reason I know what actually happened in those months rather than what I remember happening.

My stop was abrupt because of a supply problem rather than a choice, and I want to name that as its own category. It happens and it is nobody's decision.

That is a kinder way of putting it than I have managed about myself.

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.

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

What helped me was deciding in advance what I would do if things changed after stopping, so that I was not making that decision from inside a difficult month.

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.

Well said, and thank you for taking the time over it.

I stopped, and about six weeks later the background hum came back, and that was the part I was least prepared for. Not the physical side. The noise.