The first time hunger came back properly

The thing that made it manageable was that nothing about the decision was final. Reviewing it in three months was always an option and knowing that took the weight out of it.

Nothing useful, just that I have been exactly here.

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.

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.

Mine was a planned stop with my prescriber over about four months. Having a plan made the difference between a decision and a collapse.

What I would say to anybody considering it is to have the conversation before you decide rather than after. My prescriber had two options I had not known existed.

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.

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.

This is why I read the boring weeks. Thank you for the boring weeks.

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.

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.

The circle carried me through the first eight weeks after stopping more than anything else did. Nothing anybody said, particularly. The turning up.

I would say do not stop in a difficult week if you can possibly help it. My decision was sound and the timing was terrible and the timing is what made it hard.

What I noticed after stopping was that the habits stayed longer than I expected and then quietly went. That was useful information about which habits had been mine.

Building on what Tilly wrote rather than answering the original question.

Honest note: my first month off was much better than I had feared and my third month was much harder. The order surprised me.

I came off during a pregnancy, on advice, and it was straightforward clinically and complicated emotionally, and I did not find anywhere to say that until this circle.

My reason was that I no longer wanted to be doing it, which felt like an insufficient reason until my prescriber said it was a perfectly good one.