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Coming off

I stopped because I did not like who I was becoming about food

Started 30 September 2024 · 21 replies · 257 hearts · read 3.4k times

DelythBala, UK · 30 September 2024
1.8 years ago

Starting a thread on this because it keeps coming up in ones and twos: I stopped because I did not like who I was becoming about food

Writing this partly to ask and partly because writing it down usually tells me what I think.

What I keep tripping on is not knowing whether where I am is where I should be at this point, and having nobody to ask who is not either selling something or worried about me.

I am aware some of this may simply be what this stage is like. I would still like to hear from people who have been through it, because I have spent a fortnight assuming I am the only one.

The thing that has surprised me most about this stage is how much of it is about other people rather than about me.

Anyway. Thank you for reading this far. Any experience of this stage gratefully received, and I will come back and say what happened.

86

NikoTbilisi, GE
#1

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.

14

BastianFreiburg, DE
#2

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.

10

BenediktFacilitatorVienna, Austria
#3

I am pleased with how this went and I want to say so. Not every thread needs a facilitator and this one mostly did not.

29

IdaRotterdam, NL
#4

Benedikt, thank you for that. It gives me somewhere to start from.

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.

8me too 8

BryonyMalvern, UK
#5

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.

12

Birdie BWhitstable, UK
#6

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

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.

10

TedIpswich, UK
#7

The bit in the middle is the bit I needed to read.

11me too 3

TillyHereford, UK
#8

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.

8

TanviMumbai, IN
#9

Building on what Birdie B wrote rather than answering the original question.

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.

9

SinéadCork, IE
#10

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

13me too 7

FabianBasel, CH
#11

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.

9

GabePhoenix, AZ
#12

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

15

BronLincoln, UK
#13

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.

11me too 5

BramwellRipon, UK
#14

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

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.

13

GudrunAkureyri, IS
#15

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

I stopped twice. The first time badly and alone, the second time properly and with support. The second one is the one I would describe as coming off.

13

TressaSt Austell, UK
#16

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.

8

FenEly, UK
#17

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.

10

DelythBala, UK
#18

Holding this with you rather than answering it.

10me too 8

NikoTbilisi, GE
#19

Delyth — 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.

8me too 4

BenediktFacilitatorVienna, Austria
#20

Before anyone offers a schedule: what has been described here is a conversation for a prescriber rather than a thread. I am going to be firm about that, kindly.

22

DashSeattle, WA
#21

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.

14