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A relapse warning sign I nearly missed

Started 21 June 2025 · 15 replies · 148 hearts · read 3.1k times

OllieCardiff, UK · 21 June 2025
about a year ago

A question rather than an update: A relapse warning sign I nearly missed

Not asking anyone to fix this. Mostly saying it out loud somewhere it will be read kindly.

I do not think anything is wrong exactly. I think something is different and I have not caught up with it yet.

I have spent a long time managing everybody else's feelings about this and I have not looked at my own, and that is what this post is.

No advice needed. Company would be welcome and anything else is a bonus.

49

OrlaithDonegal, IE
#1

My clinician and I agreed in advance what I would do if things became difficult, and having that written down before I needed it was the whole point.

9

BramwellNottingham, UK
#2

What has helped is that nobody here treats appetite as a moral matter. That absence is doing a lot of work and I do not think it is accidental.

5

JonahFacilitatorCork, Ireland
#3

Holding the boundary once, clearly: no figures, no comparisons and no lists in this circle. That has been the rule since it opened and it is not negotiable.

20me too 7

OsricSalisbury, UK
#4

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

The thing I would say to anybody arriving is that you are allowed to be here and to be uncertain about being here.

6

SableCape Town, ZA
#5

Something I have had to be careful about is how much time I spend reading. There is a version of research that is not research and I know mine.

12

GrizelKirkcaldy, UK
#6

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

I would gently say to anybody here that if a conversation has started to feel like it is feeding something, that is worth saying out loud rather than managing alone.

9

SadieSalford, UK
#7

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

I stepped back for four months on advice and came back, and nobody asked me where I had been in a way that required an answer.

6

NanNeath, UK
#8

Marking that I am here, in case that counts for anything today.

10me too 2

BroganCumbernauld, UK
#9

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

Coming back to say that I am doing well, that my team say the same, and that this circle has been part of how I got here without ever pretending to be more than it is.

10

RenataKraków, PL
#10

Recovery-aware does not mean fragile, and I appreciated that being said plainly on the front of this circle before I ever posted in it.

9me too 7

GwionBangor, UK
#11

The facilitators in this circle have training in this specifically, and I checked that before I posted, and I am glad it was easy to find out.

11

PádraigGalway, IE
#12

What I appreciate is that this circle does not talk about food in the way the rest of the internet does. That is a deliberate choice and it works.

10

QuinGuildford, UK
#13

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

My history meant a lot of the standard guidance was not appropriate for me, and having a team who knew that was what made this possible at all.

9

JonahFacilitatorCork, Ireland
#14

Two things, both boring. None of us is a therapist. And the fact that we are not does not make company worthless — it makes it company rather than treatment.

16me too 5

OrlaithDonegal, IE
#15

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

I have been challenged here once, gently, in a way I did not enjoy and needed. Nobody piled on. One person said one thing and then supported me.

6