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Recovery-aware circle

Ten years recovered and the caution I still keep

Started 3 February 2025 · 21 replies · 231 hearts · read 4.1k times

GrizelKirkcaldy, UK · 3 February 2025
1.5 years ago

Starting a thread on this because it keeps coming up in ones and twos: Ten years recovered and the caution I still keep

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

What I want is company rather than an answer, and I have learned that this circle is one of the few places where asking for that is not strange.

Something shifted a few months ago and I have only just been able to put words to it, and the words are still not quite right.

I keep records precisely so that I do not have to estimate, and the record says ten years, which is what the title says too.

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

77

NanNeath, UK
#1

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.

11

BroganCumbernauld, UK
#2

Grizel, answering your question directly rather than going round the houses.

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.

10

JonahFacilitatorCork, Ireland
#3

Facilitator note: if any of this has landed close to home while you were reading, our support resources page lists the kinds of service worth finding. No obligation and no drama.

24

QuinGuildford, UK
#4

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.

8

PádraigGalway, IE
#5

Brogan said something I want to sit with for a second.

What I would say is that a support community is not treatment. This is company alongside the people who actually know my history.

14

RenataKraków, PL
#6

I keep in regular contact with my team and I tell them what I am reading and where. That transparency has kept me safe more than once.

11

RunaAarhus, DK
#7

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.

5me too 4

OsricSalisbury, UK
#8

The hardest part for me has been other people's enthusiasm. Well-meant, and it lands somewhere I cannot always manage.

7

BramwellNottingham, UK
#9

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

I have found it useful to write about how I am rather than what I have done. The distinction is small and it changes what I notice.

9

SadieSalford, UK
#10

Reading this at half past six with a cup of tea and nodding at every line.

11

GwionBangor, UK
#11

Saying it out loud helps other people say it too. Thank you.

13me too 2

OrlaithDonegal, IE
#12

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.

9

OllieCardiff, UK
#13

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.

12

GrizelKirkcaldy, UK
#14

Coming back to what Gwion wrote further up, because it is the bit I keep thinking about.

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.

10

NanNeath, UK
#15

Somebody here said that recovery is not a straight line and nobody in this circle expects it to be, and I read that on a very bad evening.

8

BroganCumbernauld, UK
#16

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

The absence of comparison in this circle is the reason I stayed. Everywhere else I found, people were measuring themselves against each other.

9

SableCape Town, ZA
#17

What helped was being asked how I was doing rather than how it was going. Two different questions and only one of them was about me.

7

QuinGuildford, UK
#18

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.

10

PádraigGalway, IE
#19

What I needed was people who understood why certain kinds of conversation are hard, without me having to explain it every time.

8

JonahFacilitatorCork, Ireland
#20

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.

24

RunaAarhus, DK
#21

My experience is that this circle moves slowly and carefully and that is exactly what I needed from it.

11