The safety plan I built before starting

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.

This is the post I wish had existed when I was looking for it.

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

Somebody noticed something in what I had written, said so once, kindly, and then stayed. That is the best thing anybody has done for me here.

My treatment team were involved from before I started, which I would say is the single most important thing in my whole account.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

You have described the bit that nobody warns you about.

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.

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.