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Recovery-aware circle

How this circle differs from every other room I have been in

Started 9 April 2024 · 21 replies · 241 hearts · read 1.9k times

OllieCardiff, UK · 9 April 2024
2.3 years ago

Something I have been sitting with: How this circle differs from every other room I have been in Not looking for advice so much as other people's experience.

This is a difficult one to write and I have deleted it twice.

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.

I have told nobody in my life about this part of it, which after two years is starting to seem like the problem rather than a way of managing it.

That is all. Thank you for being the kind of place where this can be written down.

80

GrizelKirkcaldy, UK
#1

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.

13

RunaAarhus, DK
#2

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.

9

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.

14

OsricSalisbury, UK
#4

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

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

10me too 4

NanNeath, UK
#5

Jonah 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.

13

SableCape Town, ZA
#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.

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BramwellNottingham, UK
#7

Reading this properly rather than skimming, which is all I have to offer today.

16me too 9

RenataKraków, PL
#8

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

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OrlaithDonegal, IE
#9

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.

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PádraigGalway, IE
#10

What Renata described happened to me too, in a slightly different order.

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.

13

SadieSalford, UK
#11

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

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.

12

GwionBangor, UK
#12

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.

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BroganCumbernauld, UK
#13

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.

11

OllieCardiff, UK
#14

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

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.

15

GrizelKirkcaldy, UK
#15

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.

8me too 3

RunaAarhus, DK
#16

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.

13

QuinGuildford, UK
#17

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

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.

11

OsricSalisbury, UK
#18

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.

12

NanNeath, UK
#19

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

8

JonahFacilitatorCork, Ireland
#20

Gently: you have apologised twice in a post where you have done nothing that requires an apology.

26me too 8

BramwellNottingham, UK
#21

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

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

5