The first twelve weeks are nearly over and I have no idea what happens next

Started 12 May 2026 · 13 replies · 79 hearts · read 1.5k times

OllieCardiff, UK · 12 May 2026

2 months ago

The first twelve weeks are nearly over and I have no idea what happens next — putting it in its own thread so it does not get lost in the check-in.

Long one, sorry. I have been chewing on this for a fortnight.

My experience of this stage has not matched any account I have read, which I assume means the accounts are tidier than the reality rather than that something is wrong.

I want to write this down while I am still in it, because I have noticed that I rewrite these stages afterwards into something more sensible than they were.

My honest position is that I do not know whether to change something or wait, and I have been going round that question for three weeks without getting anywhere.

The figure in the title is not rhetorical: twelve weeks is what my own notes actually say, counted back through them this evening rather than estimated.

Thanks all. Genuinely. This circle has been better company than I expected to find anywhere.

TavishIsle of Skye, UK

Weeks three and four were when I stopped waiting for something to happen and started noticing things that already had. Different way of looking, same twelve weeks.

BlueStroud, UK

Something I did not anticipate was how much I would want to talk about it and how little the people around me would want to hear about it. This circle absorbed the difference.

EsiFacilitatorToronto, Canada

Stepping in to say that nobody here is behind. There is no schedule this community keeps and nobody is measuring anybody against one.

OndineLausanne, CH

Gently disagreeing with Tavish, or rather adding the other half of it.

I reread my own notes from week two recently and I sounded genuinely frightened. I had forgotten that. Twelve weeks does more than I gave it credit for at the time.

SindriReykjavík, IS

Bookmarking this. Thank you.

StefanZurich, CH

What I would tell my week-one self: the first twelve weeks are not a trial you pass. They are a period during which you find out how this works for you specifically.

7me too 2

BramleyBath, UK

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

Coming back at the end of my twelve weeks to say it was mostly ordinary. I wanted to leave that here, because when I was in week three every account I found was dramatic in one direction or the other.

KateBelfast, NI

Halfway through I stopped reading anything outside this site and my own prescriber's advice, and my anxiety dropped noticeably within a fortnight. That was my single biggest change.

IlyaAlmaty, KZ

Weeks four to eight were the steepest part for me. Everything was changing slightly every week and I could not tell which changes were the medication and which were just November.

4me too 4

Obi OEnugu, NG

#10

Something in the middle of this stretch will probably surprise you, and it will probably not be the thing you have been bracing for. Mine was sleep. I had prepared for everything except sleep.

Ozzy GWalsall, UK

#11

Weeks one to twelve for me were: strange, quiet, difficult, difficult, better, fine, fine, tired, tired, fine, good, and then a week where I forgot I was doing it at all.

EsiFacilitatorToronto, Canada

#12

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.

8me too 5

NualaArmagh, NI

#13

Gently disagreeing with Esi, or rather adding the other half of it.

The first twelve weeks are also when you find out what your prescriber is like when you ask a question between appointments. Mine was much more available than I expected and I had spent weeks not asking.