The shame was the worst side effect

Started 18 June 2026 · 13 replies · 79 hearts · read 1.4k times

InêsPorto, PT · 18 June 2026

1 month ago

Starting a thread on this because it keeps coming up in ones and twos: The shame was the worst side effect

Writing this partly to ask and partly because writing it down usually tells me what I think.

The practical side has settled and the rest of it has not, and I would like to hear how other people at this stage handled the part that is not practical.

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.

What I would find most useful is not advice. It is somebody describing what their version of this stage was, and how long it went on for before it changed.

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

NikolaiSofia, BG

If you are hovering, the only thing worth doing is booking the conversation. Everything after that is much smaller than it looks from here.

AurelBucharest, RO

The conversation I dreaded took under five minutes and contained no judgement of any kind. I had spent a month rehearsing for it.

BenediktFacilitatorVienna, Austria

Two things, both boring. None of us can tell you what schedule to be on. The conversation you want is with your prescriber, and we can help you write it down before you go.

MableBolton, UK

A break does not undo what you learned. That was the thing I most needed to hear and the thing I least believed at the time.

3me too 8

Gwen DAberystwyth, UK

I came back to the same circle I had left and three people remembered me. That mattered more than I would ever have predicted.

BobbieRochdale, UK

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

My honest experience is that the restart was better than the original in every respect except that I had lost some ground I would rather have kept.

NerysRhyl, UK

You have described the bit that nobody warns you about.

ZoraSarajevo, BA

The gap between deciding to restart and actually doing it was four months for me, almost entirely because I was embarrassed to ask. Please do not lose four months to that.

InêsPorto, PT

I found the first fortnight of the restart emotionally heavier than the first fortnight of the original start, which I had not anticipated at all.

6me too 6

NikolaiSofia, BG

#10

Nothing to add except that I am glad this thread exists.

AurelBucharest, RO

#11

Quietly agreeing from the other side of the country.

BenediktFacilitatorVienna, Austria

#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.

MableBolton, UK

#13

The shame was the worst of it for me, and the shame was also the least justified part. Nothing about a break requires an apology.