What was different the second time

Started 31 January 2026 · 17 replies · 135 hearts · read 1.2k times

NerysRhyl, UK · 31 January 2026

6 months ago

What was different the second time Writing it down partly to work out what I actually think.

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

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.

I have read the guides here, which were more useful than anything else I have found, and I still have a question about the timing that they do not cover.

The thing that has surprised me most about this stage is how much of it is about other people rather than about me.

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

BobbieRochdale, UK

My prescriber's first sentence when I asked about going back was that plenty of people do, which deflated about six weeks of dread in one go.

NikolaiSofia, BG

Restarting is an ordinary shape. I did not believe that when I was doing it and I believe it completely now, having watched about thirty people here do the same.

BenediktFacilitatorVienna, Austria

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

20me too 8

MableBolton, UK

Picking up Benedikt’s point rather than starting a new one.

Coming back a year into my restart to say it held, it was ordinary, and the break in the middle is now just a gap in my notes rather than a fault line.

OttilieCheshire, UK

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

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.

ZoraSarajevo, BA

I restarted at a lower step than I stopped at, on purpose, and stayed there for six months. Slowly was the correct speed for a second attempt in my case.

Gwen DAberystwyth, 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.

9me too 4

NerysRhyl, UK

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

The thing I would say is that a break is information. Mine told me a great deal about which changes had been the medication and which had become mine.

9me too 5

BobbieRochdale, UK

#10

Restarting after a cost break here. The situation changed, I went back, and nobody at the surgery treated it as anything other than routine.

NikolaiSofia, BG

#11

Bookmarking this. Thank you.

InêsPorto, PT

#12

I started again from the bottom step, deliberately, even though I had been much further along before. It was the right call and my prescriber agreed without me having to argue.

MableBolton, UK

#13

What I got wrong the first time was doing it alone. The restart had a circle, a buddy and a proper conversation attached, and it went completely differently.

10me too 3

OttilieCheshire, UK

#14

My break was nine months and my restart was uneventful, which is the least dramatic sentence in this thread and the one I most wanted to read when I was deciding.

AurelBucharest, RO

#15

I restarted after fourteen months and the hardest part was entirely in my head. The practical side took one appointment and a fortnight.

BenediktFacilitatorVienna, Austria

#16

Noticing out loud that we have drifted into comparing timelines. That happens without anybody intending it and it does not help the person who opened the thread. Let us come back to them.

17me too 5

Gwen DAberystwyth, UK

#17

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.