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Restarting after a break

Eight months away and I am back, bracing myself

Started 8 August 2025 · 22 replies · 213 hearts · read 3.7k times

NikolaiSofia, BG · 8 August 2025
11 months ago

Eight months away and I am back, bracing myself — putting it in its own thread so it does not get lost in the check-in.

I have been reading here for a few weeks and have not posted, so this is me posting.

I have written down what has happened, in order, because I find that more useful than my own summary of it. The summary always sounds either better or worse than the weeks actually were.

What I keep tripping on is not knowing whether where I am is where I should be at this point, and having nobody to ask who is not either selling something or worried about me.

I have put eight months in the title because that is the number I keep coming back to, and I would rather be specific than vague about it.

No rush on replies. I am not going anywhere and neither, apparently, is this stage.

71

Gwen DAberystwyth, UK
#1

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.

10

ZoraSarajevo, BA
#2

What worked was making the restart small and boring. One conversation, one step, one week at a time, no plan beyond the next fortnight.

6

BenediktFacilitatorVienna, Austria
#3

Thank you all for the care in here. When somebody arrives frightened, what this circle aims to hand back is experience rather than instruction, and that distinction is the whole reason it exists.

19

NerysRhyl, UK
#4

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

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

9

OttilieCheshire, UK
#5

Nobody in this circle has ever asked me why I stopped in a tone that required an answer. That is the whole reason I was able to come back and say I had.

5

AurelBucharest, RO
#6

Practical: I had a proper conversation about starting dose before restarting rather than assuming, and it turned out the assumption I would have made was wrong.

7

MableBolton, UK
#7

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

My second time round I set up a buddy from week one instead of week thirty, and it is the single change that made the most difference.

13

InêsPorto, PT
#8

I have nothing to add and I did not want to leave it unanswered.

8me too 7

NikolaiSofia, BG
#9

Recognition rather than advice, if that is any use at all.

11

Gwen DAberystwyth, UK
#10

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

12me too 1

ZoraSarajevo, BA
#11

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.

5

BobbieRochdale, UK
#12

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

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.

10me too 2

NerysRhyl, UK
#13

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

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

7

OttilieCheshire, UK
#14

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

11

AurelBucharest, RO
#15

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

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.

10me too 6

MableBolton, UK
#16

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.

9

InêsPorto, PT
#17

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.

8

NikolaiSofia, BG
#18

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.

7

Gwen DAberystwyth, UK
#19

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.

9

ZoraSarajevo, BA
#20

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.

8

BenediktFacilitatorVienna, Austria
#21

A reminder that this circle holds every stage at once, which is its strength and occasionally its difficulty. Somebody in year three answering somebody in week three needs to say which they are.

20me too 1

NerysRhyl, UK
#22

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

9