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Restarting after a break

A gap over Ramadan and how I planned the return

Started 4 May 2025 · 17 replies · 181 hearts · read 1.8k times

MableBolton, UK · 4 May 2025
about a year ago

Something I have been sitting with: A gap over Ramadan and how I planned the return Not looking for advice so much as other people's experience.

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.

What I am trying to work out is whether this is a phase with an end to it or the shape of things now, and I do not think I can tell that from inside it.

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.

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

60

BobbieRochdale, UK
#1

I kept everything from the first time and it made the restart conversation extremely short. The notes were worth more than I would have guessed.

10

OttilieCheshire, UK
#2

Something worth knowing: my second start had different side effects from my first. Not worse, different. I had expected an exact repeat and got a variation.

8

BenediktFacilitatorVienna, Austria
#3

Facilitator note: everything discussed here is a matter for you and whoever prescribes for you. We are company for the thinking, not a substitute for the appointment.

24

NikolaiSofia, BG
#4

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 9

Gwen DAberystwyth, UK
#5

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.

8

AurelBucharest, RO
#6

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

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.

8

NerysRhyl, UK
#7

Well said, and thank you for taking the time over it.

6

InêsPorto, PT
#8

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.

11

MableBolton, UK
#9

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

8me too 7

BobbieRochdale, UK
#10

The bit in the middle is the bit I needed to read.

12

OttilieCheshire, UK
#11

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

What surprised me was how quickly the routine came back. Muscle memory for where things go, when I do it, what the week looks like. Three days and I was back in it.

11

ZoraSarajevo, BA
#12

I have restarted twice. The second break was shorter and the second restart was easier, and I think that is because I had stopped treating either one as a verdict.

8

NikolaiSofia, BG
#13

The most useful thing anybody said to me was to treat the restart as a new start rather than a resumption, because my body had had a year of its own in between.

11me too 4

Gwen DAberystwyth, UK
#14

I want to name that my break happened because life got very hard for a while, and going back happened because it got less hard. That is the entire mechanism.

6

AurelBucharest, RO
#15

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

8

BenediktFacilitatorVienna, Austria
#16

Closing note from me: this stays open, it stays linked from the circle landing page, and if you found it late you are still welcome to add to it.

22me too 6

InêsPorto, PT
#17

I was frightened that going back meant the first attempt had not counted. It counted. It was a year of my life and it taught me most of what I know.

10