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The first twelve weeks

Twelve weeks today. Here is what I would tell the woman in week one

Started 9 March 2026 · 8 replies · 281 hearts · read 4.3k times

TildaCambridge, UK · 9 March 2026
4 months ago

Cambridge. Twelve weeks today, which I know is only a number on a calendar, but it was the number I was told to get to and I have got to it, so I am marking it.

Things I would tell week-one me, in the order she would have needed them.

  • The first three days after a step are the tax. Not the new normal. I spent all of December convinced each bad Tuesday was permanent.
  • You will not be able to tell what is working and what is not for at least six weeks, so writing things down is not admin, it is the only instrument you have.
  • Tell one person. Just one. I told nobody for five weeks and the loneliness of it was worse than the nausea by a distance.
  • Buy the small yoghurts. Not the big pot. The big pot will sit there reproaching you and the small one gets eaten.
  • The stairs at work will change before anything else does. Mine did around week five and I nearly cried in the stairwell at Christmas.

Things I got wrong. I chased every suggestion in my first fortnight and changed four things at once, so I learned nothing from a whole miserable month. I also assumed everyone posting confidently knew more than me. About half of them did.

What I would say to anybody in week two reading this at midnight: the specific misery you are in right now is almost certainly the medicine settling and not your future. That was true for me. It was not true for two people I have got to know here, and they got seen and it was handled, and that is also how this goes.

94

EsiFacilitatorToronto, Canada
#1

Twelve weeks, and you have written the thing I try to say every fortnight better than I say it. Thank you.

The line I would underline for new readers is the last paragraph, because it is honest in both directions. Most early misery settles. Some of it needs a clinician. Both sentences have to stay in, and threads that only contain the first one are not actually kind — they are just cheerful.

48me too 10

FreyaReykjavík, IS
#2

Week eleven and reading this at, yes, midnight. The small yoghurts. I have three-quarters of an enormous pot in my fridge accusing me every time I open the door.

Tell one person is the one I have not done. I have told this room and nobody in Reykjavík. I will think about that.

27me too 9

TamGlasgow, UK
#3

I write everything down and it has saved me twice, so hard agree on the instrument point.

The two saves, briefly, since it is relevant: once because I could show a pattern to my GP in ninety seconds that would have taken me ten minutes to describe badly, and once because I could see that a fortnight I remembered as terrible had in fact been four bad days and ten fine ones. Memory is a liar about this stuff.

34me too 5

IdrisCardiff, UK
#4

Teacher. The stairwell one landed. Mine was the walk up to the science block, which I have done four times a day for eleven years and which was always the worst part of my morning. One Tuesday in February I got to the top still talking.

Nobody to tell at the time. Told the room instead. This is what the room is for.

41me too 8

NadiaCairo, EG
#5

Expat pharmacy roulette here, so my addition to your list is: find out now what happens when your supply is interrupted, not in the week it is interrupted. I lost eleven days in month two entirely to admin I could have done in month one.

22me too 4

ClemmieNorwich, UK
#6

Week twelve for me is next Thursday and I have not been able to look at it as a milestone at all, because my head has been full of whether my cycle stays regular now it has come back after nine years.

Reading your list I realise I have not marked a single thing since I started. Going to write my own tonight, even if it is four lines.

29me too 6

PipBristol, UK
#7

Buddy pair since October and the one-person point is why. Having somebody to text day three, grim, no notes and get same, walk on Sunday? back has been worth more than every article I have read.

If anyone in week two is reading and has nobody, the buddies page is not as awkward as it looks.

36me too 7

TildaCambridge, UK
#8

Somebody has messaged me to say they told their sister last night because of the third bullet point, and I have had to go and sit down.

Week one me would not believe any of this. She would have read it, decided it was written by somebody more competent than her, and gone back to the enormous yoghurt.

44me too 4