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Started Thursday. Writing this down so I remember how it felt

Started 16 July 2024 · 8 replies · 186 hearts · read 4k times

KateBelfast, NI · 16 July 2024
2 years ago

Belfast, week one, and I have decided to write this while it is still strange, because I have a feeling that in six months I will not remember being this frightened of a Thursday.

Things I did not expect. That I would cry in the pharmacy — not from anything sad, just the relief of a thing being in my hand after fourteen months of asking. That the fridge would feel different. That I would tell my mother and she would say oh thank God and I would have to sit down.

Things that were exactly as advertised. The going off tea. Which for me, in this house, is a genuine loss and not a joke. Two days of it and I have never wanted a cup so badly while being unable to face one.

Things nobody mentioned. How much of the first week is admin. Where do I put the sharps. What day suits. Do I tell work. Am I allowed to have a glass of wine at my cousin’s thing on Saturday. None of that is in the leaflet and all of it took up more of my head than the medicine did.

I am not asking anything really. I just wanted a record of the week where it was all new, and I would rather leave it here than in a notebook nobody reads.

62

AdaFacilitatorManchester, UK
#1

Kate, this is exactly the sort of thing I hope people leave here. In a year you will come back to it and be very kind to the woman who wrote it, which is not always how we treat our earlier selves.

The crying in the pharmacy after fourteen months of asking — that is not a small thing and I would not want it filed under side effects. That is what a long fight does when it finally stops.

31me too 8

PriyaReading, UK
#2

The tea. Oh, the tea. Mine went for about three weeks and came back and I remember the exact cup where it tasted right again — sitting on the step at my sister’s, no biscuit, and I nearly wept into it.

It does come back for most of us. And if it does not come back the same, weak black with a bit of lemon got me through and I do not hate it now.

26me too 7

MaryamBirmingham, UK
#3

Week one admin is the real first hurdle and nobody warns you. Sharps: ask the chemist, they will usually give you a yellow bin and take it back when it is full. Ours does, no questions, no charge.

Day: pick one where the two days after it are yours as far as possible. I chose Sunday and Monday was rough for months, which was a poor choice I stuck with out of stubbornness.

22me too 5

MarthaCork, IE
#4

Sixty-eight and I remember my first week very well, so I would gently disagree with your prediction. You will remember. It is the tea you will forget.

Tell work only what you want to. I told nobody for four months and then told everyone in one afternoon, and both were the right call at the time.

19me too 4

DevManchester, UK
#5

On the wine at your cousin’s: that is a your-prescriber question rather than a room question, and I say that as somebody who asked the room first and got six answers. What I can tell you is that a lot of people find their tolerance changes noticeably and not gradually, so whatever you decide, decide it in advance rather than at the bar.

15me too 3

PoppyLeeds, UK
#6

Two kids and a tiny fridge here. The fridge feeling different is real and it passes. Mine is now a completely unremarkable box next to the yoghurts and my eight-year-old knows not to touch it and does not ask why, which I did not expect either.

14me too 2

PatrickLimerick, IE
#7

Pacing myself for the first time in my life, so this is the advice I most needed and least wanted: do not make week one into a project. You will want to optimise it. Optimising is how I have historically ruined things I care about.

Just have the week. Write your two paragraphs. That is plenty.

20me too 6

KateBelfast, NI
#8

Coming back to say I got the yellow bin from the chemist on Thursday and she asked no questions at all, and that small ordinary transaction did more for me than anything else this week.

Also the tea came back on day nine. Milky, two sugars, on the back step. Filing that under things worth writing down.

39me too 4