The strange grief of not having a project any more

Started 14 March 2026 · 15 replies · 107 hearts · read 1.4k times

AikoOsaka, JP · 14 March 2026

4 months ago

Something I have been sitting with: The strange grief of not having a project any more Not looking for advice so much as other people's experience.

I do not know if this belongs in this circle. Move me if not.

Here is where I am. The medication side has been more or less as described, and the part nobody prepared me for is everything around it: what to say to people, how to plan a week, and how to tell the difference between a thing to endure and a thing to raise.

What I keep tripping on is not the physical bit. It is the not knowing whether what I am experiencing is normal, and having nobody to ask who is not either selling something or frightened for me.

Anyway. Thank you for reading this far. Any experience gratefully received, and I promise to come back and say what happened.

TemSouthend, UK

Yes. All of this. I had the same in my third month and I remember thinking there was something specifically wrong with me, which there was not.

BenediktFacilitatorVienna, Austria

Before anyone offers a remedy: what has been described here is on the list of things that need a clinician today rather than a thread. I am going to be firm about that, kindly.

13me too 1

GwynethAberdare, UK

Two things that helped me, neither of them clever: small amounts more often, and drinking a lot more than felt necessary.

RunaAarhus, DK

Building on what the reply above wrote rather than answering the original question.

I would take that to a clinician rather than to us, and I would do it this week. Not because it is definitely serious — because it is the sort of thing that is much easier to rule out than to worry about.

GwilymCaernarfon, UK

Different experience here, for balance. Mine did not improve and in the end I stopped, and that was the right call for me. Both outcomes exist.

BertieHarrogate, UK

Building on what the reply above wrote rather than answering the original question.

The phrase that unlocked my appointment was asking what specifically she wanted me to watch for. It moved us from reassurance to a plan in about thirty seconds.

LilPreston, UK

the reply above said something I want to sit with for a second.

No advice, just recognition. That sounds exhausting and I am sorry you are in it.

OllyReading, UK

I keep a two-line diary and it is the only reason I could answer this question about myself. Worth starting even now.

NedChesterfield, UK

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

Coming back to this a fortnight later to say it settled. Leaving the update because I hate reading threads that stop.

7me too 1

OrrinGlasgow, UK

#10

I am the person who had the frightening version of this. I went in, it was investigated, and it was not what anyone feared. Going in is the whole of my advice.

MarkCoventry, UK

#11

What the reply above described happened to me too, in a slightly different order.

Can I gently push back on one thing? Not the substance, just the framing — you have written twice that you should be coping better. Who told you that?

DevManchester, UK

#12

My pharmacist was more use than anyone. Ten minutes at the counter, no appointment, no charge.

6me too 5

BessLouth, UK

#13

Mine lasted about seven weeks and then lifted over a few days. I cannot tell you why. I can tell you it lifted.

BenediktFacilitatorVienna, Austria

#14

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

Gently: you have apologised three times in a post where you have done nothing that requires an apology.

IvorLlanelli, UK

#15

I am about four months behind you and I have been dreading exactly this, so thank you for writing it down before I got there.

8me too 9