Update 2026: this post was very strange to find and read. It's really the only time in my life I had anything that felt like real psychiatric support. It's so early in my process. It's 3 and 1/2 years into my withdrawal, but it was the first year of this site. The writing of this site changed my process as I came to know others with whom to network. I found my voice as a result of this work. I truly never had a sense of self prior to this work. So when I read early posts like this it's often strange, almost as if someone else wrote the post. I know that readers might not know how little was available when I started. I was writing at the beginning of the internet and blog scene. It was a nascent world in which social media as we know it now didn't yet exist. We were doing the work of pioneers.