Four weeks on the lowest rung

I started at 50mg because the ladder said most people don't need to go higher. I did not believe it. I have a long history of assuming the printed dose is for someone more cautious than me, and I had the next bottle bookmarked before the first one arrived.

Week one was nothing I could point at. One capsule in the evening, two days on and one off, the way the card says. I slept a little earlier. I put that down to the placebo of having bought something and waited for the real effect.

Week two was when the log started to be worth reading. Mood a touch softer in the late afternoon, that hour where I usually get short with people. Not high, not different, just a little less brittle. My partner noticed before I did, which is always the tell.

By week three I had stopped checking the ladder for permission to go up. The rung was doing a small, steady thing and I could not think of what more I actually wanted from it. That is the part I did not expect: the question stopped being how much and started being whether I wanted anything at all.

Four weeks in and I am still on 50mg. I will probably stay here. If you are reading this while deciding whether to skip the bottom rung, I would say the bottom rung is the product. Everything above it is a different product with a different question attached.