Mid newbie - emotional advice?

[Still winning]

This is what I have just blogged:

 

My emotions are still up and down like a yo yo. I have smoked since I was 13 years old. My first cigarette was age 9! I am now 38, never in all my adult years have I "coped" as a non smoker. I did quit for 364 days, but I was massively protected in that time and the first real drama, I smoked again. So I will forgive myself that sometimes I don't know how to/who to be? 

I feel like a child sometimes! I am now learning how to deal with my emotions. Ironically, I am teaching my 8 and 4 year old daughters how to do the same haha. I get really sad, really down but then I come bouncing back up. I will learn without smoking how to do this, how to be calm. 

 

What I need to check, is, Is this normal? Is it a phase or is this how things are henceforth?  

 

I will be ok with whatever the answers are but feel like I need to know.  I have been using exercise to push these feelings down and create natural "feel good" feelings but today I can't. Pesky kidney infection ouch. So it's more noticeable and I think others thoughts and experiances would help here.

 

Triggers still happen, it is still tricky but not hard like it was early days, I got that - emotions - wow they got me!!

[Nancy]

Marti, the emotional roller coaster is perfectly normal.  Your emotions are all over the place.  The good news is that it gets much better, I promise!  I wrote this early in my quit:

 

"Building on what Meg said about anger....I still have some anger, and the crying is getting really old.  I had to take my makeup to work with me today because I could not stop crying.  And I do not mean lovely little tear drops, I mean full out ugly cry sobbing...and it took until about 10:30 to gain a semblance of composure.  What is up with that?  I have not even considered smoking, but these quitting side effects are tough!"

 

I think I am still a little more emotional than I was...but I think that is because I face the emotion rather than stifling it by going out to smoke a cigarette.

 

I promise you it does even out!

[sharonsiff]

Hi Marti,

 

As Nancy says for many it does even out this link helps explains why some of us feel this way and why it doesn't always feel easy http://www.mentalhealthy.co.uk/news/700-smoking-impacts-on-mental-health-as-well-as-physical.html

 

If however it doesn't even out and it's down to faulty serotonin receptors in your brain there is good news too! You know what I'm going to say before I even say it..rofl..my beloved Chimp paradox book..he he he

 

Seriously though, it has helped me as it gave me an easy model of how the mind works, as like you I smoked from 13 very heavily in my case, and had no concept of self without 300 shots of harman per day. So it teaches you howbthe mind works and how to 'manage' it. I don't know what emotions you are feeling, mine was a constant sense of dread and worry, so I see these as coming from the 'chimp' and now that I can identify where and why I've learnt what to do-with the help of the book.

 

So either way good news for you Marti as your brain could be sorted in days/a few weeks or if not, and you can tell it's not lifted (your current feelings), then I 100% recommend the book.

[Still winning]

Thank you. I literally feel overly sad (in my opinion) about any given thing. Like my mum will smoke, it's a trigger, I deal with that and then get left with the emotion of this will make her copd worse and then that takes me into what will become and how bad will it be and yada yada, rather then stopping at the initial stage and thinking - I own my stuff.

My weight was high, I spent 2 days wondering how I will cope and upset. Only to bounce back out of it and think, well diet then.

 

Literally I am not fixed on one thing. I just think where I would have walked away and had a cig to think on it...That's missing. Will it always be missing?

[action]

Hey Marti, I have to agree with Nancy - I think I am still more emotional now, then when I was a smoker.  I think I have decided that this is a good thing - I was a miserable so and so when I was a smoker...!

 

But I am certainly at a better point than I was 3 or 4 months ago.  I had some BAD days around the 2 and 3 months mark.

 

Your body and mind are still healing, so you are bound to have difficult days ahead I'm afraid.  I know that you know this already, and I know you won't smoke!!

[Colleen]

Marti,

I don't have any enlightening wisdom to share.  Except that it does get better, a whole lot better.  You will find other ways of coping.  Come here and talk to us or just read.  Play some of the games on social to distract yourself.  In time I think, you will fill your life with more enjoyable experiences, that smoking will not be at the forefront of your mind.  

 

Your question about who/what to be is interesting.  This is because when we quit, I think we slowly evolve into someone else.  Still the same person, but yes our personality does change some.  This happens when we change habits.  For a lot of former smokers, quitting has been completely life-changing.  A lot of us were chain smoking convenience food eating couch potatoes.  We couldn't just sit there and not smoke so we got moving and it became as much a part of our lives as smoking was.

 

This past Friday, I was in a really stressful situation and I thought of a cigarette.  It wasn't a crave or even a want, my body still has a couple associations out there between stress and smoking.  It is rare that I get a thought of smoking and when I do, it goes as quick as it came.  I came to the board and while I didn't have enough focus to post much, just being here made me feel much better.  I think I read and did a lot of page refreshing that night lol.  

 

The fact is, Marti, you smoked for almost 30 years day in day out.  You have to cut yourself some slack and give it more time to settle down.  

[El Bandito]

Marti...

 

Nah, you're just weird.

 

He-He! Only kidding.

 

Completely normal I think. We both completely altered our body chemistry. We both taught our bodies to cope with and even demand poison. Then one day we stopped.

 

The emotions do settle a bit - but for me EVERYTHING is more vivid. Taste, smell, emotions. It is as if smoking was a huge dirty blanket that I had over my head and lived through..now its gone. That is great.

 

You are doing brilliantly...and it gets better. 

[JackiMac]

Marti all the emotions you are going through are completely normal and healthy, if you think back to when you were a smoker, when you were angry, sad, happy, depressed, how did you deal with those emotions ...yip with a cigarette so your normal healthy emotions were not allowed to flow freely, now they are and it is a jolt to your system because you are not used to these strange feelings, the cigarettes masked them before.  I suffer from depression and have done for years, got lots of happy pills and I love them lol.  When I was visiting my GP in the early stages of my quit and taking the Champix my GP told me that cigarette smoking actually increased depression in people!! didn't know that.  Emotions are a way of expressing ourselves, cigarette smoking isnt, in time I believe that we will learn to chanel our emotions correctly, just now they kind of go   BLEURRGHHH xx

[rww]

I can't give you any advice having the emotional maturity of a 15 year old at times myself. Sorry. At least you are not the only one.

 

I guess we never learned to deal with emotions the ''adult'' way whatever that is. :)

[Melody]

Marti I've been pretty emotional through my quit and days like today, I still struggle.  The good thing is that I'm recognizing it now and using coping mechanisms and things have gotten much much better.  Exercise is helping tremendously but didn't work at first.  It took a few weeks to a few months to start paying off.  Music is my go to quick fix for those happy endorphins.  I turn on music in the shower after a work out, while I'm doing my house stuff, in the car...all the time.   You will get through this and find your new normal.  The great thing is that it will be so much better than your smoker normal.   Make sure to get in some you time as well if you can, it can get overwhelming trying to hold it together all the time in front of the kids and family.  I have found letting loose is an amazing feeling and has been one of the biggest helps of all.

[comrade simba]

I tried to stay real quiet and careful... tiptoed around myself and still do to some degree today. I know that my emotions will over-ride sensibility if I get too wound up about anything and it isn't that far from stupid to smoking in my corner of the universe. I trust me as far as I can throw me.

[Still winning]

Thank you guys. Both for the answer but also the honesty, it's a personal thing emotions isn't it. 

 

I won't smoke again, no matter the wobble.  In the end, I don't want to and I won't do this quit again, and it's always a choice for myself. That said, this emotional thing is a tough gig for me. My triggers are still spread across quite a wide net so this often feels a bit of a minefield still. Not at like it was early days, different kinda hard and strange at times. It takes me a while to meditate so I tried and failed to kinda replace smoking with that...no go. 

 

So in a nutshell, this emotion is here to stay and I need to find a better way to "be" with it. 

[sharonsiff]

Marti, you will find a way to be at peace with your emotions I'm sure of that.

 

If your head becomes full of emotional thoughts have you ever tried writing them down? Gets them out of your head and once out you can re-read them in a logical, truthful manner.

 

I've learnt a trick....when I get 'thoughts' I now stop the thinking in it's tracks, I accept the thoughts are not helpful, once I happily accept that they are not helpful I either write them down to deal with later or immediately move on and engage my brain in a task or chore.

 

I've learnt not to beat myself up (mentally) to. NEAT

 

 

 

Exercise you can use

 

One good exercise is NEAT.

 

It is Normal to have Chimp outbursts and activity that you will not manage well.

 

Therefore you should Expect this to happen from time to time.

 

Accept that you are not perfect and this animal is powerful.

 

Take care of the outburst or activity by appropriate means, apologies if you have affected others, forgiveness if you feel guilty.

 

Marti....I have no idea if any of this message is relevant to you, or even helps you? I hope it does but if not you will find the 'mental peace' by the fact you know it's currently missing. Good news to end on is that strong emotional reactions are very natural and the sign of a healthy mind- Dr Steve Peters. ;)

[Pippa]

(((Marti))) - as everyone has said - what you are feeling is normal and I promise it does get better ! - in the interim remember we are all here to support you

[El Bandito]

Marti - 

 

Diving back in here..

 

I think you may just have taught me something...

 

Your Mum. You feel sad, you feel emotional because you are watching your Mum, who is demonstrably dying because of smoking related illness, smoking. 

 

I might be wrong here - but isn't that how we SHOULD feel? 

 

I think smoking robbed me of a lot more than I might actually have thought about before....

[Still winning]

Maybe this is normal, I honestly don't know. If I brought something to your quit buddy then that's all good and ya know, your welcome an all...but I'm a bit bemused lol. It all sticks another nail in the quit coffin though, just another thing I refuse to go through again and why this quit will stick. x

[El Bandito]

Hey Marti...

 

Part of my new regime (Productivity) is the weekly review. Now this is still a work in progress, but it combines GTD (GetThingsdone) and the 7 Habits...

 

To cut a long story short - I put aside an hour or two to got through to do lists and calendars and all that day to day stuff. But I also go through some of the more esoteric stuff - sort of reviewing longer term goals, things that are more important than urgent...

 

Call me Elton - but it's actually not a bad idea to explore this stuff.

 

Yep - feel sad at some stuff...but also, "hey look, I quit smoking. Wahaay!"

 

I think that we used to live in Black and white - grainy smokey sepia tones...all of a sudden, life is in glorious Technicolor. 

 

Go with it.