Andria,
Thanks for your encouragement. What you're saying makes perfect sense to me. If 4 weeks is the "magic date" then I'll be counting the days until I hit four weeks. I'm hoping the depressive feelings I'm having will lift by then.
It crossed my mind this morning (briefly) to go buy a pack as a way to "get back at her" for making me go through all this. However, I realized right away that this thinking was the OLD ME talking, and not the new me, who is now a non-smoker.
It helps that I am not contacting my parents for a few days while people's emotions calm down. I can't stand the thought of smoking at all, so I know I'll be fine.
Distance is a good thing, when emotions are running so wild. I know that feeling so well, the "it's your fault I'm like this, so there! See what you made me do!" kinda thing... I hate to admit it of myself, but it's kinda childish, and serves no one, but I came very close to that several times in my early sobriety, which was why I knew I needed to change my internal "scripts" for dealing with problem people and situations.
About 2 wks into quitting smoking, the place where I get my 85% PG Virginia, ran out... I had to get their 85% VG Virginia, just to keep the same taste, to which I seem to be quite firmly attached -- if I hadn't found that flavor ejuice, I'm not at all sure I could have retired the smokes. So I vaped that high-VG stuff, and about 3-4 days into it, I realized that it gave me a really nasty feeling in my chest, a need to cough up something that refused to be coughed up, like a cat with a stubborn hair ball! I could hear this internal dialogue going on, between what I consider my "little self" and my "true self", to the effect that this VG crap was worse for me than cigarettes, with True Self adamantly insisting that it was not, no matter how it felt. I managed to keep Little Self firmly in its place -- in a locked box! -- and kept on vaping, but I also knew that without my experience with 21 yrs sobriety, I might not have been able to do that, and might have smoked, and the outcome of that, I just don't know, could I have quit again? Fortunately I never had to find out, I made it thru "the VG agony" until they got my 85% PG back in stock.
I can't tell you that as soon as 4 wks rolls around, you'll magically feel all better; it sounds like you have some serious situations going on, and those are difficult, no matter what else is going on. One thing that kinda helped me regain my earlier excitement was good ol vapemail; I got some new shiny thing in the mail, and that was fun, and it kinda made my mood start turning around. One day I was here on the forum, and realized that my depression had seemingly vanished, I didn't "feel sorry" for myself anymore, but was once again really excited to be a non-smoker after 39 yrs as a smoker. But probably sometime *in* the 4th week, though you may still have those serious situations going on, I think you'll find that your equilibrium has somewhat returned, your ability to handle things rationally, without so much rampant and negative emotion; when you do become aware of that, I think that will further buoy your mood and outlook.
I keep on pluggin'; I'm almost at 8 wks, and I just looked at my sig banner a minute ago and realized I'm just one pack away from NOT smoking 1000 cigarettes! That's freakin miraculous!!! All the little milestones, they help so much, to keep on keeping on -- if you click on any of the "smoke-free" banners you see around here, probably you can find one for yourself (I say 'probably' because some of them don't lead to someplace you can get your own banner, for reasons I've never known), and keep track of your own success -- we're all success stories here!!!
Andria
