Tammyzhere I remember that...not the sleeping part because I had been so sick that I wanted to sleep most of the time, the digestive issues were a real challenge. I increased the amount of magnesium I was taking, I drank so much water that I felt like I was floating, and I ate things that I knew had traditionally caused me to have diarrhea and now just caused me to use the bathroom.
I did get angry when I smoked, I experienced all of the emotions I experienced when I quit...I stuffed a lot of the expression of those feelings down so that it might not have SEEMED that way. I cried a lot after I quit, I got angrier...or so it seemed, for so many years, we stuffed everything down that it would be natural that our feelings would seem HUGE when they were allowed to come out. Smoking never did anything to really help with our feelings, it just stuffed them down. Eventually, we still had to deal with them...one way or another. I know that sometimes I exploded over something that really had nothing to do with why I was angry in the first place, I also think stuffing feelings down causes significant physical issues...I have RA and it is known to be impacted by stress as are so many other autoimmune diseases. Stuffing anger down also leads to depression...one way or another, smoking is damaging us in so many ways, it stunts our emotional growth.
We lost our ability to handle things one at a time...one emotion at a time because we didn't allow those emotions to come out as we were experiencing them. I get it...they EXPLODE. The only thing I can promise you is that it does get easier. We learn to deal with things, one experience at a time. I never said it was easy...it certainly wasn't for me...if it HAD been, I would have quit a long time before I did.
It's WORTH it.
Ellen
