Clearing the Smoke

Recently I have quit smoking after 18 years. Coming to the realization that the reason for my addiction aside from the physical properties of nicotine. That I was in fact self-medicating for emotional issues that I have never really dealt with.

I look back to the times when I started smoking or the dozen of times over the years that I tried to quit and didn't succeed. The one thing all those times had in common was periods of high stress. Not only was I sucking down my emotional pain with the act of smoking I was also using it as a keep people away that made me feel threatened and vulnerable.

Smoking was my escape, from any uncomfortable situation. When I felt like I was being put on the spot and asked to answer questions I didn't want to answer or touched on feelings I didn't want to have. I would walk away and light up. The two people in my life that this strategy was most effective with was my ex-husband when we were still married and my mother. Both hated the smell of cigarette smoke.

I at least respected my mother's feelings enough to not smoke in my house when she visited. When she would start asking about things that didn't jive in my marriage that I didn't want to examine too closely, I would step outside and light up. What I knew and when I knew it concerning the failure of my 25 year marriage is hard to say.

I do know now that the ex didn't get the same respect as my mother concerning the lighting up. I was always a little afraid of him. I always felt as if couldn't totally trust him with my feelings or fears. So with him it was entirely a way to keep him from getting too close to me physically and allowing me to keep my distance from him emotionally.

So how does a person convince themselves that they love someone else completely and in the same breath know they don't trust that person. The ex was a real charmer and handsome devil but didn't know what the truth was. There was the truth according to him, then the truth according to everyone else and he couldn't see the difference between them.

I have paid dearly for the consumption of my feelings and fears through both smoking and eating. My physical health is not the greatest, but far worse than being overweight and out of breath is the emotional health scars. Including the ones I have left on my children.

Over the twenty-five years that I was married to the ex, I suffered from three bouts of major depression, two of which I was suicidal for more than six months. That I never gave in to those thoughts contest to my dedication to my kids. I simply refused to leave them alone in this world. Something inside me gave me the feeling that my kids where better off with a damaged mom than with no mom.

How did the ex react to my depressions over the years? First tried to fix me, by telling me what I was doing wrong and or how I was in error in my thinking. Didn't once try to get me the help I needed in the form of a mental healthcare professional. But he did get himself a counselor when "I was too much to deal with."

The last time around was right before the divorce and the reaction was all about how his needs weren't being met and how I made him feel like a stranger in his own home. At the time I felt like a stranger in my own head.

All those time of great emotional pain were from not expressing my feelings when I had them. Instead of lighting up a cigarette and sucking in the hurting feelings, I should have expressed them to the person that was hurting or pressuring me.

After nearly a half a century of life and learning bad habits I have to teach myself new good habits. New ways of dealing with emotional stress and difficult personal relationships. New ways of confronting the world honestly and immediately. Along with purging all the toxic feelings that I still have inside me.

Then next few months should be really interesting. I am looking forward to seeing my world with out a cloud of smoke distorting everything.