The right to be cross

[LilyMay73]

Before I began my quit two weeks ago if I became cross, upset or irritated people would know I was feeling one of those emotions for a legitimate reason. It appears however, that as soon as I give up smoking I no longer have the right to be legitimately cross and it's all palmed off on the fact that not smoking is making me tetchy. Admittedly my fuse may be a millimetre shorter than normal however people still have the power to seriously hack me off, and I still have the right to be stressed at my workload, the only difference is people now have an excuse as to why I may be cross or stressed rather than looking at themselves and wondering if they have contributed to my tearful, quiet meltdown by their words or their actions. I just wonder how long they can use my not smoking as their excuse?

[EmJay Partner]

Hi LilyMay73,

sometimes when stopping smoking, you can have 2 kinds of people who spur you on;

1. those that point out the positive, give you a pat on the back and regularly tell you how well you are doing.

and

2. those who seem to only point out the negative and continually give you grief about whether or not you should carry on smoking.

In a lot of cases, the people who seem to be quite negative are usually smokers - they will quite often be envious of the fact that you are successfully stopping smoking which may be something that they long to do themselves but have not had the courage to do so, yet. These people quite often keep asking you 'do you miss smoking?', or say things like 'ooooh I bet you are dying for a whiff / puff of this?' whilst blowing smoke into your face!

In some cases, they may just be non-smokers who are generally not being very supportive to you.

In either of the above 2 kinds of people, what usually happens is after a good couple of weeks, I'm guessing around 3 or 4; the positive folks forget that you have stopped smoking, or even that you used to smoke in the first place. Whilst the other group of people just accept that you no longer smoke any more and leave you alone.

The main thing for you to do is to try and stay as positive as possible, and keep on marching on

You will start to build on your 'don't care any more' strengths as to what people think or what excuses they come up with as to why they think you are behaving in such a way. Just see it as a game and before you know it, you will notice they they will either stop going on with themselves or come up with another reason why...

Just think how you will feel when you can actually turn around and say to them "actually you are wrong, I'm not stopping smoking, I've stopped and have been stopped now for X amount of time"

You are doing brilliantly and how you are feeling at the moment is pretty normal

[jillygirl Administrator Queen Bee]

Hi Lily May, People can be so misunderstanding. in fact some take pleasure that someone else is suffering. But you will find you will get stronger the longer you quit the easier it will be for you. and the harder for people to blame your quitting.

I know exactly what you mean, I quit smoking for 6 months then I found out I had lung cancer.(its on jillys story in tags) Majority of people were supportive, but others had me in my coffin before I could blink. Even though I have no cancer at all now and have had to have my lung removed, I still get comments about smoking. Ok if I hadn't smoked probably been ok, but that's how life is. Keep thinking positive.