Thanks so much for the support!! "Feeling alienated from yourself" - YES. That is exactly how I'm feeling!! It's horrible, you want to participate in life and celebrate yourself and the new you and be a part of all the things you're used to doing... but you're not quite "you" (and man, is it ever a bummer when your closest love ones point that out when you thought you were doing OK - that is actually the worst ever).
I'll give it some extra thought today; I accidentally forgot to put on a patch this morning, and I'm not whigging out yet!! But I'll probably throw one on as soon as I get home. What I'm trying to do today is to tell myself to respect that it will take a few weeks to break the habit of something I did about every 2 hours at least for a third of my life. Not a bad trade-off. Patience with myself needed.
I might give it another week with the patches and get another weekend or 2 under my belt, and then if the depression and mood swings keep up, go it CT. I honestly can't feel any worse, and as long as I stay stubborn with my quit I can handle those random cravings head-on! Thanks so much for sharing, it's such a booster when someone understands what you're going through!! Cheers!
Hi Dart - this a great realization on your part. Good for you for this self understanding! I had a weird reaction to the patch as well, but loved how it knocked my cravings down to zero, so that sounds familiar . . . . The patch is a good tool for some - there are different degrees of nicotine on the patches, so as you work through the program you step down the amount of nicotine in your system as you head toward the final few weeks of quitting. You won't need to go through 6-12 more weeks of nic withdrawal after you do the program! Your body really only needs 3 days to rid itself of the physical symptoms of nicotine anyway. The idea of the patch is to change your lifestyle habits during the time on the patch and you hardly notice the final minimal nic withdrawal in the end.
However, due to my negative reaction to the patch, I decided to go cold turkey on my latest and final quit. I felt better in control of my quit as I fended off each craving and was more committed to staying quit because I was more aware of my triggers when I had to deal with them head on.
It's a personal decision on how you make this quit work for you - It's not an easy task to get through and feeling alienated from yourself sounds so familiar too - sigh! but the good news is that the longer you stay away from nicotine, the easier it becomes and the more & more you return to 'yourself' over time. You can Do It Dart! We're here to cheer for you :)
I am a week and a half into quitting and I am considering stopping using the nicotine patches.
While they are responsible for the first few days of quitting going so well and easy for me, I'm now struggling with a lot of physical symptoms that are making me absolutely miserable. After reading about Nictoine and what it does to your brain chemistry, it sounds like it takes 6 - 12 weeks for your brain to return to normal. And I'm not sure I can finish another 8 weeks of the patch and then start the 6 - 12 weeks of nicotine withdrawal.
I have never experienced depression before, but now I'm struggling with high high's that feel like a sugar rush, and extremely low lows - I missed work yesterday. My partner and I have been fighting for 3 days. I have had a pounding headache for 3 days. Mostly, my moodiness and knowledge that no matter how hard I try I'm not "myself" is driving me crazy!!
So: do I go headfirst into the storm and detox the nicotine (stop using the patches) because I can't stand the 'limbo' stage and what it's doing to me? Or do I keep going with the patches because they're probably responsible for the fact that I have zero desire to smoke??
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