Story time about my mother because I feel like it: when I learnt in primary school that smoking gives you cancer, and I knew my mum smoked - I immediately went home and said to mum “stop! Cancer is bad! It can kill you”. I didn’t understand the point of smoking. Mum got upset &
I hid all the lighters in the house. We had an electric stove, but a wood fire. This worked for a lot longer because a lighter only magically appeared when we needed to heat the house. Seeing my mum get really anxious about not finding one & getting upset & it causing arguments..
I would “find” one for her to bring normality back. Now that I have a kid. I don’t think I could have held out on my son with that argument. But looking back now, knowing about second hand and third hand smoke - my mum saying “well you turned out fine”. I realised my mother is
Intensely selfish. She will never change unless it comes from within. If she wouldn’t change for her son why would she do it for her grandson. It’s just intensely sad and maddening at the same time.
@Posty being addicted to something like that IS innately selfish. It's an utterly shit situation for everyone.
I wanted to quit smoking for about 20 years before I actually managed it - but every time I tried and failed I told myself some comforting thing about how it probably wasn't so bad.
I doubled down on shit like it not being that bad because it was easier to live with that than repeated failure to quit.
@Posty
Plus withdrawal makes you angry and I'd get mad at myself for being mad at people so I'd have a smoke to HELP THEM from having to deal with angry me. You make justifications because you're not in control.
Someone hiding my shit would have pissed me off too. If it was as easy as just going "OK I won't do this" we would have stopped a long time ago.
Someone trying to impose that from outside just reminds you how you're not in control. Add withdrawal mood swings and oh god no.
@mike because I’m an idiot and I want my mum not like
Not die, she weirdly insisted on a present for her bday... so
I did buy her a Birthday present last year of a Juul vape with original tobacco flavour.
She flat out told me it tastes and feels *exactly* like cigarettes... but won’t quit cigs because “it’s one of the few things I have left” for some weird fucking nostalgia kick. I’m not good with unreasonableness.
@Posty it's super hard to let go of that security blanket for something new. I know what she's feeling. It's unreasonable because reason isn't a factor here.
I remember the huge grasp of anxiety I had the first time I tried leaving the house without any smokes on me. It's a huge jump.
I carried around a pack with one cigarette in it for a month. Just so I knew I was still making a choice.
When you've had a habit like this that your life has revolved around for decades, change is terrifying.
@Posty Oh hey, it's utterly fantastic that you care and I think it's a super positive thing that you can't understand some of this because it means you've never been in that hole. I hope you never do understand!
But yeah, this situation is not rational and it's not reasonable and it may be that now she's got a way out with the vape - but she's the one who has to get her own head to the point where she chooses to put the things down at her own speed.
@mike @Posty From my end, I just wish it wasn’t an excuse from her point to direct so much abuse our (my) way.
Because we’ve tried to maintain a smoke-free environment for our son, she feels justified in attacking my parenting at every step.
We all read the SIDS leaflet, but because it had “smoke-free” in it, she just put the baby face down and then put me down for freaking out. And then it was just on for ALL my parenting. At one point I thought she wanted me dead.
@Tarale @Posty yeah hey, not trying to say there can be no other issues or apologise for any and all behaviour here - just that a lot of the way she's apparently reacting to the smoking stuff is pretty familiar to me and I did a lot of things I regret as a result of addiction. But it's not a "get out of jail free" card by any means.
@mike @Posty Addiction sucks donkeys. Just glad that mine is one that can be managed - and I say managed, not cured - through medical intervention. At least, it's working for me, and I've managed sufficient reduction to have positive health impacts.
What bugs me is that I had to ASK, never suggested. And asking is not easy.
Trying to help your mother - that's a lifeline thrown, but not taken. Which must be so frustrating.
@Posty ❤️❤️❤️
The only response remembered “well you gotta die of something”. This didn’t sit well with me, I wanted my mum to be healthy. I didn’t know about addictions. So I did took my mum’s cigarettes on the sly and hid them. That made her angry. Not one to give up on my mum who I loved...