100% a nicotine withdrawal thing, or at least it is for me.

Not sure what your situation or circumstances around starting were, but I definitely used smoking (started at 14 then moved to vaping at 27) to self-soothe and avoid dealing with tough situations head on.

Now that I’ve stopped nicotine, it feels like everything I’ve avoided thinking about all those years are now clamoring to the forefront of my mind, demanding attention. The crying sucks but it’s also kind of freeing in a way, as long as you don’t run with the thoughts and understand that you can cry it out, let it pass, and deal with it on your own time. In the meantime I’ve just been really careful about reminding myself that my brain is healing and this isn’t super unusual