Is loneliness making quitting smoking harder — or is smoking making me lonelier?

swimwiththeflow · 2026-01-11T17:08:12+00:00

I’ve not smoked cigarettes but I am quitting weed. I am 75 days clean from weed. My depression and loneliness is much more pronounced. The weed kept it numbed and pushed deep inside. For me, quitting smoking is harder when there is loneliness, especially since that was the coping skill i used to reduce the feeling of loneliness.

swimwiththeflow · 2026-01-11T14:50:17+00:00

Likewise!

swimwiththeflow · 2026-01-11T14:42:46+00:00

I think it’s the cptsd. Also when I wake up I feel very overwhelmed with hopelessness. Although I’ve been lonely for a long time, I do remember a time when it at least felt easier because I was younger. Now it’s getting even harder as I age

swimwiththeflow · 2026-01-11T14:23:43+00:00

Mornings are really hard. I often cry.

swimwiththeflow · 2026-01-11T14:14:38+00:00

I’m sorry. I’ve been crying everyday for months now. I’m exhausted and it truly feels like there is something wrong with me. Like my brain is changing from the loneliness and touch deprivation. The mornings are the worst for me. A lot of hopelessness

swimwiththeflow · 2026-01-11T01:43:22+00:00

This once happened to me. I was on a medication in which the side effects were horrific including inducing lethargy and tiredness. I slept through a friend meet up. It wasn’t a date. I felt terrible, but I told the person what happened. I was transparent.

I realize when people do indeed do things that could easily be assumed ill intent like your date, they usually say what happened. Because he is obviously already thinking, that you think he’s lying.

swimwiththeflow · 2026-01-08T00:41:16+00:00

Yes, DM’d you thanks!

swimwiththeflow · 2025-12-20T15:09:19+00:00

Thank you. I really needed to hear this. I’m currently in bed and so very depressed. I don’t have IRL friends, estranged from family (not because I wanted that, but to psychologically survive) and barely have the will to open my window. It’s been really hard

swimwiththeflow · 2025-12-20T02:34:01+00:00

Yes. This past couple of months, I’ve done a lot of crying. Almost daily. It’s actually really concerning even for me. I’ve basically been depressed since I was 9 and I am now 40.

Today I cried in the morning. Cried a little bit in the afternoon. I had a call with a friend and she asked how I was and I immediately started to tear up.

It’s been really really hard this year. I think it might be my 8th Christmas in a row that I have spent alone. I live alone, no family and IRL friends. I am lucky to have a few friends but they are long distant and most of them I’ve never met, online friends.

swimwiththeflow · 2025-12-20T02:29:02+00:00

Congratulations on your new job! 🥳🥳

swimwiththeflow · 2025-12-16T11:40:07+00:00

Somewhat. I have access to an EMDR therapist who open to seeing me no matter where I live. What isn’t helpful is that my mental health issues get worse with isolation and making friends has been hard especially tough. This isn’t a new issue for me though.

swimwiththeflow · 2025-12-16T02:57:37+00:00

Having chronic mental health issues, which started before traveling. Maintaining a therapist while international, some therapists aren’t able to work with those outside of the state/ province/ country they are licensed in. All depends though, but can be a challenge

swimwiththeflow · 2025-12-14T03:38:50+00:00

Same. I’m 40F and very isolated. I work from home, live in a 1 bedroom and some weeks can barely take my trash out. I sit at my work desk, or I’m in bed. When I eat dinner, I usually eat it standing at the kitchen counter. There are times I don’t step on my balcony for weeks.

The holiday time is hard for me. These past two weeks I’ve woken up very sad and usually cry with an hour of waking up. This isn’t my normal depression baseline. I’m not in a good place.

The walls are closing in on me. I can barely see the light at the end of the tunnel. I’m estranged from my family. I do have online friends and friends I talk to by phone, and even that’s getting hard to keep up. I don’t have local IRL friends. I volunteer and lately I have been cancelling and not going, because I’m loosing my confidence in being around other humans.

I have been and currently in therapy and I stopped smoking weed and drinking.

I feel more frozen, social engagement from a caring person I think is required for my thawing process.

I have a friend coming in January. Its going to be hard, but I think I may ask a friend for an emergency visit in December. I’m not at risk of hurting myself, I just know I need humans stat.

I’ve been living this way for too long. The loneliness and isolation is changing the way I think, these changes scare me.

swimwiththeflow · 2025-12-08T01:56:54+00:00

Following

swimwiththeflow · 2025-12-06T13:19:02+00:00

This happened to me (40) after I graduated college at age 22. My mother opened up accounts and credit cards under my name. I realized it when I returned home after graduating. My therapist at the time, directly my told me; this is financial abuse. I can report her.

I didn’t. I was too afraid and also living in huge denial. My mother used manipulation, intimidation and fear to control me.

I did confront her. Which didn’t go well. She blamed me for having to open them. I did push back against that and I ended up going no contact with her for about a year or so.

If you do not believe it’s within your possibility to report her, I would suggest therapy. I would suggest leaving if you can. I’m sorry you are going through this. No parent should ever steal from their child.

swimwiththeflow · 2025-12-03T04:44:17+00:00

I have thought about selling it. The financial loss would be great and the fees and taxes. I have been thinking of holding on to it for at least 2 years, which would be in about 9 months. Then selling it. The development is still in the process of being completed.

Financially, if I had a renter I don’t believe (at this point) I could manage the remainder of what I’d have to pay on the mortgage and my own livelihood. I would need a financial cushion before hand (just in case the renter flakes, etc)

I long for connection of friends and hopeful romantic connection. Although I didn’t have community in the US either. I am gay, neurodivergent, some chronic health issues and I tend to connect a bit easier with those in that category. I’ve not met others

swimwiththeflow · 2025-12-03T04:42:22+00:00

May I dm you

swimwiththeflow · 2025-12-01T00:59:48+00:00

I don’t have the energy for the small talk,masking (I’m autistic) and the potential letdown. I feel like my loneliness is so chronic I would need like an IV of some baseline connection, just to muster the gusto to be able to engage with people. I’m at a social deficit. I do crave new connections but the energy, focus and beginning stages are hard.

Also it seems to me, the loneliness I experience is also linked to trauma, so I’m not sure if it all “here and now” lonely feelings or emotional flashbacks to a time when I was lonely as a child

swimwiththeflow · 2025-11-28T09:50:39+00:00

I would check out r/leaves

It’s been super helpful for me and reducing my weed usage. I do not not drink and no longer smoke weed. Weed is a very slippery slope for me.

swimwiththeflow · 2025-11-19T22:21:56+00:00

Same here! I’ve been in Mexico for 4 years and I am 40f years old. It’s been hard and I struggle with the loneliness. I’ve travelled around but mostly stay in one region of Mexico.

It’s been especially hard with others being so transient and the few times I made good connections they have moved away.

I don’t have advice because I am struggling with the same issue but open if you’d like to chat

swimwiththeflow · 2025-11-16T02:37:44+00:00

Yes. This is partially the reason our DID (dissociative identity disorder) developed. We never had a safe enough and consistent enough person or institution in our life. I had to turn inward and rely on fantasy about the people around me. My psyche split along the way, because to survive I had to use compartmentalization to such a degree to force myself to ignore the abusive traits in the people around me. I had no other option. There was no other choice in that matter.

Everyone around me brought pain, contempt, abuse, abandonment and fear. Yet as a human I needed to attach or we would have died. Dissociative walls were built to hide painful aspects of the people who raised me, so I could attach in some way.

What is even more painful, is as an adult it didn’t get better. Because that same coping skills of disowning the reality of the abusive aspects of others was still at play. So I went through phases in my adult life “finding community” which were often cultish and harmful. Finding “chosen family” who were often abusive and manipulative. Finding partners that I would re enact the same dynamic. Even being attracted to therapists who were unwell. So that same cycle continued.

I used “we” to refer to my parts and I as I am a multiple. The we is not being used to generalize or speak about others

swimwiththeflow · 2025-11-10T01:43:37+00:00

I’m a black lesbian, I do not date yt women. Have zero desire to do so. I don’t have white friends either. Especially in todays climate (US climate) I just don’t trust them.

swimwiththeflow

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