disgusted

I'm a whole bunch of things this morning. Disgusted being the front runner emotion.

I had a 5 hour pulling session last night. I just couldn't stop. 

I wanted to so bad. I needed to. 

I was tired and needed to sleep. I kept telling myself things like "at midnight I'll stop. In five minutes I'll stop. On commercial break I'm going to stop." 

It didn't fucking stop until my arm was exhausted. It wasn't even my choice. 

My hair is getting worst and worst. There is no "normal"now. I am quickly spiraling down down down. 

This time last year I felt free, confident, strong, powerful, blessed. 

Now I am back in the dark dungeons and bondage that is trich. 

I am now conscious of the bald spots, always fearing that they're showing too much. I can not wet my hair or walk outside where someone can see. I don't want to take care of myself. There is a fucking pile of long hair next to my bed, on my bed, and in my baby's bassinet. My fucking finger hurts. My hands feel dirty. 

There is absolutely no reason why I should have needed to pull yesterday. I was more relaxed and calm than I've been in a long time. I was happy. Not stressed out, not anxious. 

What. The. Fuck. 

It's simply not hide-able. No more of fixing my hair this way or that. Now I'm back to a Gollum-like state. Some long hair, some short hair, a lot of bald scalp. Fucking disgusting. 

I haven't cried yet. I see a lot of crying in the horizon. But I have a plan. I'm going to be pro-active and jump into doing things that I KNOW help, so why haven't I been doing them? I'm going to do them now. When I stop I'll stop I guess, but in the meantime I'll do what I can control and that is these things;

1) Read the bible everyday. Even if it's just 10 minutes. We all have 10 minutes. 

2) Walk everyday. Maybe in the evening when I can go by myself? Have 10 minutes to think and walk around the block? Another bonus is that my baby boy is 6 weeks old this weekend and I can take him to the YMCA daycare, which means I'll be able to work out a bit. I know how good it feels to work out, the endorphins or whatever, confidence. But I'll at least walk 10 minutes a day, with or without kids. 

3) Set a watch timer to go off every 15 minutes. Maybe 5 in the beginning. Whenever the watch goes off I'm going to say to myself "Dont pull". It's worked before, it's a way to remind yourself to stay conscious. 

4) Create a chart to count days of being pull free, and to mark days I did have a hard time or pulled. I don't know why I stopped this in the first place, it was so helpful. 

So that's what I'm going to do today. I've already taken a shower which I didn't want to do because then I would have to touch my hair and really know just how bad. Thinking about washing the few strands up  there is bringing me near tears right now. I also avoid showers when I'm depressed because seriously, the last thing you want to do when you're depressed is take care of yourself. I take that as a sign that the first thing you need to do when you don't feel like it is to take care of yourself. 

These are the things I'm going to do, in addition to my "to do list" I already had;

Write letter to hubby's grandma

Package present to niece for bday

Vacuum

Laundry

Address birth announcments. This one will suck. 

Post to trich journal blog. (check)

I'm still wearing the towel on my head from the shower, I think I'll wear a bandana today. 

What has helped?

A list of things other trichsters have done to stop hair pulling, found here. 

Bold & Italicized and Blue are things I have found work for me

Italicized and green are things I'd be up for trying

Bold are things that have not worked for me, or I wouldn't try

Brute force

Willpower

Medication, SSRI’s, mood stabilizers, anti-anxieties, etc.

Psychiatry

Psychotherapy

Cognitive behavior therapy (squeezing balls, steering wheel, rubber band punishment)

Nunn’s competing reaction (hold onto something and do not let go for several minutes)

Hypnosis

Prayer

Meditation

Keeping chart and count of each hair pulled

Felt feelings when pulling

Turning it over to God, going to church and focusing on God

Reading the Bible - though it didn't help immediately

Journaling

Singing

Biofeedback

Talking to and confiding in others - being able to open up to my loved ones helped me feel free from the constraints of trich's painful shame.

Setting goals/milestones

Accepting trich - again this one was not immediate but it helped me feel better about accepting myself and loving myself with trich

Online support group- I had been hopeful but didn't immerse myself in the support group and didn't try any other ways to try and stop. I'm a lot more hopeful this time!

Research- knowledge is power!

Avoiding stressful situations - uhhh.. yeah right. 

Avoiding tv, reading books, talking on the phone, computer use

Cover head with hat, scarves, bandana, sleeping with a hat, hairpins, barrettes- never helped in the slightest, was just an annoying obstacle that I'd find a way around

Keeping hands constantly busy  (palm pilot games, balls, knitting, cross stitch, needlepoint, other crafts, squishy toys) - I found it to be better for me to accept that my hands would just have to sit at my sides sometimes without something to occupy them, otherwise if I trained myself that they always had to be busy I would have to pull when I wasn't doing something else

Shaved head - yessss!!! Sucks, but it has helped me have a fresh start and I would let it grow for 2 + years before I started pulling again both times I did it. Now, if I could just stop pulling period....

Wearing gloves, mittens, bandaids on fingers, false fingernails- tried it all... even putting superglue on my fingertips to desensitize the feeling... again it was just an annoying obstacle that I would work around. 

Read books about trich- I've semi-tried but haven't really given a good try. I'd like to stick with it sometime

Support groups- I would LOVE to find a local support group to meet in person. Tried to set it up one time but the two other girls bailed out last minute. 

12 step groups- my neighbor just casually told me about one he was going to at his church, I'm thinking of trying it out.

Self-hynotherapy cd

Naturopathic physicians

Special diets

Switched from contacts to glasses

Other trich solution website

Moisturizer, keep fingers slick with lotion, vaseline on lashes

Hiding the tweezers

Wigs- just prolonged it and helped me deny it and it got worst. I'm not against a little bit of help for some self esteem, but I would never buy a wig again. It's all downhill for me after that. The smell of wigs make me feel anxious now. 

Crying

Self-Help books and tapes

Coloring hair, keeping hair wet, leave-in conditioners, different hair products- absolutely, washing my hair is the ultimate savior. Not only because wet hair is unappealing to pull, but also taking a bit of time to give some TLC to my hair. Coloring it too because it always looks a bit better when it's a brighter color. 

Covered over the mirrors, do not look into mirrors- sounds like denial

Connecting with positive people

Don’t go to bed until sleepy

Slow breathing

Sit on hands, keep hands away from face

Chew gum

Tell myself the damage consequences of pulling

Wear false eyelashes, especially at night and sleep in them

Kept hair short

Make & keep regular hair appointments with beautician. If too much damage, won't want to go, but have to keep appointment.

Caffeine reduction- I have a caffeine prob anyways... I know it doesn't help

Make a pact with self. If I don't pull, I CAN _____. if I do pull, can't do/go, etc.

Move to another room and do anything to occupy hands

Wore beaded bracelets and tried to touch those instead of pulling

Pull on string or wool

One other thing that helped TREMENDOUSLY... is to keep a chart of how many days I have pull-free. I hand made a 6 month calendar and crossed off every single day I went pull free, it became my new obsession. I really should do that again. 

Someone new to love

Yay! 

Life has been busy and stressful and messy, but wonderful :) 

I haven't gone crazy with pulling, I haven't had any trances or episodes, but I also haven't refrained from pulling here and there. Some days are worst than others, but I think I've had more good days than not. 

I really really want to get back to the swing of things though. I want to wake up and have an organized day, it always makes me feel better. Part of that include journaling my struggles and accomplishments here. 

My regrowth on top has been great, I could have a part again if need to. BUT... the back of my head is so much worst. All from the pulling here and there. I can't put my hair in a ponytail or leave it down. The entire top half of my head now has about 1 tenth of what the bottom half has. But like I said there is a lot of regrowth, and I have to remember that. 

I finally applied to become a member of Trich World. I'm very very excited about that, it's a good fresh start to jumping back into being aware of my pulling and journaling my feelings associated. 

It's been a stormy week here and I can't get enough of it. Though it does make me sleepy, or that may be the newborn and late nights :)