Sanitywarp.org:: Diary of a Trichster

wish I was able to update a little more often. but there’s so little time sometimes, and then when there is… the last thing I want to do is write about my hair-pulling problem…

anyway, I went off the Zoloft because of a few things. 1, I was starting to feel a little “weird” …  a side effect of being on anti-depressants.  The sexual dysfunction issue was a problem.  I thought I didn’t mind it at first but it started to get to me.  And finally, I wasn’t noticing any change in the hair pulling frequency… although the Dr. recommended that I try doubling the dose to get the desired effect… I just didn’t want to do that.

Then I spiraled into an uncontrollable and very fast decline over the last month which has left me with about 30% of my hair intact. At first I tried to disguise this as a mowhawk, but the mowhawk only lasted about a week before that was half gone, too.  It was so bad in this last week that it’s all right in front of my crown and pretty impossible to hide even by wearing a headband in front.  I pulled so much there that it caused these weird, irritated and itchy little bumps on my scalp. (wtf??) … the skin is all sore and scaly feeling there.  :[  I’m trying not to be too hard on myself, as I’m going through a very traumatic and trying time.  (I lost my father at the end of Jan… then a whole bunch of other bad shit started happening… getting evicted… loosing what I thought were good friends… etc etc)   even my therapist (the lovely Dr Sarah Markowitz at MGH)  agreed that now may not be the best time to be very concerned over the hair stuff.  so… we’re going to work on more pressing issues for awhile and then get back to the hair issue.

In the meantime… I’m now trying Naltrexone.  My partner is actually on Naltrexone to fight his alcoholism.  My Harvard psychology professor recommended that as an option awhile back… and now I’m trying it.  It’s an opiod blocker … helps with addictions… what I’m hoping it will do is decrease the urge to pull, and also take away the pleasurable feeling that I am addicted to.  It’s been 3 days, and the first 2 days I was extremely tired.  But already the pleasurable feeling seems to be decreasing, so that’s a good sign.I guess we’ll see how this goes…… here’s hoping for some better results than the anti-depressants…

Tags: trauma caused by pulling, relapse, pulled all day, zoloft, anti-depressants, naltrexone, trichster, bald spots, trich, medication, ttm, trichotillomania, pulling, stress by Isis
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well, it’s been a month now since I started cognitive behavior therapy (CBT).I am sad to say that I don’t see much of a difference yet.  My awareness has been increased a bit, but it has gotten no easier to stop the behavior, despite coming up with a list of incompatible behaviors (putting a hat or gloves on, clasping hands, moving around, etc) … the urge is just too strong for any of that to work.

so, I am taking the plunge and trying medication to go along with the CBT, which is the most successful way of going about this…….I am not sure which medication will be tried first, but I am sure there will be a period of unpleasant trial and error, and I’m sure I’m not going to like the side effects of whatever SSRI I am taking… but… at this point, I am willing to sacrifice other things (like my sexual functionality, which is what the Cymbalta / Duloxetine messed with when I tried it, and the main reason I stopped taking it) to try and conquer this…  if there’s any time to really try medication again, it’s right now.. I seem to have no other choice.  It’s becoming incredibly difficult and frustrating to hide my scalp, which is at least 50% bare, especially from my significant other.  It actually distresses me quite a lot when he wants to spend the night with me now, because it’s extremely uncomfortable to sleep with clip-on extensions (they pull at the hair I do have, making my scalp very sore in the morning)  aside from the fact that the hair is all gross and poor quality now because of sleeping on it so often.  I like seeing him but I find myself wishing he didn’t call me so much, just because of the hair thing…  *sigh* I should be happy to spend time with him =(

I had a massive session just now while writing a final paper for school.  It was just awful… I couldn’t stop.  I even pulled my pubic hair (after I tried putting on a hat, the trich monster just moved along somewhere else) for over 20 minutes which is something I haven’t done in a REALLY long time.  :(

I did dye my roots last night in hopes I won’t get stuck in the mirror pulling all my numerous amounts of grays anymore….

I really hope I can get better.  :(

I will update as things progress..

Tags: school stress, pulling at night, pulling at desk, follicle biting, peer pressure, embarrassment, mgh trich clinic boston, pubic area, significant other, anxiety, cognitive behavioral therapy, treatmeant, restlessness, white hair, trich, ttm, medication, stress, cymbalta, hair extensions, trichotillomania, bald spots, crown, pulling from scalp, pulling, depression, duloxetine by Isis
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wow, it’s been quite awhile since I’ve updated.  I guess I’ve been so busy with school and other stuff that it hasn’t been on my mind too much.   Although I’ve tried a few new things since the last time I wrote (started seeing the homeopath about 6 weeks ago, got ridiculously expensive fusion hair extensions from one of the supposedly best salons from around here, they ended up being AWFUL!!),  I am still largely in the same place as before.  I’ve got 3 huge bald patches in the usual places… crown and either side, near temples.I’ve been dealing with a lot of stress and anxiety, so I’m not surprised I’m not doing too well at the moment.  I’m also depressed because of the hair stuff and some other things in general.  Thanks to my acrylic nails though, I still have my brows and lashes, at least.  I am currently on the waitlist for the MGH Trich clinic, and it could be several months before I get in there.  I hope it’s sooner.  :/   I will go into more detail about some of the stuff I’ve tried, next time  I write, which will hopefully not be too much longer from now.   But I thought I’d put a brief entry in here for the time being.   so.. until then..

Tags: pulling at desk, sore, pulling in bed, white hair, pulling in class, pulling in morning, mgh trich clinic, pulling at night, school stress, pulling at mirror, self esteem, crown, trichotillomania, hair extensions, ttm, trich, depression, pulling from scalp, trichster, bald spots, alternative healing, stress by Isis
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 why does it feel so good to do this??  =( it’s just so unfair that it relieves so much tension… I had a stressful day… and sometimes, I just really  can’t stop it… but by the time the tension has gone away.. I’m in trance mode and can’t stop even though I want to.I keep trying to make myself be aware of the reality of the situation…. this is my own hair… that is on my head for a reason, and I am tearing it out and causing severe damage to my scalp!   But somehow, it just doesn’t want to register like that, all I can think of is ‘oooh that feels good, oh, that one was even better.  maybe there’s another follicle to bite now!’   It’s like repeating a word over and over again until all of a sudden, it just looses meaning… all you can focus on is the sound, and not the word anymore.  But the reality is this:  What I’m doing is disgusting!!  Imagine if anyone ever could see me like this, while I’m this bad?  There’s hair sticking all over me,  piles of HAIR that just came from my head,  there’s strands of it everwhere, all over my bed, I’m SLEEPING in it. arrrrggg =(I have to wear a bandana now to cover up the huge bald area on the top of my head now.  I can’t even wrap the extensions around my head to cover it completely anymore, this is really bad heh.  I should probably take a picture to illustrate just how bad.  It’s def as bad as it was a couple years ago, when I first got some extensions put in, and then had to shave my head for awhile again after, because I just couldn’t be responsible enough to DESERVE hair.thank goodness help will be on the way soon.  the trip to the salon went well the other day, but now I have to go to a seperate branch of the salon on Tuesday.   because the spot on top is so bad, I have to have a fake hair piece - it looks like a partial wig - sewn into my hair first,  (if I can MAKE it that long without pulling out even more, that is!  =(   It needs SOME hair on the sides to anchor on to, and now that’s dissapearing with each passing day…) at the first salon, and then go to their other location, to get the extensions put in afterwards.   All this is going to cost me about $350  (the fake hair piece system is $250) plus the extensions.  and I’ll have to go back every month and spend another $120ish or something like that to get everything re-positioned.I don’t even know how much money I’ve spent because of trich anymore, but it’s in the thousands, including solutions to hide it and some therapy that did or did not work.  I haven’t had cash to see a homeopath yet (frankly, I’m not entirely sure that I can really afford this round of hair stuff, so I think some of it’s gonna have to go on a credit card… eek..) and at this point I’m wondering if I should try to go back on any medication.  I’d really rather not do that but the last couple of years it’s the worst it’s ever been in all 12 years, and… I would really like to actually get a grip on it….oh, and as a side note, apparently I have to grow my right thumb and forefingers’ acrylic nails again, as I have not had a full left eyebrow in 2 weeks now.  I guess I can’t handle the responsibility of having short nails again, either.blah.  well, wish me luck at the second salon this week!    (ps… I don’t know what’s up with the lack of line breaks in wordpress all of a sudden, how irritating..!  Hope to get that figured out soon)

Tags: pulling in bed, follicle obsession, follicles, follicle biting, acrylic nails, pulled all day, pull diary, wigs, pulling eyebrows, relapse, ttm, trich, medication, hair extensions, trichotillomania, crown, bald spots, pulling from scalp, eyebrows by Isis
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so my extenionist had to cancel on me; her work required some out of state travel….  was too late for me to cancel the trip to Chicago, I tried to make the most of it.  found a salon near here after searching for awhile… Noelle Salon…  they quoted me around $500 but haven’t seen me yet… so, my consultation is tomorrow…….been pulling non-stop, even though I was on vacation… it seemed to get even worse then??   It’s to the point where I’m walking around in public and still doing it, and just not caring if anyone sees or not.  I have a bandana over my head now cuz the crown is so bad.saw my bf for the first time since last week and while we were laying together, his hand touched my head a few times and I got really nervous that he could feel that it was all weird… so I moved his arm away quickly, or would shift my body around so his arm would get moved…..  blah.wish me luck tomorrow, I hope they can help me cover up all this damage!   :/

Tags: embarrassment, bald spots, trichotillomania, hair extensions by Isis
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