Don’t know why, but today was a weaker day with the bad habits. I’ve been doing well up until today. But today, while bored, I chewed several of my nails (on my right hand) down so far that they hurt. And just now while laying here with my laptop, doing some work on the computer, I started pulling my right eyebrow significantly.
Tomorrow… my welbutrin dose doubles to 200mg per day…
Wednesday morning, on 9/21, I cut off all of my hair extensions. I decided to go back to being bald for awhile. I kind of missed having a shaved head, since I’m one of the few girls it seems to look good on. I’ve gotten a lot of compliments on it already!
I had mixed feelings during the process. Halfway through, I struggled, looking at myself in the mirror and thinking back to all of the times in the past when I’ve shaved my head because I HAD to. I didn’t “have” to this time, although after cutting the extensions off I never would have been happy with the short hair underneath. So in a way, all of the old feelings of failure came back while I was doing this.
But I’ve decided that since there seem to be no more interruptions in my treatment in sight, I’m going to give it all I’ve got, with a big push and instead of having the temptation right in front of me and struggling the whole way, I would simply remove the temptation and make things easier for myself. Now, my plan is to keep the hairstyle for a few months until the bald patches fill in, go forth with my CBT training plan, and hopefully begin to grow the hair by Jan or Feb.
I have also decided to try giving medication another shot, because recently, in the last several months I have developed another repulsive behavior… Dermotillomania .. it started with scratching my scalp because there was dandruff… I would look for this under my fingernails afterwards and eat it afterwards. Then I began causing sores because of the intensity in which I was scratching, and that soon led to searching for scabs, pulling them off, and eating them. Never in my life have I had this problem, and I am 29 years old right now. The fact that at this age, I have developed this kind of problem, signifies to me that my obsessive grooming issues are only getting worse, and that medication is not only a good idea, but could be necessary at this point. I am causing more self-harm than ever before, and I haven’t been able to get on top of it even with psychotherapy. I’ve also had to remove my acrylic nails for work over the last few months, and my nail-biting has become quite extreme again. So, I am going to try and work on all of these issues at once, with the help of my wonderful therapist.
And so I am meeting with my doctor on Tuesday to discuss a treatment plan and decide what medication to try next…. now that I’m no longer in a close relationship, the sexual side effects of the antidepressants won’t bother me … in fact, having a lower sex drive might actually be a GOOD thing for me right now, since I’m not in a relationship.
That is all for now… I hope to begin writing in here regularly again to keep track of my progress.
had some tension-free periods of time there for a bit but two things of note..
a few days ago, the hard acrylic nail chipped on one of my thumbnails, exposing the real nail. I was able to ignore this for a couple days, knowing that I’d be back to get my nails done sometime in the next week - but I started to chew on the nail after a couple of days. I bit the nail pretty far down… certainly the shortest it’s been in a very long time. and then… I started tugging at my left eyebrow. There’s a very big bald patch in it now. That is the first time that I’ve pulled my eyebrows in like 6 months or so =( …. (since I’ve been getting the acrylic nails) …so, guess I won’t be taking the acrylic nails off anytime soon. Not only did I bite the nail down but I proceeded to yank out my nice full eyebrow, which has been allowed to grow in for the first time in years. luckily I was able to stop before I started on the right brow. guess that proves my wishful thinking wrong - I was just starting to think to myself, ’wow, maybe I can stop having this done soon and have my regular nails again.’
nope.
today I pulled after a long, productive and generally cleansing day around the house (I thoroughly cleaned my bedroom, and got the roommates to help me clean the ENTIRE apartment, cleaner than it’s ever been before… QUITE the accomplishment living with 3 college dudes…) but, I let myself keep going for awhile, simply because I felt like I’d earned a little bit of a break. and plus, it was so extremely relaxing….. I really felt like the rest of my leftover tension just floated into the air… it was definitely theraputic..of course then, however, I couldn’t stop at just 10-20 minutes of pulling, I went for about 2 hours. Just now I finally put a bandana over my (now almost entirely bald on top) head. Only 10 more days until I see Rae from Hair Alchemy again and see what she can do to help me. She did a great job last time, but much of my hair was too short to be put into the extensions. That hair happened to be all the hair on my crown that is now 95% gone… but, there’s a little tiny bit more than there was last time, so hopefully a couple of new strands will make a difference. well that’s it for now. and thanks for the comments… reminds me that I’m not alone :)
in early February I was ecstatic. I decided to try acrylic nails in hopes they would be a deterrant of the pulling. And they worked wonderfully at first. I wasn’t able to pull out a single hair for over 3 weeks! I’ve had the acrylic nails for over a month now, and my eyebrows are fully grown back! I haven’t been able to touch them at all. so, I finally have my eyebrows back. =) It is SO nice not to have to worry about drawing them in everyday, or if I’ve done it evenly, or if they’re starting to smudge off… no more!!
my hair, however, sadly went back to it’s normal state after it became too long for the fake nails to be of use. While my hair was very short, I wasn’t able to get a good grip on the strands, but now that it’s over 3 inches long, I can get enough of a grasp on the strands to pull them out again. Yes, it is still harder to do so, but it’s possible again. So, sadly this wasn’t a cure-all for my hair… but I would DEFINETELY recommend trying it. Both to men and women. Especially men, because I’m not sure what else a man could try, and I know how much harder it is to conceal spots when you have very short hair. The way I did this was to get my thumb and forefinger set up with much longer nails (twice as long as usual) so that I couldn’t grip them together. (A little out of the ordinary, and took getting used to, but SO very worth it.)
While I was getting them done, the lady asked if I played guitar. I do happen to play guitar, so I said yes, but apparently she’s seen lots of MEN get acrylic nails only on their thumb and fore fingers for the purpose of guitar playing! So, men… if you want to try this but feel awkward about it, simply say that you’re a guitar player! I really think that this could help you a lot. It worked incredbly well for me when my hair was very short. I was so happy. Not to mention, I have a nice full set of nails all the time now, instead of having NO nails from biting them. And my real nails are growing long underneath them, so whenever I decide to stop doing the acrylics, I’ll have a nice long set of my own nails again!
In the meantime, the spot I posted before has about tripled in size (well, it was all the way back in January that I posted the pics, so it could be a lot worse and usually would be by now, if not for the acrylic nails…) I have another large spot on the right side of my head… in it’s usual spot. I’ve been using black permanant hair dye on my scalp to cover up the glaring white skin. This has been working well 95% of the time (the only one who noticed was my significant other , but it’s really rather impossible to hide this stuff from him all the time…) and most people don’t even notice the bald spots or look at me long enough to realize there’s a big spot of black all over my scalp. and I mean… it’s really large now. I’ll post an updated photo soon.
A few days actually I pulled so long and so hard that my scalp was extremely sore for days =( I’ve been sitting in front of my l.e.d light hoping it will help to fix some of the awful damage I caused.
Later this month I am going back to chicago to see Rae from Hair Alchemy. I’m so excited!! we’re going to try a different type of hair extension this time, just regular synthetic hair as opposed to the wool strands I got before to keep my head warm (which worked very nicely, and were really cute too!) I’m going to get mostly black, with some pink mixed in. She also said it shouldn’t be too much of a problem to concel the large spots I have now, even though the big one is partially right in the middle of my crown. She’ll be able to thread the hair a certain way to cover it! I can’t wait! That’s going to happen in just 9 more days =)
I really hope I can try to control myself a bit before then, because I’ve really been loosing control again since I’ve been able to pull the hair strands again. I didn’t have this spot on the right side a week ago and it’s very big now =/
anyways, that’s it for now, but I leave you men and women with the following recommendations:
- try acrylic nails!!! they take some getting used to, but they WILL help as a deterrant!!
- use permanant black (or brown) dye on your scalp if you have dark hair, to conceal your bald spots. you will need to reapply it frequently but it really does a great job concealing your spots, you will feel so much better!!
xoxo,
Isis
not having any fingernails is NOT very comfortable … and is a huge pain in the ass, not to mention looks awful.
nails = good