Sanitywarp.org:: Diary of a Trichster

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.

Tags: pull diary, cognitive behavioral therapy, anti-depressants, dermotillomania, skin picking, nail biting, trichotillomania, ocd, bald spots, trichster, trich by Isis
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haven’t logged in awhile… but nothing really to report.  not much has changed… hasn’t gotten better, hasn’t gotten worse.  coping with a large amount of bald spots.   trying to get back on track with my CBT therapist..

Tags: mgh trich clinic boston, mgh trich clinic, pull diary, trichotillomania 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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I have been doing fine since the last post, several pull-free days, but I’ve also been hanging out with my boyfriend for all of those days.  I noticed my hand idly searching around on my crown a few times last night while we were in bed watching tv, and if he hadn’t been there, I’m sure I would have been pulling. he’ll be around today but starting tomorrow I won’t see him for awhile.

I’m seeing my extensionist on Saturday, hopefully I can make it until then without pulling any more.  I definetely need to dye my grays again,  I saw lots of white when I looked in the mirror earlier to clip my extensions up around the side of my head to cover up my bald patches.

I’ve been feeling extremely self-concious this last couple of weeks since I did that last round of major damage;  it’s pretty impossible to cover all of it now,  and even when I clip the strands of hair up, they shift around really easily after an hour or two, since there’s no hair underneath to anchor the clips too.    I’ve noticed people looking at the back of my head sometimes =/

oh well.. that’s it for this update.

Tags: pull-free day, 3rd day pull free, embarrassment, pull diary, hair dye, white hair, awkwardness, bald spots by Isis
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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  :) 

Tags: pulling eyebrows, crown, nail biting, pulling in bed, pull diary, acrylic nails, bald spots, pulling from scalp, ttm, trich, hair extensions, hair alchemy, trichotillomania, eyebrows by Isis
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