Sanitywarp.org:: Diary of a Trichster

still pretty bad.  the whole right side is becoming bald… starting to creep further around the back of my head and the top of my head where it’s reachable under the extension cap…

scalp is starting to get swollen from the trauma.  It feels so good that I can’t stop.  but it’s making me feel awful… knowing how long it’s going to take now for that to grow back.. it’ll start to look normal maybe 6 months from now..

it’s pretty constant now.  during class, in the car, and at night in bed are the worst times.  It feels like I’m always pulling.  There are piles of hair everywhere.  It’s gross yet doesn’t stop me from what I’m doing.   Thankfully I’ve been able to leave my lashes and brows mostly alone… although I plucked a little from those areas too.

at the point where I feel helpless and hopeless… =/   and so stressed out about it starting to become noticeably visible even under the extensions…  people are going to start asking any day now, I know it….

I think I’m going to give my therapist a call tomorrow.  I have an appointment to see her on Weds, but I don’t think I can wait that long .. I need some help….

Tags: pulling in class, follicle biting, sore, pulling in bed, pulling in morning, pulled all day, constant pulling, embarrassment, pulling at night, follicle obsession, trauma caused by pulling, hair extensions, ttm, trich, trichotillomania, pulling, relapse, trichster, bald spots, stress by Isis
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Still doing poorly.  The urges are frequent and usually very strong.  The side areas on both sides are now very bare… once again.  The only reason the crown isn’t in the same state is because of the weave cap covering the top.  It’s itching now as I speak.  I hate wearing these things, but without them… I’d have no hair.

and so the struggle continues.  The depression regarding the situation is said to make me more prone to pulling episodes, so it’s like a vicious cycle.  I need to re-find that motivation that I had so much of for awhile, not so long ago.  Quitting hair pulling is such hard work.  Although, I’ve taken note of the fact that for me, a lot of the temptation of pulling has to do with biting the hair follicle afterwards.  I’ve been aware of how much I liked this aspect of pulling all along, but didn’t stop to think of how much less I want to do it, if I CAN’T bite the follicle afterwards.  The follicle itself is such an obsession.  The way it looks… the plumpness of a “good” one… the little pop it makes when you bite it… and sometimes, the irregular ones… with a red tip (that no one seems to know exactly what it is…) that makes the follicle harder and pop more when it’s bitten. It’s like a sick kind of “prize”.  (If the hair is white, follicle or not, that seems to be another reinforcement of the behavior…as it’s another irregularity)

This whole part of the ritual is quite powerful.  I’ve tried gum before but it’s too easy to push it to the back of the mouth to bite with the front teeth.  As silly as this sounds.. during Halloween time, I had my custom vampire fangs in, the kind that just fit over the two front teeth… and it made it impossible to close my mouth all the way while they were in.  There were several times I went to pull a hair and then stopped, mid-reach, thinking, “I can’t bite it…”  and this actually stopped me.   I told my temporary doctor about this and she very seriously suggested that I wear the teeth more often, when I am at home alone and most vulnerable to pulling.

so… I guess I’m going to try that although it’ll take some getting used to.  I need a crutch until I can find my strength again. =/    gloves help too… but only for awhile until my hand gets unbearably sweaty and I take them off…

Tags: follicles, self esteem, white hair, trauma caused by pulling, follicle biting, follicle obsession, relapse, trichster, hair extensions, ttm, trichotillomania, depression, bald spots, pulling, trich by Isis
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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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I had a couple of PF days since I was pretty much around my bf for those couple days, and wasn’t all that bored,  but today… I have pulled ALL.  DAY.  =((   like… 12 hours  =(   even in the car, while driving!!   I’m going to get in an accident if I don’t get that under control  =(    all started from looking at those STUPID white hairs that I have so many of now…  I really am going to have to try and understand that I have to stop letting them bother me, cuz they’re not going to go away!!  I just have to continously dye them so this doesn’t keep on happening… just a few white hairs doomed my entire day  =(

this SUCKS, I don’t know what to do right now, and now I’ve got 2 really big spots right on the front of my crown near my forehead, literally impossible to hide, gonna have to keep putting black dye on,  some of those pulls actually legitimately hurt really badly, too, (since it’s the fine hair in the front),  but that still didn’t stop me.  my scalp really hurts now.   I think I’m going to try taking an ativan (I have some for anxiety/sleep issues)  and see if that helps  =(

I am so upset now,  I thought I was doing good…

time to start slathering on the ointments and getting the LED lamp out again like some kinda cancer patient,  I feel disgusting…

someday this won’t control me,  hold me tightly in it’s grip for hours…

but that day isn’t now  =/

Tags: sore, restlessness, white hair, follicle biting, hair dye, pulled all day, anti-anxiety meds, self esteem, relapse, trichotillomania, ttm, trich, depression, pulling, crown, bald spots, medication by Isis
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