Entries Tagged as 'relapse'

oh well.

The streak is over.  Actually, it ended the day after I made my last post, sadly enough.   A combination of things … environment, bored/restlessness … and I succumbed.  There have been a few bad days since then.  Usually triggered by stress or in one case, anger.  I’m getting the extensions put back in later this week sometime.  I was so happy about the thickness of my hair, but I’ve already made a few thin spots on the sides again…. c’est la vie.  At least I made it about two weeks this time.  That’s an improvement over the last time, which was about a week pull-free … several months back… the key seems to be to abstain as long as possible… once you’re back into it… you’re back into it and it’s really hard to stop.  So… hopefully… better luck next time around…  now, if I can just get it stabilized again before too much time passes…

been awhile

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…

aahhhhhHH@!!!#!#$

 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)

dammit!! =(

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  =/

=/

not going so well.

pulling a lot the last few days.    have several bald spots now and some that have gotten worse…  =*(

one of my friends who’s been addicted to alcohol for most of his adult life told me about a homeopath he’s been seeing.   I may try that soon and see if it will do anything for me… =(