Argh!!

Any of you reading this, who also pull their hair, probably know exactly where this is going with a title like that.

My hair is getting very thin. I’ve done a lot of damage lately. I want to stop and yet I’m totally apathetic about using my tools. I want to be strong enough without them. But I’m not, end of story. At least not now.

Anyway, I’ve been trying to institute my “tricks” lately so that I reduce my pulling. I don’t feel like its working and then I just get more frustrated. I know in my head “one day at a time” or ” one hour at a time”, one tool at a time, what not. It’s just not working. Friday I was doing pretty darn good in the car, which was HARD. But then my check engine light came on, I stopped to check fluids, was then late for what I needed to do, and ended up pulling a lot. I actually said to myself “well, that was really stressful so I guess pulling is reasonable right now.” Seriously?

I’m pulling as I type this. Do I have a hat on my head like I should? No. Why? Because my husband is sleeping and all of my hats are in there with him. At least that’s the obvious reason. Self sabotage comes to mind as well.

Anyway, today is a new day and noon is a new hour. I need to get up, get moving, maybe work in the flower beds. The weeds deserve pulling much more than my poor hair does.

Oddity

One of the things that frustrates me most about Trich is how it changes and has a mind of its own in a way.  Or, more accurately, how I can go somewhere an not pull hardly at all, but I come home and its like nothing changed.

The idea that stress influences pulling is being debated all the time.  I think the current theory is that it makes SOME pullers pull more, but sometimes not.  That’s the nature of the beast.  But according to all of my practitioners right now, my body says it is stressed even though I mentally haven’t felt that so much.

What is stressful is going to visit my in-laws.  They are very different than my family and I just don’t fit there well.  They are also loud and a little rude and I just don’t like it.  So when I’m there, I do feel stressed, or at least on high alert, like all of my senses are on overdrive.  Luckily we don’t go that often.

But what’s weird is that for the 5 days we were there, I didn’t pull, but now that I’m home and I have two days to relax before going back to work, I am pulling like crazy.  Actually, not that bad.  I have the wherewithall to stop.  Sometimes.  But that’ s better than nothing.

But I wish I could flip the “no pulling for 5 days” switch at home instead of only when I’m out of town.  It’s so weird.  Again, the nature of the beast.

Sunshine

We’ve actually had sun shining for three days in a row.  Yesterday it was almost warm.  I wore a sweatshirt and was able to walk downtown with my jacket unzipped.  So lately, that equates to warm.  I’ve been spending parts of my afternoons sitting next to our sliding glass door, with the curtains open, soaking up the sun while I read.  My cat sits on the floor next to me doing the same (minus the book of course).

I’m feeling slightly better.  I had a good talk with my husband and laid out my feelings of frustration, loneliness, and hopelessness.  It doesn’t change or fix anything, but he did ask me how he can listen better so that when I do talk I feel like I’m actually getting something out of it.  So that’s good, although we’ll see if he remembers any of it.  (It takes him a while to catch on to new things.)  I still have a long way to go to feeling happy or joyful the way I want to, but at least I’m not as deeply entrenched in my hole of despair today.  That’s a step in the right direction and I’ll take it.

Be…longing

I’ve always been a bit of a loner.  I don’t do well in crowds.  In fact, I avoid them if possible.  I have anticipation and social anxiety that can “talk me “out of participating in just about anything.   I tend to do well talking to people online, in forums, through email…on a blog.  I don’t do so well with idle chit chat.  In fact I suck at it.  I’ve discovered a big reason I tend to run late is so that I don’t have to sit around and fill awkward time chatting before an event or class starts.  Sad but true.

However, since meeting a great group of girls online in 2006/7, I had really overcome some of this anxiety and put myself out into the social realm.  I mean I met “total strangers” in Vegas for goodness sakes.  Luckily, they all turned out to be totally wonderful and we had a terrific time.  It was truly one of the best weekends of my life because I was living out of my anxiety encrusted shell and had super fun, nice people to help me.  I’ve met up with different combinations of these girls (women, if you prefer that term instead) twice since then for similar get togethers.

Maybe it is just the winter doldrums, but lately I don’t feel like I belong anywhere.  I feel like I’m just a quirky person and people tolerate me, but don’t really like me.  If you know what I mean.  While online forums (my two main ones are with people I’ve met in real life too) have been a great way for me to branch out & get to know new people, I still live in a totally cliche-ish community where it is near impossible to meet new people, especially ones who aren’t old enough to be my grandparents.  Needless to say, I’m used to the feeling of not belonging in my community.  I don’t like it, but I haven’t found a way to change it, so I try going about my business hoping for the best.

Lately, I don’t feel like I really belong in cyber space either.  I’m just always a little off.  Sort of like trying to fit a sharply angled square peg into a square hole that has slightly rounded edges.   I’ve always thought I was pretty good with words and expressing myself, but lately it seems like I offend when I don’t mean to and my words just get taken the wrong way a lot.

Secondly, my bonds with people aren’t strong & long lasting.  Or they feel one sided.  Friends I’ve had for 10+ years, or even my whole life, don’t stay in touch or don’t seem to make getting together a priority.  I know that life changes.  I was one of the first to move away after college, for that matter.  I guess it is the fact that I don’t have new people filling in the gaps that makes me feel so unstable.  Part of me craves social interaction.  Part of me really wants to get out of the house to have fun once in a while.  My husband is a homebody and would never leave if he had his way, so that doesn’t help.  I’m the more social of the two of us (yikes) in a lot of ways.

So when I can, I try to suck it up & get out there.  I try to go to events even when I feel like I won’t belong and I’ll have to fumble my way through chit chat.  But I’m still lonely and I still feel unimportant and unlikeable.  I don’t think that helps my pulling at all.  Perhaps those two things are more intermingled than they should be, or than I realize.  Really, I don’t care.  I just want to feel better.  I want people to like me and want to spend time with me.  I want to not feel like a loser all the time.  When I was younger I thought getting married would solve all of this because I’d have a husband and he’d have friends and we’d have friends….nope.  It’s just him & me all the time.  Which is great, but its not always enough.  I still feel incomplete.

Cabin Fever/Winter Blahs

Wow, its been two months since my last post.  Sorry everyone.  That has to be a new record.  I guess I haven’t felt too inspired lately, but on the off chance I do have any regular readers, I feel bad for disappearing on you.

It’s cold here and I’m tired of snow and boots and layers of coats, scarves, & mittens.  My mood has been better than most winters, but I just feel blah.  Add to that some unusual life events, and I’ve just been proccupied.

My pulling isn’t horrible, but it isn’t very good either.  I’m just going day by day and trying not to let the pulling stress me out.   I’d like to have long hair.  I’d like to have at least a full head of hair, but I just can’t bring myself to care too much right now.  I have very little will power since about mid-Jan so that doesn’t help either.  More important than even my pulling is eating right (since that affects how my whole body/mood function) but I can’t make myself stick to my restrictions.  So that will be battle #1.  Once we get some warm sunny days and I start craving fruit, smoothies, & salad, it should get a whole lot easier again.

In the meantime, I’m trying to decide whether or not to send a proposal to my national professional association about Trich/BFRB’s and Music Therapy which would include my experiences working at the Trich Retreat for TLC last September.  I want to do it, and I have until April 10 to get everything submitted.  But basically I have to put together the whole presentation in order to submit my “proposal.”  If they don’t accept me to present, then its lots of wasted time & effort (and probably pulling as I try to get powerpoint put together).  I also have this inferiority complex where my one experience doing MT with TTM doesn’t feel like much expertise so I wonder if I have a right to present.  But really what I want to do is put the word out to this arena of therapists that there’s a disorder out there that none of us are taught about in school (or at least miseducated about, I think it might have been mentioned in my Abnormal Psych class and I had felt the need to correct the prof!).  I’ve seen quite a few of my clients with TTM type behaviors and I know what I’m looking at.  How many other MT’s do?

So, I ponder…

If you’re still out there and reading, please let me know.  I definitely post more when I have comments to answer!

I am SO mad

I just saw this commercial for H&R Block tax season.  I hate tax commercials as it is, but this one, featuring hair pulling, crosses the line.  Someone in the ad department should’ve done a little research before actually letting this ad out into the public.

I can’t even bring myself to post it on the page because that means I’ll have to  see it every time I return to my blog.  But, if you haven’t seen it yet, its posted on YouTube…as a “hilarious hairless commercial.”  I assume there’s a nod to the office here, which is part of why people think its funny.  I Don’t!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Xu_VfS8if0

2009

Well, its a new year and I really have nothing to say.  No words of inspiration or wisdom.  2008 went by way too fast and I feel like I’m still stuck back in March.  I wasn’t ready for Christmas and definitely not ready for a new year.  I can’t seem to keep up with the speed of life lately.  But I’m also in a lousy mood,  so that doesn’t help anything.  There are many reasons, and I could spiel on about them for pages, but there wouldn’t be much point in that.  Mainly I feel unimportant and rejected by people who I thought cared about me, and I’m not good at letting that hurt go.  My husband pretty much slept through new years, so no parties, no toast, no kiss…nothing.  I also have four days of sitting around my house in front of me.  Most people would LOVE that.  For me, it usually means a pull-fest and so I dread it.

I spent the rest of my holidays at my parents’ house and it felt a much healthier place to be.  Plus I was spoiled by the fact they have cable, so it was fun to catch up on old shows like the OC and 90210 (the original series).  It was dorky, but a good reason to get some knitting done.  No cable at home though, and with the conversion to digital, we don’t even have CBS anymore.

So yeah, here’s hoping the rest of 2009 becomes a little more interesting and inspiring than the first day has been so far.

Not so much

My new goal is not sticking in my head and my hats are not staying on. I can’t keep my hands out of my hair. Argh. I should stop eating holiday junk food, especially the sugar and gluten that I know will make me feel lousy in other ways, and see if that helps. Will power is not my strong suit lately. Argh.

Can’t pick just one

Huh, that subject heading could mean a few different things to us pullers and pickers, couldn’t it. Anyway, my intent was to say that I’ve had many ideas for posts floating in my head for a while.

First, I live in Michigan. Michigan is a scary place to be right now. The basis of our entire economy (autos) is in big trouble. People who don’t work for the big 3, often work for suppliers for the big 3. My husband’s company makes lots of parts for the interior of the cars. For the past few months, he’s worked 4 nights instead of 5. Thank god, they still consider him full time and let him keep his benefits. But they reduced hours during the busy season. I’m really scared what is going to happen in Jan & Feb when things are traditionally slow. Our budget isn’t set up for him to only work three nights a week, or to be laid off. But it is very possible and it scares me. That leads to anxiety, which leads to pulling.

Then there’s my job. I work in schools. Public Schools. I do music. When the funding goes down in a school, what’s the first thing they cut? The arts. Music is an art. It scares me. That leads to anxiety, which leads to pulling. Why would funding go down? Well, because schools are funded by tax dollars. If people aren’t working, then there isn’t tax revenue. Schools get less money and can’t keep all their staff. I’m an at will employee and not part of the union. I’m first on the chopping block as far as I can tell. Anxiety

So, while I’m trying really hard to be glad that we both have employment of some kind right now, if either of us loses ours (I’ve already lost one contract) we are f***d. Really, I don’t know what we would do. We live on a pretty meager budget as it is. So I worry, and I pull, and I try to stay positive. But I live in Michigan.

Onto other news: I’m helping to lead a work camp down in New Orleans this summer. Thank goodness, the sponsors of the trip are paying for all of my expenses. Otherwise I couldn’t do it. So, up to 25 high school students will be working to rebuild homes down in New Orleans and I will be helping keep them organized, safe, healthy, and will provide worship opportunities since it is a church sponsored event. I am excited, but anxious too. I haven’t worked with high school youth in a looong time. I haven’t led worship in a long time. I have hardly any hair and will probably need to remove my head covering for meals. Goodness.

So I have a new goal to work towards. It would be nice to at least have my hair all fill back in, even if it is short. Then I can just wear a headband rather than a bandanna that requires removal at meals. I’m trying to change my focus, so that I count success as using my non-pulling-tools (fidgets, bandannas, hats, etc.) rather than focusing on whether I pull or not. But it is hard since I’ve done it the other way for years and years. I can only go one moment at a time, though, and if I meet my goal, great. If not, and I have to remove my bandanna, then I guess I’ll be teaching some high school kids about TTM before dinner.

Update

I always feel bad when I come back here and realize that a month has gone by and I haven’t posted.  It doesn’t seem like that much time has passed.

I’ve been pulling quite a bit lately.  I can’t really figure out a reason, per se.  The situational triggers are still the same, with the car being the worst.  But as for what is causing the rise in urges, I have no idea.  My mood has slumped, but maintains at “meh” right now.  I gave up on the anti-depressents and the the natural supplements (Cod Liver Oil and RNA/DNA/Vit B combo) don’t make me feel as good as the meds, but it has made the big mood swings stop, which is huge.  I’m not raging, crazy, and angry all the time now, so that makes living with my husband a lot easier   Thinking back though, I think that the Effexor made me nearly manic…it felt good, but when I think about the spending I was doing, and some other impulsive habits, I’m not sure it really was all that good for me.  I’m glad I got off of it regardless, even though I miss feeling so happy all the time.

Anyway, other than that, not much has changed for me.  I feel as though in just accepting that I pull, I have also lost all of my fight.  Since I don’t really care that I pull, it’s that much harder to stop myself.  So there’s internal conflict of sorts, but often, I just let it go.  Winter is always rough on me, so we’ll just take it one day at a time.  It’s all we really CAN do anyway, isn’t it?