I had a bad night last night. I stayed up later than I should, working on things that could have waited. I knew that and kept pushing myself. I pulled A LOT!! The worst part is that I knew I was doing it and let myself keep going. I don’t think I tend to associate any of that with feeling guilty. I’ve never really taken my pulling personally like that. It has always been “the disorder” that causes me to pull. But I get frustrated when I can’t access the part of my brain that wants to stop the pattern. Frustration and sadness are my biggest emotions right now.
I’ve realized that part of my problem right now is that we are having abnormally hot temps compared to what June normally is for us. I was doing okay during the winter when I wore hats a lot. But now, even with the AC on, it is too warm to feel like having a hat or bandana or anything on my head. I have a hard time keeping them on even when I try. So today I have the bandana on and then have it tied into the mini bun that I still can pull together. That way if I try to take the bandana off, it is still attached with the hairband. We’ll see if it works.
I’m feeling very strange and jittery today. It is a hot day outside, but I think I might head to the community pool to read, just so I’m around strangers. That should help keep my hands from my head. We’ll see.
I hope you’ve had better days and nights since this post. I have had a similar time of things in the past few days. Actually, it was frustration that led me to look for people with blogs about trich. I’ve had it since I was 9 and am almost 30 so I really relate to your history. I wish you didn’t have to struggle with trich either, but thank you so much for sharing your experiences and insights. I spend so much time as the only person that I know with the disorder that sometimes I forget how powerful shared experience can be.
Thanks for writing. I am still having a rough time, full of lots of pulling. I just can’t figure out what is going on. But I’m plugging away trying to research lots of options just to keep myself goal oriented. I really need to find some motivation somewhere though! I just don’t feel inspired right now.
Ugh. I know exactly what you mean. The other night as I was looking for new information and people talking about their experiences, I could NOT stop pulling. One would think the cognitive dissonance would be enough to make me stop. I think it just made the episode more intense. I I’m doing alright logging my episodes this week, but I can’t pinpoint why I’m able to do it now when I haven’t for months. It’s hard enough to deal with trich when we’re inspired and/or on a roll, let alone when we’re feeling down and discouraged, but it’s clear you’ve found motivation in the past and you’ll find it again! I hope it comes to you soon!
Right now I think I’m distracted by the fact that I want to help everyone with Trich. I want to find that one thing that “fixes” us so that this disorder doesn’t have a grip on us anymore. I want to be doing research and presentations and things on a bigger scale. I’m stuck in this little town though with no other pullers to talk to, so I just putter around dreaming. Perhaps if I could dream myself into finding something that works for me, it would be more likely to help others too. Argh. I do need that motivation pronto!