For a while, I was using an online program called StopPulling.com to help me manage my trich.  I have to admit that it helped for a little while there.  I was finally able to wear my hair down in late October, and it felt like a miracle.  Even though I was still pulling, it felt like it was under control.

Then came relapse.

And now, I'm back to wearing my hair up to hide the hideous bald spots that are growing larger by the day.  It's depressing, but I guess I'll keep plugging along with it.  Trich doesn't seem to ever go away, despite my efforts.

But I cancelled my subcription to the program.  I couldn't afford $30 for a program that wasn't working anymore.  I took all of the information and saved it in word documents.  Maybe someday I'll pick it up again and try caring...again.  For the umpteenth time.

I purchased some mascara and tried it out last night.  I actually had enough eyelashes for it to stick to - well, on the top lid, anyway.  So I tried it out. 

I hated it.  It was ugly because I could still very much tell every visible bald spot, and there are a bunch of them.  So I was left trying to get rid of it, and I was getting irritated and frustrated.

And later that night, I pulled all of those beautiful eyelashes out.

Every last one.  There were 60.  I had to count, thanks to that stupid program I'm doing that I fear I'm failing at...yet again.  60 beautiful eyelashes that I worked so hard for. 

Then I started for my eyebrows, and I promptly shaved them all off before I could start pulling them out and littering the floor with their remains.

I swear one of these days I'll just give up.  I'm tired.

I've discovered that a huge trigger is "concern for my personal health."  If the concern is large, then the pulling will increase.  Last night I pulled 600 scalp hairs.  This morning I added 250 more.  This is the largest pulling spree I've had since the beginning of July. 

And I feel horrible.

Top it all off with the fact that I'm worried about this wheeze that I have in my chest.  I've actually had it since late last year.  Maybe December.  But it started after a cold, and I figured it was the stuff just trying to work its way free of my lung passageways.  It began to get better in the middle of the winter, and I tried to ignore it.

When I wanted to start my exercising back up in the Spring, I tried a move that brings my right arm across the front of my body and reaches out to the left.  This sound makes my chest contract a little, and I could hear the wheezing.

Any motions of this sort now brings on that sound.  It's like a horrible, hollow, empty sort of sound.  If I open my mouth when I do this, it's worse.

I'm scared, and I have no idea what to do.  And that's making me feel more helpless than ever.

Apparently, I had a pulling spree last night.  I wrote about it before I went to bed that way I'd be able to document it for my program.  But what I wrote down as my "thoughts and feelings" really bugged me when I read it this morning:

I'm tired and scared of being alone.  I don't know what makes me like this - why only old men desire me.  Am I hideous to guys my own age?  Am I repulsive to them?  Ugly?  Is it my hair, my features, my walk, the way I dress?  What's wrong with me?  Where is the man I'm supposed to be with?  I feel so alone - he's not coming.  He's not even alive.

I broke my heart, really.  But I suppose - in a way - it's truth.  I was asked out for the first real time yesterday (count that as a record considering I'm 25 years old), and the man is probably somewhere in his early to mid forties.  It was a nice enough gesture, but it bothers me to think that - once again - I still don't fit in with my age group.  And that scares me.  Dating and love and all of that is scary enough without thinking that you'll have to date someone who's probably the same age as your biological father. 

I've prayed about it.  I don't know what else to do.

I have forgotten how much I abhor behavior therapy for trich.

I have to admit that I have to now force myself to log onto the StopPulling website because I just feel like I'm getting discouraged.  I feel like I'm getting no where. 

In actuality, that isn't entirely true, but in a way, it is.  I am doing better in the mornings (I set a goal for myself to not pull in the mornings by using the coping mechanisms that the website offered me after their analysis of my pulling schedule).  I've only pulled one hair in the 6am - Noon range so far this week - and that's since Tuesday.  Granted, I pull in the afternoon and evenings still, so I'm not sure if it counts for much.  But I have to start out slow, right?

I'm just getting really irritated and a little discouraged.

Tuesday will mark my two-week-aversary of starting the StopPulling program online.  So far, I've managed to keep up with my progress every day.  I keep tabs on where I am, when I pull or have an urge, what I'm thinking, what I'm doing.  I'm beginning to see things that I'd forgotten.  I'm beginning to see the patterns in my behavior.

Mostly, I'm tired.  Or that's what I say I am.  I don't know if it's tired, exhausted or bored, but in accordance to the drop-down list on StopPulling, I usually say I'm tired.  Given that I've noticed I pull mostly in the morning and at night, usually right before bed or right after waking up, I can see how that works out.

It's been so hard to sleep lately, though.  No particular reason, really.  I can't say I'm truly upset about anything.  I've had our misfortunes here lately, but everything is on a pretty even road.  Yeah, I'm lonely, but I'm dealing with it.  Yeah, I'm tired of the mess my house is in, but I'm dealing with it.  I'm trying to deal with the stress of work and the fear of cancer in my family.  But both of those are fairly well handled, really.

I looked in the mirror this morning, though, and I told myself a weird thing.  "If you had children, you wouldn't pull."  I thought about that for a while, really, because I doubt it's true.  But it wasn't so much that I was saying I wanted children to keep me from pulling and make my life deserving, etc. etc.

I think I said it because I realize that when I'm with people, I don't pull.  When I'm working, happy, contented, hanging out with friends or family.  I don't pull.  When I can throw my energy into being with someone else, I'm better.

It's too bad that I like to be by myself, too.  Otherwise, this would all be solved.

My pulling has skyrocketed today, and I'm uncertain as to why.  Since starting this documenting program at the beginning of the month, I haven't had a day like this yet.  But today...all the way up to 800-and-some-odd, and it's only 7:30.  That's counting all of the hairs pulled between midnight and now.

Wow.  That doesn't...really give me much hope, to be honest.  lol

Hello - I'm "Lana."

It's easier to take on a different name when you have something important you want to say but you're afraid to completely own up to every little detail surrounding the truth. When you attach your own name to something, it makes it a very real and tangible part of your life. You have to admit its there. You have to say, "Oh my gosh. That's really me."

But if you take a writer's name - a pen name - you can say what you need to. You can educate, write and converse without hesitation. And so, I'd like to introduce myself as Lana.

Lana has trichotillomania. Okay, well, I have trichotillomania. I've had it for years, now, actually. I guess I'm coming up on I guess this is actually my 18th year or so with the disorder. I realize that some people have very little idea of what trichotillomania is, so I guess my first order of business is a little education.

Pull up a seat. Grab some popcorn. Here we go. I'm being lazy and pulling my information directly off of Wikipedia.

Trichotillomania (TTM), or "trich" as it is commonly known, is an impulse control disorder characterized by the repeated urge to pull out scalp hair, eyelashes, facial hair, nose hair, pubic hair, eyebrows or other body hair, sometimes resulting in noticeable bald patches. Trichotillomania is classified in the DSM-IV as an impulse control disorder, but there are still questions about how it should be classified. It may seem, at times, to resemble a habit, an addiction, a tic disorder or an obsessive-compulsive disorder. Due to social implications the disorder is often unreported and it is difficult to predict accurately prevalence of trichotillomania; 2.5 million in the U.S. may have TTM, with a 1% prevalence rate.^[1]
Now isn't that just exciting and thrilling news that you never knew? ;-)

To get back to reality, trich can be a serious problem. I know for myself it's caused a lot of personal issues relating to self-esteem, emotional relationships and life in general. It can be a difficult path to try and overcome the guilt you feel for destroying your own appearance. You don't want to admit to everyone else that this is what you really look like; this is the person you really are. Because if they see that person, will they still like you? Will they still want to hang around?

Not too long ago, I finally resolve to try to beat this disorder again. It seems like I make these promises to myself all the time, and each time, I fail. But I keep trying. It's probably a foolish thing to do, but part of me just can't give up. Anyway, in my quest for in information and resources regarding trich, I ran into a neat little video that actually brought tears to my eyes because I understood it so clearly. Everything that was said, I echoed. Every word and every tear and every last inch of it. It was frightening to look at someone else's face and see my own thoughts and feelings reflected back at me.

So I thought I'd share it here. And that'll be the end of my first post.

http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=2495446