In Control

I have pretty decent self-control when it comes to just about anything—eating right, homework, exercising, not spending too much money… I don’t understand how when it comes to this—It’s almost 0. How can I let it take over? It takes over my thoughts and my actions and then it takes over my life. It makes no sense. I can stop myself from doing just about anything else but I can’t control something that is destroying me. It’s sad. But I guess if it were controllable, it wouldn’t even be a disorder. It wouldn’t be around. Nobody would have it. But that’s the thing—it’s not controllable. And that’s hard for me because I like to be in control of just about everything in my life. I panic when things are out of my control. I’ve been out of control of this since I was 8 years old. I’m 21 now. It’s been 13 years since I’ve let this decide my actions, my thoughts, my feelings, my self-confidence and my hairstyles. It has controlled my relationships (or lack thereof). It’s controlled so many aspects of my life. I fight back but it’s only a matter of time until it takes over again.

Uh-oh

Why do I pull? What will I gain? I'm losing more than Im gaining. I lose my hair (that I've worked so hard for), confidence, happiness and faith in myself. When I pull I get a temporary satisfaction (I mean like a split second) , disappointment, that results in months of regrowth. For the past 3 months I've had this daily satisfaction of seeing my hair grow back, and the fact that I'm able to do my hair (and it looks good!). A few hours of pulling and I've ruined it. I have to start all over. I have to wait again. I have to part my hair differently. Hairspray, headbands, ponytails... I don't want to let it get there again. I don't want to be embarrassed of my own hair. I want to look pretty, I want to feel pretty. Today, over and over, I kept telling myself to stop, but I cpuldnt. Tomorrow is a new day. I'm not letting it get bad again. I start fresh tomorrow. No pulling, no scab picking on my head. I need to let it heal, I need to heal myself.

New to blogging about this, not new to trich

Never displayed my feelings about this disorder before. It's been over 12 years and counting. I've gone weeks, and months without pulling one hair and within seconds all my hard work is gone. We all know the feeling. It's hard. And we all know the questions people ask "Well why don't you just stop pulling your hair?" Well...wouldn't that be the perfect solution to just STOP, unfortunately we CAN'T just stop when we want to. Started when I was 8 years old. I'm 20 now and have never felt I was pretty. Even when I didn't pull, my hair was still growing back, and it was choppy and 100 different lengths. I currently see a hairdresser every 2 weeks to help me cover up my damage. I'm on Prozac daily and have been since I was about 14. Just started a new natural stress reliever, and so far it's been good. I've been 6 days pull free, and I haven't been pull free for longer than a day since October of last year. I'm going to try something new with the blog and maybe, just maybe It'll help and if it helps someone else along the way, then that's good enough for me. Goodnight All.