Bad, bad blogger but great eyelashes!

I have been a horrible blogger lately. I'm sorry. I havent been able to spend much time on the computer in the last few weeks because of so much running around (the job situation may be changing very soon!)

I'm still doing really well, now with both my eyebrows and eyelashes. I had one night, about a week ago, where I pulled two eyelashes for no apparent reason but then I stopped myself, walked away, and the urges have not yet returned. The key for me is really keeping busy. The busier I am, the less I pull. It's when I have downtime and sit and relax mindlessly with no goal, or get lazy and dont get up and change where I am when an urge hits, that I do the most damage.

Exactly a week ago I was feeling especially frustrated and left work a little early. I had about 2 hours to kill before going to a party and made a stop at Sephora where apparently they will do your entire make up for free! Woo-hoo. So I had Anthony take a shot at teaching me how to actually do my make up since I'm a bit hopeless when it comes to that kind of stuff.

Normally I am so anxious about having people so close to my face and always dreaded having my make up done for weddings but this time I felt good. Yes, my eyebrows are still on the thin side but with a little brown eyeliner and some eyebrush powder he plumped them up and they looked awesome. It actually gave me even more motivation to stop overpulling them (or justifying tweezing the hairs in my overgrooming ways).

Next Anthony tried to show me how to do my eye make- up. I'm going to be honest and say that I doubt I will continue spending 30 minutes in the morning on just my eyes, which is what he did, but the last week I've tried to replicate them in the 5-10 minute version. Anyway, he's in the midst of putting on shadow #3 or 4 when he says "you have great eyelashes". Um, what???? Yes, for me they look good but they are still pretty thin even though I've barely touched them in months. I felt so proud! He finished off by applying a few coats of mascara and I have to admit it was a pretty amazing feeling- they looked perfect.

Needless to say I have not been able to get my make up to look as great as he did(why can I never remember how to do it? it seems so easy as he walked me through it but then I totally forgot all the tips) but I was able to pick up some helpful tips and, coupled with the eyebrow fluffing tips, I feel as though I look like someone with no outward signs of trich. None.

It's days like that which help me stay motivated! The hard work and persistence, the tears of telling friends and family, getting up when tired, coming up with new ideas, blogging, scouring the internet for information and ideas, it's paying off! I know I have to keep working at it because trich doesnt just go away with a few months of success but I really feel as though I might be able to beat this and I'm definitely on the right track!

Time flies

Today I realized it's been a week since my last posting- sometimes I'm not quite sure where the time goes. I'm doing better although a little pulling from my eyebrows last night which wasnt great but managed to hold off on the urges to pull my eyelashes that crept up while I was reading on the couch. Once again, I found that just removing myself from the situation for a little while by getting up, cleaning my face, organizing my old magazines, etc just helps keep me busy until the urges subside.

Not much else to report, just keeping busy with work and life, trying to change my current job situation - funny how you can hate your situation but lack the motivation to do anything about it. Hoping that I can kick myself in the ass and jumpstart my motivation again soon, for now, just trying to do at least a little bit every day.

My very own unsolved mystery

Last night I once again went to battle with my eyebrows. Just the end of both the right and left (and by end I mean the brow part closest to my nose). I dont really know why I pulled but I know I really didnt want to stop. It just felt good. The satisfaction of grabbing the long and short hairs that were there, pulling them from their roots, just felt good. Too bad the result isnt good as my eyebrows now start about 1/4 inch from where they should start (maybe less, i have no idea about distance). Either way, there is definite damage.

I still dont want to pull my eyelashes, its just not as satisfying. But my eyebrows, when I pull the eyebrow hair it is a different sensation. I can almost hear the snapping sound as they get pulled from the skin. I wish I could pinpoint what it is about the pulling that I enjoy so much but I do. It's my drug. I knew there would be damage, I expected it. I knew that when I got up from the couch and went to the bathroom to survey the damage in the mirror I wouldn't like what I saw. But I made no attempt to stop.

The weekend was good. I was relaxed (despite the usual stressors- work, money, student loans) but nothing to make me overly anxious or upset. So why now? And why did I not want to stop? Why didn't I do anything to even try to stop? Sometimes I wish I knew what it was about the pulling that I enjoyed so much, wish I could put how it feels into words and explain to a non-puller just how it feels. How there is the mix of feeling so good and at ease with pulling yet so guilty and frustrated and angry with what you know is the inevitable result- the shame, the missing hair and the energy required to cover up that follows. I love mysteries but I'm not sure this is one I will ever solve. :(

The ends

Yesterday I slipped- I pulled two eyelashes from my right eye (the eye where they already look thinner despite having not pulled either side for almost two months) and two hairs from my right eyebrow. I like the hairs at the end, they have a different feel to them when i pull them- it's hard to explain but its almost more of a "snap" to it.

I slipped while at work. I was incredibly tired and frustrated with my boss, not a huge surprise, and found myself pulling. I can, and have, taken a lot of crap from him over the 3 years I've been here (and the dozens of people I've seen come and go, i've been here the longest) but now he has started being incredibly patronizing- he likes to continually ask us to do things "for the good of the team" and will say that benefits will follow, although they never do. However, he is the only one that NEVER, NEVER steps up "for the good of the team". He'll say we are all coworkers and teammates, and he knows that he needs our help with so much legal work he cant do himself since he lacks the actual experience, but when push comes to shove he repeatedly drops the ball and cant be bothered, even with his own clients. Again, I can take a lot of shit, but we all have our limits.

It's time to make some changes with work and step up my efforts to get out of my job- I keep hoping things here will change but deep down I know that it's not going to happen and I dont want to be self destructive in the process.

My guard is back up, lesson learned. Luckily as soon as I realized what I was doing, despite how good I will admit it felt, I got up and walked around the office, talked to a coworkers about something unrelated and let myself simmer down a bit. My boss sucks enough life out of me as it is but I wont let my frustration and anger with him impede my progress in the battle against trich. Karma is a bitch- what goes around comes around.

Staring contests (and dropping the ball with month 2's goals)

Month 2 has not been as successful as month 1- I have barely even tried to follow through on my goals, in part b/c I've been busy with other things and in part b/c when I'm not busy with other things I've been lazy.

On a positive note, I am still not pulling my eyebrows or eyelashes. I'm thinking that my eyelashes, after 2 months of no pulling, are pretty much as good as they are going to get. They look good, dont get me wrong, but I wish they were thicker- when I was a kid I had really dark, thick eyelashes. I guess 22 years of pulling them out can have that result. With a little mascara, and sometimes a little eyeliner, they generally look good but I'm pretty obsessive in the "do they still look thin/can people tell" way. This weekend was actually the first time I had any urge to pull either but just walking away from the mirror and distracting myself for 15 mins with cleaning my apartment helped me get through it. Phew.

While I'm not so interested in my own hair these days, I'm totally obsessed with the new boyfriends (yes, I chose boy 1 officially). He has a super white chest hair (the one I previously named) that I swear glows in the dark and I just want to yank out. He also has an eyelash on his left eyelid that is quite a bit longer than the rest and curls down while the others curl up. Boy do I want to just yank that hair out. Sometimes I just stare at it. We have starting contests sometimes as a joke and he thinks its funny that I'll mostly stare at his left eye but he doesnt yet know about trich and know that I cant stop thinking about, and wanting to pull, that stupid eyelash. Ha.

Oh yeah, and I can actually have staring contests now. Haha. I'm not totally paranoid about someone looking me in the eyes and noticing my missing hair. It also gives me extra motivation not to pull since he likes to look me in the eyes (it can be pretty intense and quite a bit sexy/sexual) and it would be weird to just freak out about it one day. I'll take whatever motivation I can get for the next 1 year and 10 months (or the time it takes for me to really kick this horrible disease).

Reason to stop #31- staring contests

A Professional Reminder

Yesterday I received a call from a friend of mine in DC who is going through a very tough time. Circumstances led me to track down my old pscyhologist, John Chamberlain, who I had started seeing in 2002 when I lived in the area. I had seen him primarily due to issues following what I saw in the hospital on 9/11, and a few other things and over the years I had forgotten that he also happened to specialize in trichtillomania. Anyway, I located him online and saw trich listed under areas he specialized in (at the time he was a doctor at my law schools clinic and by the time we got through my other issues I had pretty much used up all the counseling services I was allowed and then some, and barely got to address trich).

It was really nice catching up with him and we talked briefly about trich. I told him where I was with my fight to beat this, having finally opened up to friends and family this year, starting this blog, etc. I mentioned that I was happy that my desire to pull my eyelashes has really subsided and that its been much, much easier to control my urges to pull my eyebrows. He told me that often age and hormones can have a big effect on trich although there arent really specific markers for when these changes in urges occur. He went on to state that it would be very uncommon to have the urges suddenly stop, that it is common for it to be reduced over a few months and then possibly stop altogether. Again, I stress possibly.

He warned me that the next two years will be the real test- that most people relapse with trich and you cant consider yourself a success story (contrary to the success stories posted on TLC's website which mostly deal with people that are 6 months pull-free) until you have gone 2 years. Apparently after the 2 year mark the risk of relapse is drastically reduced. He urged me to continue to stay on guard for the next two years and to continually think about it and come up with strategies and habits to help prevent myself from pulling, even if right now I dont feel as much of an urge to pull.

I never expected this to be easy and while I may have hoped that this was a clear indication of future trich-free-ness, I realistically new I was still going to have to be on guard for a while. I just never expected to hear 2 years, i thought maybe 6 months. Maybe a year. But if that's what it takes, that's where I hope to some day (in 1 year and 10 months) arrive. Until then I'll just keep fighting it.

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I guess I'm going to do a personal plug here but if anyone reading this is in the DC area I really recommend contacting Dr. Chamberlain- his practice is now based in Silver Spring and I'd be confident that if anyone could help, he could (again, just my personal opinion but I cant say enough how much he helped me through some very tough times).

http://therapists.psychologytoday.com/rms/name/John_Chamberlain_PhD_Silver+Spring_Maryland_53963