Heading back uphill

Things are looking up (FINALLY!) so I wanted to post this little motivational quote I came across last night. This week has definitely been more successful than last week and I think it's a result of being more conscious of what I'm doing. Being busy also helps since I dont pull as often when I'm busy and not working from home on the computer.

Now it gets tricky. Once again, as the hairs start to grow the urge to pull those stubby little hairs gets worse so I have to come up with a way to stay strong and not pull. I'm guessing I need to make it about 2 more weeks until they are past that 'short and prickly" phase. So that's my goal although really my goal continues just to be another 24 hours. At this point 2 weeks is just too long and lofty a goal so my 24 goal keeps things more manageable and hopefully more realistic. Fingers crossed!

Big Sunglasses

The battle continues. I have just finished pulling out a half of my left eye's upper eyelashes. Wtf?? Half remain- the half closest to my ear but the other half is all but gone. I dont know what is going on.
Yes, I'm feeling a bit stressed and overwhelmed lately but nothing so horrible and unusual that I shouldnt be able to cope.

The challenge is also not working for me. Today I was so glad that big sunglasses are so in because I was meeting a friend at Yankee Stadium and its very bright outside so my lack of eyebrows is clear for the world to see. I'm sure people can still tell but I pretend that the big sunglasses hide, or at least distract, from my insecurities.

I'm officially getting married in October (he proposed last week!) after talking about it for the last few months and my clients trial is set for next month so I have no choice but to get this under control. This HAS to stop. I'm so angry with myself right now. Maybe it isnt so much anger as disappointment. I also have my period and I tend to do worse when I'm hormonal but that's no excuse.

Just last night I was thinking how I needed to blog about how I was doing well. Now, admittedly, I was only doing well because my thumb nail on the right hand tore off and is not super short making pulling harder and i cut (yes cut) the skin off my left forefinger (where the indentation from years of pulling was) making pulling actually painful.
So, as a result, I havent been pulling much. But then today it was clearly better. Is this what it has come to? Should I start biting my nails down to stubs and cutting off my skin just so I can keep myself from pulling. There has to be a better way.

I have so much to be thankful for in my life right now and this is the one thing that brings me down. I want my life back. I'm staring at the little pile of eyelashes that I pulled and know that this has to end. No more waiting until Monday to get a "fresh start". I need this to end today. Now. Forever.

Live every week likes it's shark week

Well it's been a little more than two weeks. I was doing really well the first week and then this week just sucked. I'm basically starting over (yet again). This time I truly just feel lazy- there have been so many times that I know I could have prevented and I just left myself keep pulling and the destructive behavior and attitude won again. I have been overwhelmed by your comments and wish I could report to you that I'm doing great. But I can't. I have no good excuses, no traumatic events or crazy stressful events that i can point too. I even was aware that I was pulling but I just didn't try that hard to stop. I'm sorry, really I am and I hope that you are doing better. So now it is May 4th and I'm once again eyebrowless. Fortunately most of my eyelashes have remained in tact although the left eye isn't as full as the right eye. My boyfriend and I are still talking about getting married within the next few months (we decided not to get engaged until we could get married right away since we both want to elope) but I know I'll still want pictures and just can't fathom the idea of having a photographer take close up photos when I have penciled in eyebrows. As Liz Lemon says on 30 rock when she is frustrated "blurgh" (i'm on a 30 rock kick this week- it also explains the title of this post). Doesn't it always feel like trich takes away the moments that are supposed to be so happy by stirring up anxiety and self consciousness? That is almost worse than actually not having hair. Double blurg. I'm not giving up. Not ever. I may have to start over a million times but I wont give up. So for those of you that are following this blog and doing great- keep it up and please share your tips! And for those (like me) that are picking up and starting again, dont give up. Never give up. Let's start again right now and just try to make it through the weekend without pulling. Good luck and, as always, thank you thank you thank you for reading and supporting me and each other!

6 week challenge- PLEASE JOIN ME!!!

Tonight at 12 I am beginning a new challenge. I am going to try and go 6 straight weeks with no pulling. Why 6 weeks? Because I have heard that that is how long it goes from having no eyebrows to having eyebrows. My reward? It's a big one. I'm going to splurge on a laser eye surgery touch up. I did it about 8 years ago and it was amazing but now my eyesight is fading again. Glasses are actually not horrible because they distract from my lack of hair but I want to see the world clearly again.

My cousins wedding was great, she look beautiful, we had a wonderful time in California but I need to have a plan. Summer is coming, my boyfriend and I may be eloping in the not so distant future and frankly I want the eye surgery.

You've heard me say it now and so I am sticking to it. I have to start at midnight because technically I pulled at 3am this morning and my OCD always likes me to start a day fresh. I will not let myself get that surgery until this goal is accomplished. I did so well in CA, I wasnt pulling at all but then just thinking about my clients and work and stress and life I came home late last night and did some damage. Unreal.

So here I go. It's time. It's past time. I would love for someone, everyone, anyone to join with me on this- post comments, send me emails, let's keep each other motivated. It's just 6 weeks, right? We can do this. And once we have, we will find a new goal. May 29th is our date- let's do it!!!

Spring into action

It's official. After the most mild winter I can remember in New York it appears that spring is already here. Which means so many of my fears are also back- bright lights, sweaty make up, water, etc. I know I've mentioned it before but these things hold me back.

I have done okay this week. Nothing great and I'm certainly not pull free but I haven't gone pull crazy so I'll try and put it in the "win" column. I do, however, have less than 3 weeks until my vacation and about 4 until my cousin's wedding- the cousin that has trich but won't talk to me about it. She is getting married after being with her boyfriend for about 7 years and she has, as far as I am aware, been able to manage her trich and will be married with eyebrows, eyelashes and a full head of hair. I know a lot of us wish we could say the same.

I received a comment on a post yesterday and the reader was mentioning how afraid she is to tell friends and family about trich. I remember that feeling all too well. The one advise I can give (and i wrote a bit more about this in January 2010 if you want to look at more posts on this topic) is to tell people. I thought my friends would judge me and look at me like I was a freak with this unspeakable disease- they didnt. In fact, quite the opposite. They were supportive and wonderful and for the first time I didnt feel so alone. Admittedly I did have a good friend who didn't have quite the reaction I wanted or needed, but dont let that stop you. Your true friends and family might and probably will surprise you and likely have a secret of their own. We all have our shit. Even now, when i'm having a tough time with trich, it is a bit of a relief to have them know and while i'm not 100% confident when I am eyebrow-less around them, it is leaps and bounds more confident than I was when I was trying to hide it from them.

The funny things is that those people I want to speak to most about it, the family that has trich, just don't and won't talk to me. I still don't get it. All I want is to know how they learned to manage it- give me tips!! Are they afraid that if they talk about it it will come back? I want to try and understand where they are coming from but I just can't. And so I will go to my cousin's wedding and will be jealous that she has found a way to get all her hair back and to have wedding pictures with hair and I will continue to wonder how she did it. Because she won't tell me.

This is a very lonely disease. We feel as though we have no one to talk to, that we can't talk to those who love us for fear of what they will think and we often can't talk to those who even know about trich from their own experience because they wont talk to us. We avoid getting close to people and we carry the shame of what we do around with us like a ton of bricks that we have been sentenced to keep with us forever. We remain anonymous on blogs and support groups, refuse to go to meetings and retreats, because the idea of revealing ourselves is terrifying. What if someone one day makes the connection? What if someone reading my blog figures out who I am and that they know me, and then they tell someone else?

I sometimes see people without hair on the subway and am tempted to say something to them. Something simple like "hey, you too?" but maybe they have cancer or another disease and then I'll just be left feeling bad and alone again. Maybe they will be mortified that I know their secret and I will ruin their day. So I never say anything but I wonder. I look at how they do their make up and try to think if I would have seen their lack of hair if I was not so obsessed with hair and trich myself.

And so like every other post, I leave this one with a goal in mind and with the best of intentions. I'm hoping that I can show up at her wedding with at least partial eyebrows and with my eyelashes fairly in tact. Even if I stopped pulling today it would take weeks for them to come back in completely but something is better than nothing (and nothing is what I have now). I've heard that hair grows faster in warmer weather so my fingers (and toes) are crossed that this spring/summer I wont continue to hold myself back!

I just can't quit you

For as long as I can remember I have had a fear of commitment. It's not that I've been afraid to date or that I haven't had boyfriends, but I get nervous when things get serious and the idea of being with someone forever has always been a scary notion to me. I have a tendency in life not to be able to commit to anything- an exercise program (I love Pilates but still go irregularly), a diet (most only last a few weeks), a new daily routine (getting up early never lasts), the list goes on.

Sure, I have had the same friends for over twenty years and I am very close with my family but most other "relationships" don't last that long. Except trich. Trich and I have been together now since 1988. Yup, that's 24 years. It's' insane. I hate trich but, as they said in Brokeback Mountain "I just cant quit you." I hate trich, hate everything about this stupid disease but I stick with it more than I stick with anything else.

Most of my friends, not all, now know about my trich. This past weekend I hung out with one of my most supportive and longtime friends, Danielle, but she didn't even ask about how I was doing probably because she could tell just be looking at my lack of eyebrows. I know that my friends often have trouble bringing it up with me since its a bit uncomfortable for us both. But trich has been with me for so long it's almost like a silent (but sadly not invisible) partner. When I'm nervous, I turn to pulling. When I'm relaxed, I turn to pulling. In almost all situations, it's the partner I can always count on to be there. Yet, I hate it. I want a divorce. I want to be widowed of trich. But it just wont leave me any more than I can leave it.

This weekend wasn't the success I hoped it would be. I have a million things to do this week but I'm going to make this a priority. I don't want to celebrate my 25th anniversary with trich. Thank you again for the support, for reading my blog, for posting comments and sending me emails. You are going to help me beat this. The idea of a lifetime with trich is just unfathomable.

A Long Hiatus

Thank you for the posts, comments and emails I have received over the last couple months- they really have helped and I'll admit it's encouraging to know I have supporters as sometimes I question myself whether or not anyone even reads my blog.

It's not been an easy few months for my battle with trich. As I sit here typing this post, the first since November (yikes! has it been that long??) I have no eyebrows. None. There is nothing I can point to and define as the source of my pulling which has frustrated and discouraged me more than I can even admit to sometimes. I just cant understand it and my self-esteem and confidence is once again pretty low as I'm afraid to get too close to people since I don't want them to see my penciled in eyebrows.

My eyelashes somehow have been okay. Not great, but okay. I have pulled here and there but I'm happy to say that the bottom lashes have not been touched and the top ones are significant enough that I can wear mascara and don't really need to use much make up. On a random note, I'm typing this while working form home with the TV on and in the background (no joke, as I'm writing this) the View is doing a segment about how "eyelashes make all the difference on a persons face" and talking about how noticeable lashes are on a person. Ugh. Now they are encouraging and singing the praises about Latisse and Revitolash Advance as a way to regrow and thicken your lashes. Apparently they aren't taking into account that some of us pull our lashes (but I guess that would be a different segment).

So once again I'm analyzing my behavior, my diet, my stress levels and everything else that could be a factor in my downfall but at the same time I'm trying to come to terms with the fact I may never beat this awful disease. That's probably why I haven't posted on here in so long- I'm in a bit of a Debbie Downer phase. The summer (and bright lights, and water, and sweating) is just around the corner and I'm eyebrowless. My boyfriend and I are talking about eloping and I cant stop thinking about how I always figured by the time I'd get married, and when taking all those "pictures that last a lifetime" I would have my lashes. And truthfully I just don't know if it will happen.

I don't really know what to do to get myself out of this funk and back on a positive track. I say that and then I don't write on my blog, don't check into the online forums, don't go to support groups. So many excuses and I just let those excuses take over. I have been changing my diet (thank you weight watchers) and starting to exercise (spinning and pilates are my latest) so maybe that will have a positive influence. Anyway, that's my update for now. Again, I want to thank you for the support as it really has made, and continues to make, a big difference and it helps me get motivated even though it's hard to tell from today's post. Today is as good of a day as any to make a change for the better. It's a great day to get better.