21 day goal

In the past week my eyelashes have certainly received a break and I haven't picked one but my left eyebrow still doesn't exist and the right one is about the same as it's been for a while- too thin and short with very little hair. The little stubby hairs that come in, and they come in surprisingly fast, make me so anxious and I can not leave them alone and touch them incessantly. Now that I don't have the tweezers, my beloved and hated tweezers, I have resorted back to hands and even, shamefully, scissors at one point. Yes, scissors, just so I can relieve myself of the anxiety and get the damn stubby hairs out.

I have 21 days until Jamaica. 21 days to get myself together and stop this nonsense so that I can swim and be in the sun without worrying that my eyebrows are disappearing and/or extremely and noticeably absent. The pilates has been helping but work is so stressful right now that I allow myself the bullshit excuses. So I will just continue to try and fight my way through the next 21 days.

New Month, New Resolve (or so I hope), New Picture

Making it 24 hours has been harder then I thought and the last few days have been far from successful. There is something about the start of a new month (which ends in a trip to Jamaica) that I hope holds some promise.

The tweezer is now gone (about damn time) and i have picked at the skin on my pointer finger, the one with the permanent indentation, that I generally use to pull so now that is harder and painful (whatever works). I dont think the stress has been helping and lately I find that I'm also grinding my teeth and have been more tired than usual. I'm trying to address those issues which I know impact my pulling. Exercise has been almost impossible because my back has been bad but last week I tried pilates and it was WONDERFUL. It's sadly too expensive to do all the time but, as life might have it, yesterday we picked up a decent case so I'm just taking a few hundred dollars and buying a pilates package- it is more than I would normally spend but if it helps me feel better and in turn stop pulling then it's worth it. I need to address the stress in my life if I'm going to ever start making progress again with trich.

So my next trial class is today at 4:00 and then I am just going to take the money and pick one of the two pilates places I've tried- money be damned right now. If I have to give up on going out one night a week so I can do pilates twice a week for the next few weeks then the trade off is worth it. At least it is a start. That plus throwing out the tweezers I hope will help me start heading in the right direction..... and now to put aside the shame and show you my no-make up photo of the week (very scary- i have NEVER shown anyone before!)

Awareness

It has been 24 hours since my last post and I've pulled 1 eyebrow and 1 eyelash. It was in the morning when I was thinking about my day and not paying much attention to what I was doing. At first, I was able to resist, catch myself, and not pull. Five minutes later they were gone. After a few deep breaths and reminding myself that I can do this, I got up, walked around, and havent pulled since.

It's a start. Not a great start but at least I'm more conscious of my actions so now I will try and go 24 hours without pulling any of them. This will clearly be a daily struggle (again) for a while.

Proof is in the photo

So here it is. Granted I have make up on (and not a good job with it today) and my bottom lashes, which are the most visible, look pretty good but trust me even this picture with my non-existent eyebrows dont do justice to how bad it really is. But I'm showing you anyway. Have to start somewhere.

A long hiatus

Wow. I had no idea how long I had been MIA. I'm sorry. It's funny (not haha funny) but the worse I am doing with my trich the less I write on my blog. Whether its embarassment, denial, exhaustion, I just dont know.

Needless to say, these last few months have not been my finest. I'm not really sure where it all went wrong but I've sucked. As I type this, I have a total of maybe 5 eyebrow hairs remaining on my left eye and the right one is thin to the point of being nonexistent. My eyelashes have not survived the last few months too well either. I still have eyelashes but I am back to drawing them in so they look fuller.

I've admittedly been lazy and the old habit of making excuses, really more like just flat out lying to myself about how bad things are, is clearly back in full force. Lately I can't make it more than a day without pulling. My self confidence is down, my guard is back up about anyone getting too close, it just sucks.

Over the next few months I have a lot going on. In just over a month my loving and supportive boyfriend and I will be going to Jamaica for a week of rest and relaxation. Jamaica involves water, swimming, bright lights, heat and sweating- none of which are easy against the rage of trich. How wonderful it would be to go back to those few months where I was carefree about all those things, when my eyelashes and eyebrows looked so great that I did not need to worry. Following Jamaica will be a big trial with a LOT of press coverage- yet another "should be" major incentive.

I can (and have) make a thousand excuses. I can also list 100 reasons why "now is a hard time to stop". It's bullshit. There is never a good or bad time- I just need to stop, it's not going to happen magically or become I will it to be so. It's only a possibility if I take control of the situation. So right now I pledge to make it until tomorrow. And then I will move on from there. Luck, prayers, and support are greatly appreciated as always :)

Hope you are all doing better than I am!

Seasonal Funk

The urges to pull are often worse than usual when I'm feeling anxious and unhappy. Then pulling makes those feelings even worse so it all seems to feed onto itself. I'm not even sure that feeling the stubbly hairs make me any calmer but maybe I do it more so that my anxious energy is focused on something else. I wish I had a better understanding of how it works but in the past I've tried charting when I pull most and how I'm feeling at that time and I never noticed any striking patterns.

This week has been sucky. It started last weekend with an incredibly horrible and depressing trip to Florida where my mom and I broke the news to my grandparents that they had to go into a nursing home. They were so sad. We then set about the horribly depressing task of looking at nursing homes which is just awful. Even our flight home with multiple screaming children was awful.

After I returned home I couldnt shake this unhappy feeling. I took a day off from work and being around people (not easy in NYC so basically I just stayed in my apartment and watched movies) but even that didn't help. Then came the over hyped hurricane which fortunately didnt hit our area as badly as weatherman were claiming. Two days stuck inside a little apartment also didnt help.

Now it's almost September. My sister has said that she starts getting anxious around this time of year. Perhaps its knowing that the nice weather is coming to an end, the summer is almost over and we have another long winter ahead. Perhaps it is knowing that 9/11 is right around the corner- the nonstop coverage certainly doesnt help and brings back a lot of painful memories. Or maybe it's just not meeting my summer goals with weight loss and trich. Maybe a combination. Either way, nothing is helping.

One year compared to barely one day

Last week I hit one year of not smoking but yet I am having trouble going one day without pulling my eyebrows. It's those damn short stubby ones I have trouble with- the others are generally okay. Sadly, this means they never grow because I pull out the stubs before they are worth anything. It's a horrible cycle.

Some people say that quitting smoking is the hardest thing, or one of the hardest, they have ever done but clearly those people don't have trich. For me, quitting smoking was a piece of cake compared to my daily struggle with trich.

Maybe I'm slacking, I've been so focused and busy with work that everything else has taken a back seat. I know that is just an excuse and that with anything, excuses get you nowhere. My boyfriend and I planned a romantic trip in the Caribbean and will be leaving on November 30- I want to have all my hair back by then. That's my goal. I don't want to be worried about the bright lights or about my makeup washing off in the water. I didn't make it work this summer and that was a shame, but it's good to have goals. I have to stop being lazy, stop making excuses, and make this happen. As if i haven't said that 100 times before. Any tips?