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The Watercooler
Update on my hair (trich update)
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<blockquote data-quote="Mattsmom277" data-source="post: 440973" data-attributes="member: 4264"><p>Esther, I am guessing that in spite of the love lavished on you and your sisters, that it would be hard to avoid having emotions about the Holocaust as it would have been for your parents as well. I think that our brains just somehow latch onto a coping technique and doesn't always send us a memo on what is making us do something but over time it becomes something that becomes a resort when under pressure and stress etc. Ironically though, some of the best periods of my life I was madly pulling while some of the most stressful times my hair was lovely and full and the idea to pull never crossed my mind.</p><p></p><p>I'm sorry that your hair is weaked and thinned out. I think with repetitive pulling over years and then decades, we do damage that can't be undone. I have noticed that this time around, some hair is growing back very fine (the individual strands). Also, I have always had bone straight hair unless I had a perm done at the hairdresser. This time, one of the worst periods of trich where I did real damage all over, my hair is NOT growing in straight. Although some hair is more fine, much of it after the first inch of new growth is thick again so next trim the fine ends should be gone for the most part. But my hair is wavy in sections and even curly in some spots. Everyone keeps commenting how the sheer weight of my thick hair when it was long must have pulled it all down and kept it straight. Incorrect. The few times I've cut it short it was always bone straight, which I enjoyed as you can get some great short hair styles with straight hair but its much harder with curls. So I think for sure our hair can grow back differently over time, perhaps due to repeated damage to the same follicles.</p><p></p><p>You know I was into my 20's when I noticed during a visit to my aunt (now passed) that she was pulling her hair out! It was unreal to see someone else do what I thought I was the only person doing. We had long talks about it and in fact it is when I first heard of the term Trich. Oddly, my easy child never knew I had trich. Somehow I wasn't pulling near her and protective of getting seen by others. Yet last year she pulled her eyelashes out to where one lid was half gone and the other nearly as bad. She finally broke down crying and told me what she had been doing and that she didn't understand it etc. I tried to talk to her about it but didn't want to tell her about trich or about me, shame can be such a burden can't it? Finally a week or so later I found out from her that her dad, without talking to me or doing any reading or talking to a doctor, told her she must be "self harming" and that he was worried she would turn to "cutting" as it is typical self harming behavior. I was livid!!! So I sat down my easy child and told her NO she is NOT self harming and NO she wasn't going to start "cutting" simply because of what was happening with her eye lashes. I explained trich and that it comes from anxiety and that I had it. I explained what I did over the years to cope and how I was at that time with it and my goals for myself to end this. She and I made a pact. She would NOT pull on her eyelashes and I would NOT be pulling out my hair. And when I had a full head of hair, no thin or bald spots and she had her eyelashes back, we'd go spend a girly weekend somewhere at a spa or just a nice hotel with a good restaurant and pool etc as a reward to ourselves for helping each other get through it. I am so happy to say that once identified as not being "weird" and not being "Crazy", easy child has not plucked a single eye lash since and tells me she has no more urge. She said for her it was enough to know WHY she was doing it and that she could find other ways to cope with anxiety now that she knew the cause. Mind you it took a few weeks with some bumps for her to get herself to that place. She did it at night when falling asleep in bed. We set up a sort of "code" so that Matt and my S/O wouldn't know about it. She was allowed out of bed to ask me for another "Hug goodnight" which was code for I'm Plucking - Stop Me! I would then go tuck her in and wrap her caccoon like in her blankets with her hands wrapped in the blanket as well and she did go back to sleeping with a stuffed toy which she'd given up years before, at least on the nights she wanted to do something with her hands other than pull. So she sleeps now with a Farley dog from the Better or For Worse comics. He's scruffy and hairy so she can play with the hair on the toy a bit and fluff it etc as she's falling asleep. It all worked well and we are planning our girls weekend sometime toward the end of the summer once S/O is back to work and income has improved.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Mattsmom277, post: 440973, member: 4264"] Esther, I am guessing that in spite of the love lavished on you and your sisters, that it would be hard to avoid having emotions about the Holocaust as it would have been for your parents as well. I think that our brains just somehow latch onto a coping technique and doesn't always send us a memo on what is making us do something but over time it becomes something that becomes a resort when under pressure and stress etc. Ironically though, some of the best periods of my life I was madly pulling while some of the most stressful times my hair was lovely and full and the idea to pull never crossed my mind. I'm sorry that your hair is weaked and thinned out. I think with repetitive pulling over years and then decades, we do damage that can't be undone. I have noticed that this time around, some hair is growing back very fine (the individual strands). Also, I have always had bone straight hair unless I had a perm done at the hairdresser. This time, one of the worst periods of trich where I did real damage all over, my hair is NOT growing in straight. Although some hair is more fine, much of it after the first inch of new growth is thick again so next trim the fine ends should be gone for the most part. But my hair is wavy in sections and even curly in some spots. Everyone keeps commenting how the sheer weight of my thick hair when it was long must have pulled it all down and kept it straight. Incorrect. The few times I've cut it short it was always bone straight, which I enjoyed as you can get some great short hair styles with straight hair but its much harder with curls. So I think for sure our hair can grow back differently over time, perhaps due to repeated damage to the same follicles. You know I was into my 20's when I noticed during a visit to my aunt (now passed) that she was pulling her hair out! It was unreal to see someone else do what I thought I was the only person doing. We had long talks about it and in fact it is when I first heard of the term Trich. Oddly, my easy child never knew I had trich. Somehow I wasn't pulling near her and protective of getting seen by others. Yet last year she pulled her eyelashes out to where one lid was half gone and the other nearly as bad. She finally broke down crying and told me what she had been doing and that she didn't understand it etc. I tried to talk to her about it but didn't want to tell her about trich or about me, shame can be such a burden can't it? Finally a week or so later I found out from her that her dad, without talking to me or doing any reading or talking to a doctor, told her she must be "self harming" and that he was worried she would turn to "cutting" as it is typical self harming behavior. I was livid!!! So I sat down my easy child and told her NO she is NOT self harming and NO she wasn't going to start "cutting" simply because of what was happening with her eye lashes. I explained trich and that it comes from anxiety and that I had it. I explained what I did over the years to cope and how I was at that time with it and my goals for myself to end this. She and I made a pact. She would NOT pull on her eyelashes and I would NOT be pulling out my hair. And when I had a full head of hair, no thin or bald spots and she had her eyelashes back, we'd go spend a girly weekend somewhere at a spa or just a nice hotel with a good restaurant and pool etc as a reward to ourselves for helping each other get through it. I am so happy to say that once identified as not being "weird" and not being "Crazy", easy child has not plucked a single eye lash since and tells me she has no more urge. She said for her it was enough to know WHY she was doing it and that she could find other ways to cope with anxiety now that she knew the cause. Mind you it took a few weeks with some bumps for her to get herself to that place. She did it at night when falling asleep in bed. We set up a sort of "code" so that Matt and my S/O wouldn't know about it. She was allowed out of bed to ask me for another "Hug goodnight" which was code for I'm Plucking - Stop Me! I would then go tuck her in and wrap her caccoon like in her blankets with her hands wrapped in the blanket as well and she did go back to sleeping with a stuffed toy which she'd given up years before, at least on the nights she wanted to do something with her hands other than pull. So she sleeps now with a Farley dog from the Better or For Worse comics. He's scruffy and hairy so she can play with the hair on the toy a bit and fluff it etc as she's falling asleep. It all worked well and we are planning our girls weekend sometime toward the end of the summer once S/O is back to work and income has improved. [/QUOTE]
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