Denise's Story

About 3 years ago I started seeing both a psychiatrist and a behavioral  therapist. I started seeing the behaviorist first (namely because the psychiatrist was booked for a few months) and she started me on several things. I had to monitor my pulling to see what triggered me and I had to log in every time I pulled, how many hairs pulled, where they were pulled from, what I did with the hairs after I pulled them out, what I was doing when I pulled, what I was thinking/feeling, how I noticed that I was pulling, and what made me stop. Because this process was so detailed, my pulling started to go down because I _didn't_ want to be constantly logging this stuff in. At the same time I started the habit reversal therapy. I set up predetermined courses of action for when I pulled...what would I do when I caught myself pulling? First I would get out of whatever situation I was in, if possible. Take a break, get some water, wash my face or hands, something. I would log in what had happened in my log book. This process took a while to kick in. I would say that my pulling started going down some over the course of a few weeks.

By this time I was able to see a psychiatrist, who put me on Prozac, first 20mg per day, then 40mg per day. I had taken prozac before for about a year and a half back when I was getting treated in Miami ). The prozac had seemed to lose its effect the first time around. When I was up to 40 mg/day on prozac and I had seen some relief, but not completely, we decided to augment that with Anafranil. I started taking 25mg and built up to 50 mg/day. Side effects from both meds were minimal for me. I was in school at the time and didn't notice any problems.

About 6-8 weeks after I started taking the anafranil, I started noticing a significant decrease with my pulling. I had also intensely beefed up my behavioral techniques as well. I had koosh balls everywhere, silly putty, anything that would keep my hands busy. I even bought "rubber fingers" from a stationary store to keep on my fingertips. I told my friends what I was trying to do and they were very supportive. I
planned things such that if I started to go on a pulling spree in my dorm room, I'd go and visit my friend down the hall or go to some more common space like the kitchen, library, etc. I kept up with the
monitoring as well and rewarded myself for reaching goals that I met. I kept setting my goal at a certain number of hairs per week and then decreased the # every few weeks. I started meditating at night before I  went to bed. After doing this for a while, I realized that my pulling had decreased significantly and from my monitoring I saw that I had cut out those pulling "binges" where most of the damage was done. I then
set a new goal for myself: I would try to go as pull-free as possible so that my hair could grow in enough for me to get a normal haircut and be able to wear it down. I had a big calendar up on my wall where I
would mark each day that I could go pull-free and I saw the number of pull-free days increase until I went for a stretch of weeks without pulling. By this time, my hair had grown in enough and I took the
plunge and got a good haircut, something I hadn't done in years. With my short hair, I was afraid of starting to pull again because it would show easily. That kept me from succombing to the periodic urges I would get. That's another thing: the urges decreased as my pulling decreased. It still itched when the hair was growing in, but I would massage my scalp, do anything to relieve the itch with out pulling. It would go away after a while. I felt really good about my success and progress I had made since I had started treatment some 10 months earlier. Last year I tapered off the anafranil and stayed on the prozac.
After this my life felt great and to this day I can still wear my hair down. My pulling, however, increased slightly because after I reached my goal, I stopped putting so much energy into not pulling. My pulling
was such that I could wear my hair down but I still had a spot that I had to hide. I had convinced myself that maybe that was the best I could do, that maybe pulling was just a part of me and something that
would never go away.

A few weeks ago when I went in for my monthly appt. with my behaviorist, we talked about this plateau and my fear of slipping back into heavy pulling. I had to beef up my efforts, but it was hard since I felt like
I had come so far and I was pretty comfortable with where I was. I really had to decide to make a new commitment to myself to not just pull out some hair, but to stop completely. I had to call on the support of other pullers, something that I hadn't done before. I started telling different people in my life what I was doing and told them to check up on me and ask me how my pulling was doing, this way I would feel
accountable to others besides myself. I started posting daily progress reports on the Fairlite bb, which not only provided me with an easily accessable support network, but also made me accountable to a large group of people. I realize that this technique worked for me because I _really_ like to fulfill my promises to others and I had a competitive side. Many people on the bb had gone for long stretches of not pulling, or hardly pulling, and I wanted to be like one of them. On the bb there's this running thing called The Game, where people post their progress and the list is compiled periodically so everyone can see how everyone else is doing. It's great because you can see how wonderful the support network is and that people _can_ and _do_ have success in not giving in to their urges, by whatever technique they find most effective. I highly recommend that people check out the standings on The Game on their website http://www.fairlite.com/trich/board ##  to see how others are doing and get a sense of hope.

With my new revamped efforts, my pulling decreased to hardly anything, and then went to nothing. I'm still working on this. I have been, happy to say, pull free for 9 days now. And I haven't had strong urges,
either. I want to stay pull-free and eventually get off the prozac that I've been taking for a while now. This is my new goal.

Anyhow, I hope this really long post gives people an idea of all the different things you can do to help with the pulling. It really is a long road and all, but its worth the effort if you can get to, and exceed your goals as far as controlling your pulling is concerned.

Hope that helps,
Denise