How does trichsters feel?
Can you relate?
The reason why I have this section in here, is to show people who discover that they have a disorder called trich, that they are not alone in their feelings and their reactions to trich. This is not intended to make you despondent, rather to give you hope. I can relate to every single feeling that is described here, yet today I see myself as a new person, a person who doesn't suffer from those terrible consequences of trich anymore. It is a long, hard road, but there surely is a life after trich. For me, one of the biggest roads to that recovery is to know that you are not alone in your feelings, and to be able to identify with others who suffer the same way you do.
I think the saddest thing about trich is that it makes us fear looking anyone directly in the eyes. And this is extremely hard on high school kids because, at that age, outside appearance is so important to everyone that it could make or break a young person's self esteem. I know how it feels to constantly keep your eyes roaming so that no one is permitted to look into them. I know what it's like to check the bathroom mirror over and over to make sure my 'eyebrows' haven't rubbed off. I know the fear you have to hide as you try to slink behind your hand, resting your face on it with your elbows on a desk just a few feet away from a friend who you just KNOW is wondering 'what the HELL is wrong with her??? why doesn't she have any eyelashes and eyebrows?" I know the sick feeling in your stomach you can get from walking in on a conversation your friends are having about mascara or eyebrows waxing. In high school, it seems like you need approval from everyone- and whether or not they even pretend to like you is based on superficial and silly things.
It's true- the eyes ARE the windows to the soul! I used to believe that because of trich I was a freak and that having no eyelashes meant my 'soul' seemed ugly and shabby to anyone who tried to glance at it. I would positively CRINGE everytime I thought someone was looking near my eyes. But now I see that a little thing like having sparce eyebrows or bald eyelids could never tarnish the beauty of my soul. No matter how plain and bare the frame is, the what's behind the window is just as beautiful. And (just maybe?) with a less ornate frame, it's easier for others to see the vulnerable and beautifully human soul each one of us posesses.
----------------------------------------
I wouldn't have ever predicted that just reading the board and relating to the posters would change things inside me. But I guess finally after 22 years of self loathing and agony of thinking I was some kind of bizarre out of control self destructive freak and all the losses and isolations and humiliations that come with the trich,; just tapping into the reality of the multitude that jointly suffer with the very same urges, and emotions and bizarre compulsions makes it clear that the trich isn't something of my own making, some twist of a deformed mind, just starts taking off so much of the self hatred for not being able to control this nightmare. I think the diminishing self hatred lessens the anxiety that comes from the trich itself enough to let that little magic seed of a remnant of hope begin to germinate.
---------------------------------------------------------
I have felt the heartbreak soooooooo many millions of times of not pulling for even a couple of years simply to lose it all in the course of a day or week. Then the entrapment starts all over again. I wish I could tell my fiance the truth about what is wrong with my hair. I have lied. I hate that so bad but he is sweet and understanding about my not having the hair and how I have to deal with the hairpiece but I do not think he would be so understanding if he didn't think it was out of my control and I don't believe he would ever understand that I can't control the trich. I think he would be scared that he was dealing with an out of control psycho. I don't think he would ever feel at peace about it. I do think he would condemn me for it, because without experiencing it I don't think that anyone can ever really fathom it, and I don't think I could if I didn't suffer from it myself. I so truly know the prison in which you live. I had no familial support in fact the opposite. It made it all so much worse. I didn;'t have good social skills anyway or coping skills and had a very disfunctional family. I also lived in a very rural low pop. area so that made me stand out more than other situations. I still long to go swimming, play in the breeze, swing upside down from a bar, go to the hairdresser, have fun new hairstyles and if some of you remember me from before, I long so to just put a mass of thick long red shiny hair into a ponytail. That is my wish.
--------------------------------
I too had VERY thin hair in school, some long some short. We were not able to wear hats either. However, I was called ever name in the book. Everybody asked me what was wrong with me. I was mocked and criticized. . I am now 28 and very few people ask me whats wrong but I get a lot of strange looks. The people I work with in our office are very distant. Like I have some kind of terrible disease. I didn't feel this way the times in my life when I had hair. I felt people weren't afraid to get close to me.
----------------------------------------------
This letter is just to show a few things that was tried, and the pain caused by it....
Methods I have tried and failed:
1. I tried wearing gloves every time I was alone cuz that's when I get at my face. When I wanted to pull out so bad, I took my gloves off and started destroying my pretty face (I am a beautiful woman).
2. I tried Prozac, but it made no difference for me. The habit was still there. I tried wearing gloves, but it didn't work. Prozac made me sleepy and lazy (while on Prozac, I didn't want to do my school work). Prozac did help me feel more relaxed, but I think nobody should depend on Prozac because with Prozac, trich. victims have to go through the 'AAA' process. Trich. is like a drug addict. I attempted suicide when I was on other medication other than Prozac. There are many side effects from medicine and I understand that Prozac is the best medicine from the others. But I think I found a cure and it doesn't necessarily have to be Prozac. Just think about what u eat and drink everyday. Just think about it.. why are there times when u don't pluck at ur hair when u are stressed and why are there times u do it while stressed?
3. Before I tried Prozac, I tried sitting myself infront of a mirror and it was easy to turn my head away from the mirror and pluck at my face.
4. I tried scotch tapes on my eyebrows, so when I got at my eyebrows, I would be reminded not to pull out. This method worked, but not when I started having visitors.. People would come over while I had scotch tapes on my eyebrows and it was very embarassing when I got caught with scotch tapes on my eyebrows. The same thing happened with gloves. I had a few people ask me if something was wrong with my hands. I would say, 'no, oh, I forgot to take them off.' I didn't want to tell them why I had gloves on or even scotch tapes on my eyebrows.
5. I tried putting scotch tapes around my fingers and it didn't work because it was hard for me to write, go through papers, etc,.. Scotch tapes around my fingers only helped when I was only watching tv. Gloves and scotch tapes on eyebrows at the same time while watching tv helps, but I forget to put them on most of the time.
6. My brother talked to my priest about my problem and my brother said that the priest told him that it was a sin to destroy God's design of my face. The priest told my brother that I am to take care of my body since my body is God's, not mine. The priest said that it was like someone beating at oneself and while beating at oneself, it causes the person to feel unhappy and that it was a 'sin.' I was told this when I was 10 years old. So, I started writing letters to God and prayed every night that God would allow my eyelashes and eyebrows to grow because I personally hated and still do about the way I looked without my eyelashes and eyebrows. My eyelashes and eyebrows have not stopped growing yet and I know it will soon if I don't stop.
7. I had many boyfriends in my life. I was dumped by many because I let my trich. get in the way of my relationships. When I would have my eyelashes and eyebrows, I was beautiful, and I had a lot of men admiring me. When my disease would strike at me, I didn't want to see my boyfriend until my eyelashes/eyebrows grew back. When my boyfriend would ask me, "What is wrong with you? One day you want to be with me and the next, u don't. You are acting so strangely. Is something wrong?" When I told them about my problem, they would say, "Come on, you are still beautiful." But I didn't believe them and remained to stay away. I did that in many relationships. I knew I wasn't beautiful when I was without false eyelashes and eyebrow pencil marks. I do think I still look pretty when I am wearing a mask (false lashes and pencil marks for eyebrows), but I get angry that they're not my natural hair. Thoughts would run through my head... When I get married to a man...He will see a freak in his bed one night and the next, a beautiful woman. I really want to stop this disease. It gets at me every time I am bald. Every men I dated said I had a personality of a rollercoaster and that they couldn't stand me. My self esteem is very high when the disease doesn't strike at me and my self esteem goes the opposite way when this disease strikes @ me. Please believe me, if u do the same thing I do, don't run away from ur relationship. If a man truely loves you and understands ur disease, he will act no different.
8. A new method I am now trying and I feel is working well for me. I realised when I drink or eat caffeine, it makes me exhausted, more stressed and nervous. I don't think I think straight when I drink/eat caffeine. It is hard for me to resist caffeine, but I am taking them all out of my system. I think eliminating caffeine is better than using Prozac. Because u see.. caffeine is a drug and other drugs do make people nervous. Just thought I'd share this with all of you that are trying to find a cure.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yes, I hid behind mascara, sometime false lashes,...played w/ them to much, they wouldn't stay on (thought about using superglue) LOL, and I also hid behind my hair, something that most of you, hid the lack of.
-------------------
The one thing I hate most about trich is undoing weeks of work in the space of a few hours. My hair was beginning to grow in, I was feeling really good about my efforts and progress and now I have noticeable bald spots on top of my head again. I hate this so much. I hate always picking myself up off the floor and starting over again. I hate cringing if I'm out in the light because I know everyone can see the spots. I hate feeling like I'm weak, that I have no control over myself. I hate feeling like this is going to go on for all eternity and I'm never going to be able to be proud of myself. I hate continually failing. Try fail try fail try fail. Isn't that the usual routine with hair pulling? I get so tired of letting myself down yet one more time. I know some of you have learned how to manage the trich so it is kept to a minimum, but I feel like I'll never be able to make it that far because I can't trust my own hands. If you can't trust yourself to follow through and do the right thing for yourself, what on earth do you do?
I am so so so so so sick of this, and I sometimes just get so sad for all the time of my life I couldn't use to its fullest, and all the people who think I am somehting that I'm not because of lies I've had to tell because of trich. That includes my parents who think I have superficial priorities and my friends who think I *like* to withdraw from physical contact, and all the people who think I'm a control freak (which I am to a degree, but not that bad) because of how paranoid I get when even a strand of hair tingles in the breeze.
-----------------------------------
I also feel that I use my trich to punish myself at times. I often find myself pulling not only when I'm feeling bad or stressed or tired, but when someone has given me a compliment about my appearance, particularly if they compliment my eyes (which are my pulling fields). I think that not-so-subconsciously, I feel guilty and bad and ugly, and need to punish myself (and incidentally give myself proof that I'm indeed bad because I have no self-control, and ugly because I've ravaged myself) by pulling out my eyelashes
----------------
When I am in a bad bad low, I pull (among other acts harmful to my person), but when I pull, I feel worse. I was shocked at the amount of hair I found in the carpet of my car today. When I got out to put gas in my car, my shoe trailed a bunch of hair the likes of which you've never seen and I was _horrified_. All that used to be on my head! How can I do this to myself! The sad thing is, I'm typically aware of when I'm pulling. I get the urge, I chastise myself for wanting to pull again, but then I say "screw it" and I go ahead and pull anyway. This makes me feel horrible. It seems like a downward spiral.