Today started off well but has since gone upside down with missed appointments and confusion. I hope I haven't messed up the opportunities that I had. Hopefully these things will be rearranged. I am going to a self help group on Wednesday morning to join other people with depression and anxiety issues, but the irony is that I feel extremely anxious about going! I am considering uploading the 'short book' that I have written but I am in two minds about it. I'm not quite sure what I can do with it, but I have put alot of my personal feelings in to it and feel something good should come from it. Fingers crossed! Leanne xx
This evening I pulled. I am really angry at myself for this as I had managed 6 whole days which is the longest I have ever done. I know I need to dust myself off and start again tomorrow, but that doesn't stop the feeling of failure. The task for the rest of the night is to convince myself that i can stop and remind myself of what I am trying to achieve. Well done to everyone that is still pull free, you are phenomenal people xx Leanne x
I have the two radio interviews on Trichotillomania on Monday. Really nervous and hope I don't mess up the opportunity! The book I have been writing is at 5000 words at the moment. I am going to keep it short so it's more appealing and easier to read but I am still hope some of you will send me your stories. I think it's important to add individual experiences to make the bigger picture. Email me if you are interested. Leanne x
I decided this morning to write a book. I don't think I am some fantastic writer, but I need to get myself heard and it is helpful to me to write everything down. I have written almost 4000 words today and I was hoping to find out if anyone else would like to tell me their stories so I could put them in too? They can be anonymous if you would like! I am also looking for someone to have a read through what I have written so far and give me their feedback. Please do contact me! [email protected]
I have always thought that just one famous person coming out and talking about their own Trichotillomania (There must be lots of celebrities with Trich) would make a huge difference. But I just found one tiny story about someone saying they have no eyelashes at all as they pull them out before they have a chance to grow, etc, and the story was mainly just talking about how 'odd' and 'strange' this person was for doing it. Pretty angry about that to be honest. If fact, whenever there is a story in a paper about Trich, it is belittled and mocked and so it's no wonder people feel embarrassed and ashamed about it!
This is one of the photo's that I had taken the other night. I never thought it was possible to have to picture taken in which I look ok, but I love this one! I feel good looking at it and much more confident. Another reason hair is so important to me, and all women I think. It makes such a difference. This also makes me more determined to try and grow my own hair back. One day I hope to have another picture like this with me being proud of my own hair, rather than a wig. Keep strong!
I finally have my times for my radio interviews, both on Monday. two different stations, one in the morning and one in the afternoon :) Nervous as hell!!
I am after some tips for drawing on eyebrows. Most things I see just say to go around your own brows, but as I don't have much in the way of hair there I can't really do that. I want to look normal as opposed to looking like a clown. If anyone has a suggestion, please let me know! Thanks Leanne x
Just a teeny weeny update to say that I have made it the whole day without pulling. I am so pleased with myself right now! I just need to make it in to bed without starting up, but I h
Things have slowed over the last few days, but I have been spending time with family and so I haven't been spreading the word as much as I should. Still waiting on a doctors appointment as my doctor is on holiday but is hopefully back soon. Despite the slowness of late, I in myself feel better. I feel much stronger and dedicated to fighting. I don't want to be 'the girl that pulls her hair out', I want to be the person that beat it and moved on and became a better person for it. I have also (so far) not pulled today and it is 4pm. That is a huge deal for me. It might not be 3 weeks or 6 months but it is stilla record for me. Fingers crossed! Leanne
I shaved my head again last night and looking at my head I am starting to wonder whether the permanent damage is as bad as I originally thought. Is it possible that after two years, some random hairs decided to suddenly start growing again? Does that happen? Don't get my wrong, the top of my head is in a bad state and I don't appear to be physically able to grow it any longer than an inch so I won't be walking down the street with a full head of hair any time soon but I am excited and hopeful that perhaps in another two years I will be in a better place. I am going to get rid of my tweezers. The tweezers are the reason I still pull when there is hardly any hair there so if I dont have any then I really won't be able to pull anything, anywhere! Having said that, last time I did that I just bought some more. Argh!!
Today so far has been strange. A good strange! There are things in the pipeline that I am nervous/excited about. I am feeling pretty great! None of this is easy, it's actually very hard to talk to people about Trich and certain aspects of it feel extremely personal. But we have to move forward and accept who we are
Things are starting to pick up. I feel so positive at the moment and it's amazing! I am talking to the radio people on Monday, I have had several emails from people wanting help and advice, and two people have asked for my story for different projects. I am still waiting to see my doctor as I want to try the CBT (I have been on the waiting list since 2012) and I want to find out where I am in queue. I am still keen to see about a group Skype chat for people that either don't live in my area or don't feel up to a face to face meet up. So we're getting there. Progress is being made. Leanne xx
On Monday I am going to be on a local radio station to be interviewed about Trichotillomania. The guy that called sounded very interested and I am grateful for this opportunity! Today I will be writing down what I am going to say. I don't want to forget anything important and I am worried that there may be something I thought I knew and am either wrong or confused about. Feeling good today. Things are taking off! Have a great day. Leanne
I was up till 5am this morning researching as I couldn't sleep. I discovered that the Trichophagia side of my Trichotillomania is rarer than I though. Only 2-20% of Trich sufferers also experience this. That came as a total shock. I thought everyone did that too! The Trichophagia is the one thing that I never wanted to admit too. I know other people must feel that way. How do you come out and say "I also eat my hair". It just makes you sound more weird doesn't it? Well it shouldn't. At the end of the day it is something else beyond your control. It is a part of who you are and I am slowly learning that this is something I should not be embarrassed about. I am still me.
Today I had an email from a local raion station asking if I would like to go on air and talk about Trich! I am extemely nervous about doing it. I am open to suggestions on specific things to bring up/discuss. This could be great. If I only reach one single person that has Trichotillomania or knows somebody that does, then I will be massively pleased.
I guess I should start from the beginning. I remember being 9 years old when I first pulled. It may have been earlier than that but that is when my first memory is from. I was looking in the mirror and 1 particular hair on my head stood out to me for reasons I couldn't possibly explain and I just knew I had to pull it out. But it didn't stop there because that one just wasn't enough. I felt awful whilst I was doing it, but I couldn't stop and in an odd way I enjoyed it. This continued on until one day my mum was putting my hair in a pony tail and she noticed that there were lots of short hairs on the top of my head. She questioned me about it and I said nothing, but then she began watching me and caught me doing pulling hairs out and took me to see a doctor. The doctor looked at my mum lie she was stupid and basically said that it was just a phase and that was that. The word Trichotillomania was never used and was a word that I didn't hear until 12 years later. My mum was really upset by what I was doing and she was confused as she didn't know what to do so I began to try and do it secretly and told her I had stopped, but of course I hadn't. By the time I got to secondary school at age 11 I still had lots of stubbly hairs on top of my head and my parting was ever so slightly wider than it should've been but different side partings covered this quite well. My friends kind of knew that I pulled my hair out but it was never talked about. Flash forward even further to the age of 19. This was when the Trich took total hold and my parting was getting much balder, so I dyed my hair black and used black eyeshadow to cover that up. At this point I had just split up from my cheating partner and this is where is escalated to the point where on the top of my head, the size of the palm of your hand was 100% bald and I used an awful sticky black hairspray to cover it up. It looked ridiculous but I couldn't even think of wearing a wig at that time. That would look even more stupid I thought. So for 3-4 years I continued using the hairspray. This was only sold in one single shop so if I couldn't afford a new can or the shop was closed, I would stay at home and avoid going out until I could ask someone to pick some up for me. I would dread going out in either warm weather where the spray would run, or in the rain where the same would happen. It was a total nightmare. One day I decided to stop with the hairspray and just wear a beanie hat. Even through the summer. Because to every person walking past, I was just a person in a hat. That was all. In July 2012 I had a chat with my partner about it and decided to buy a wig after all. I close a medium/long red one and it looked great in the picture. It arrived a few days later, I tried it on, and my partner said it looked great. It took me a while to get used to it. To me it felt like I was wearing a huge sign saying "Look at me, yes it's a wig". I had several people tell me they liked my hair and I had to choose between saying thanks or telling them it was a wig. I opted for the latter and found it to be such a relief to be honest about it. I then decided that because the wigs got so hot and uncomfortable that I would shave my head. Shaving my head also meant a chance to break the habit. If the hair wasn't there, then I couldn't get at it right? Sadly not. I would tweeze as soon as any hair came through and when parts got long enough I was pulling them. I should say that my Trich has never been limited to just the hair on the head, but this is the main place I pull from and the one that has caused all the problems. After 2 years of constantly shaving my head, the problem is still there as much as it ever was and not only that, but only around 20% of the hair on top of my head grows back. The rest is permanently damaged which means I will now always have to wear wigs. There is no way on Earth that I would go without one. And that is a hard thought to process. The photo I uploaded yesterday actually makes it look better than it is. In the light its so much worse. I am thankful for my partner and my children because they love me no matter what I look like and my children have always been very understanding about it despite their young ages. My youngest son is only 2 and yet he doesn't bat an eyelid if one minute I have a wig on and the next I don't. I'm just mummy and that is something I will always be grateful for. I have tried to keep this short so it doesn't get too boring and I haven't gone in to the deeper things because I also don't want to make people feel miserable. I have shared this to not only help myself, it's great to get it off my chest, but to encourage others to speak up. You really aren't alone. Leanne. x
In a way, I am glad that no one really knows about this site because this is the one and only picture of me without a wig. This is me two years after shaving my head. Thankfully wearing the wig most of the day time has reduced my pulling because I can't physically get at it. But as you can see the permanent damage is obvious enough that even if I did manage to grow my hair longer, I would still have to either wear a wig or go to some other cover up measure. I have tears in my eyes looking at this picture. That isn't me. That is someone that is sad because they don't know what to do. I want to feel confident and feminine. I am not saying girls with shaved heads are not feminine, in fact, if I didn't have Trich and just chose to have shaved hair then I would wear it with pride. But that isn't the case and you can see I am bald on top. I don't want this anymore. I want to why this this started 17 years ago. Why it's still going on now and what can be done. I want to talk to other people that understand and share these feelings. So if you see this, please please contact me. I need you, we need each other. Leanne. x
Ok, I have have a Facebook page and a Twitter account. These can be found at twitter.com/TrichSomerset and on Facebook by just searching 'Trich Somerset'
UPDATE: I have now made and printed leaflets/posters that I hope to place in shop windows locally. I am limited to Taunton at the moment. I have also emailed The local Taunton and Bridgwater newspapers in the hope they will share. As there has been no response here, on Facebook or on Twitter I am slowly becoming worried that this is just going to fizzle in to nothing. I am praying someone, somewhere reaches out to me.
So today I am going to contact as many Trich pages as I can and ask them to share the link to here. I am also going to make up some poster/leaflet type things and see where I can put them around town. I would like to put some in places other than just Taunton but I don't know how to go about that. Any ideas would be appreciated. So that's all for right now but it's still early :)
So today I decided to finally try and do something about Trichotillomania in my local area. I am hoping to bring us trichsters closer together so we can share our experiences, make new friends, talk about our issues without being judged and raise some awareness. TTM is still so unheard of in the UK. I have been turned away by so many doctors because they didn't know what to tell me and its time for that to change. Because I live in Somerset, I wanted to make a site dedicated to people in this area, however everyone is welcome! If enough people are interested then on the forums page, we could have a topic/thread specifically for each town/city. I realise I am waffling on slightly and probably not making any sense but I just want to get as much as I can on the website at the moment before going back to fine tune. Step one was getting the site live. Step two is about reaching people. I don't know how I am going to do this yet but I will probably start with Facebook and Twitter.