TrichStars.com Stop pulling - become a TrichStar

Hello, I am Joyce and I have, until recently, been hair pulling free.

I pulled my hair out religiously from the ages of 2 through 19. I am not 24 years old. I was able to control my hair pulling and eventually stop by forcing another habit from my life. That habit was "Thumb Sucking" which went hand in hand with my hair pulling. I only pulled when I sucked my thumb, and I always sucked my thumb. It did not matter where, when or what i was doing. I was the only 19 year old sucking her thumb in class and pulling my hair from my head in chunks twisted around my index finger. I was able to stop by stopping the thumb sucking, which my family felt, was the root of my hair pulling. Well, I am now 24 years old and had managed to keep that from happening, though it wasn't as simple as just not letting my thumb find its way into my mouth. While asleep my husband was aware of my problem and would be woken up by my violent ripping out of hair and wake me to stop me from sucking on my thumb, which had now and again found it's way somehow into my face. *Sigh.* With his help I managed to keep the damage very limited and rare.

However....
I am pregnant with my first child and much to my dismay the symptoms have returned with a vengeance. I no longer need to be sucking my thumb to find myself pulling. Along with this a new symptom has surfaced that I never had done before. When I am not pulling...I am picking. Picking at my scalp till it bleeds, which has left me with many scabs assorted throughout my scalp and that are given no chance to heal because I pick at them and the damage is done before I realize what I am doing. At least with the hair pulling I will rip one or two chunks out and when in playing with it realize what I was doing and become aware enough to prolong pulling another patch out for at least a few hours, which is a struggle all it's own because I have to be on vigilant guard with myself and never let the thought stray far from my mind. What disturbs me most about this is that when I brought up the resurfacing of symptoms to my prenatal care physician, she became very concerned about my mental health. It did not worry me so much then, but because the hair pulling has been at the near top of her checklist on things to ask me about upon visit and has not stopped or eased, she mentioned that I will have to first be evaluated before I can bring the baby home after birth. This worries me deeply because I don't feel depressed, or as if I should be evaluated in order to take home my daughter. But, evidently she does. And her main concern? The hair pulling. It's ridiculous to me, but perhaps for someone else it may seem like a reasonable requests. I have been very anxious, though that is mainly with "First Baby Jitters". Vivid dreams. Nightmares...Things that are expected and normal for a first time mother, and what I have read and was told is pretty typical. But, my doctor's concern with the hair pulling has done nothing but stress me out more, and the added stress makes it seem almost impossible to stop or show some sort of improvement that will lift her worries and mine. She recommended therapy, which I would gladly go to if the doctors there knew how to deal with or treat this affliction. But, they do not and there are only a few places that accept my insurances and none of them have much experiences with this sort of thing. If I must go, I want to go to someone who understands Trichotillomania. Am I wrong for wanting this much at the very least? I feel that if I go to see these people, and they have a limited understanding of this problem, it could do more harm than good in the end because what my prenatal physician wants to see is a marked improvement on the symptoms of Trichotillomania, and if it doesn't then I might have my mental fitness being challenged when it comes to my right to my own child. I know for some this may seem like a paranoid frame of thought, but to those some I wish only that I could let you see through my eyes how my doctor has been questioning me and talking to me, as if I am a whack job who might flip out and drown her own baby in the bathtub or something. All this from hair pulling? It scares me to think that something I cannot help, and am trying with every fiber of my frame to stop can but my mental health under the microscope. But, it is and I partly understand that because it is always better to be safe than sorry. But, I know I am not depressed, or feeling otherwise down hearted. I am just tinctured with first baby jitters and the typical worries any Mother To Be gets. That could be very well what kicked my symptoms into overdrive, and in fact I am almost certain it is. When you're having a vivid nightmare about trying to breast feed your newborn, and instead of growing healthy and strong their are withering away in your arms...It's hard not to wake up worried that you'll somehow fail, or try as you may not be good enough. I'd be more concerned with myself if I was not worried. Worry is the best sign of caring and sadly perhaps the most consuming and vexing.

In the end I suppose I did not write all this and expect help, or a cure found in the articulate written word. Just being able to express these concerns has somehow made me feel better, and to read other's concerns and struggles helps me feel what I know in my heart to be true.

I am not alone.

And I need no more than that to find inner strength and the will to go on fighting, because without fight there is no hope of triumph no matter what the cause. And to all you struggling, as I am, I have only one thing to say:
Everyday may be a fight...and at the end of each day you may feel beaten, but as long as your heart is still beating, you can fight and you can overcome this.

We all can overcome this.