Christina's Blog

Good morning world!

Sometimes, I just wonder who I am writing to. How did you get to this blog, what is your life story, are we neighbors but don’t know it? So very interesting.

Today, I want to share something about my personal process, and how it is a big part of why I am not pulling or picking today.

Yesterday, I had a really rough emotional day, for several reasons. Basically, my self-esteem took a hit, and old insecurities came up about capability, worth, stuff like that.

I have done a LOT of great inner work in my life, but as I also had significant trauma and chaos in my early history, I find I can stumble back into old feelings when I am not aware of things building up.

Yesterday, it was all about admitting that I am not a good administrator, I don’t do well with “authority,” and looming deadlines can shut me down emotionally, causing distress not only to me, but to those I live and work with.

Which then makes me feel even worse!  And really messes with my ability to communicate.

I have always known these are issues, and have struggled for decades with them. Andnever really understanding why it is so difficult to change in these areas, when I have made such profoundly significant progress in so many other areas of my life.

Big conundrum.

Okay, here’s my recovery part.

One thing I have come to not only fully understand -but also accept – is this: in MY nervous system, if I do not address my emotional reality, I will almost undoubtedly set the stage for engaging in unwanted behavior like picking and pulling.

And, as any intense emotion (whether positive or negative) can feel uncomfortable or overwhelming for me in some way, I have – for most of my life, worked to “squunch” (just made that up because it totally fits the feeling) my awareness of the feeling. Which builds up a charge, which leads to various forms of physicalization and behavior.

Last night as I began my evening meditation, I had SUCH a hard time with the level of activity in my mind – sometimes it is easy to simply observe, sometimes it seems almost impossible.  Well, I remembered what a meditation teacher whom I greatly respect once said: ”Yes, it is all about coming back to the center when we wander. But, sometimes, something important is bubbling up, and it is a good thing to stay with whatever that is, instead of trying to avoid it.” I paraphrased a bit, but this is the gist of what he meant.

So, sitting there, with this sense of low self-worth and a tightness in my chest, I made space for holding these feelings. I settled my awareness right in the feeling itself, and queried, “where are you coming from?”

What I do know today, is whatever comes up is okay, I just need to allow, accept, and experience. No, I do not have to LIKE what I feel, but I DO need to be aware and feel it!

I began to remember earlier times in my life when I had similar feelings, and went hurtling back to a very young age!   What came up for me was homework. And my dread of it, my shame over it, and my deep frustration over it.

As a child, I attended 11 schools from the age of  6 until 14. In many schools from 4th grade on I was recognized as “brilliant, but what a shame…”

After 4th grade, I just almost never handed in my homework. I was bright, and performed well in class, but consistently failed classes due to unfinished assignments. 

I remember trying to do homework, and not understanding parts, and feeling sick sick sick to my stomach. 

Well! Last night this experience gave me fantastic insight into some of my current (and lifelong) problems with deadlines etc.

One, I never had any real experience simply being responsible to finish a chore, whether it was homework, or whateever. Never really got the imprint of start, maintain, and complete whatever you set out to do. So in many ways I “adlibbed” by handing in incomplete stuff, or making excuses like I lost it, or faking that I was sick just as we were to review homework… and then after 17 days of Freshman year I had just turned fourteen a month earlier)  of High School, I dropped out by getting a psychiatric discharge for pulling out most of my hair.  Never to go back.

Hmmm. Funny how things look different from the age of 53 looking back!

It wasn’t until I was 21 that I was taught how to actually wash dishes so they were really clean. I would roughly wipe them, rinse them, stack them, and not even realize there was still foodstuffs on some of them.

I hurt so badly for so many years in so many ways, and knew so little about how to be really functional in every day living.

The good news is I survived, and life is basically magnificent today.

Now, the hurts come and go, but it is nothing compared to early on. And today, I can follow the thread to discover the knot that is holding me back from being fully myself.

Like last night. By raising my awareness of the underlying driver of a patterned behavior, all of a sudden a pathway to change has opened up for me.

And, I have not pulled, or picked, and in fact feel rather inspired. And a little bit more complete.

So I now have an added practice – to identify and follow the steps that I personally need to complete each thing I set out to do, and be willing to adapt to a timeline. 

Today, sitting here, I glory in my hair and clear skin. 

Love, Christina

Dear ones,

Today is Saturday, and when I awoke, I felt like I had cement in my veins.  Wednesday evening of this week, I made the choice to euthanize our geriatric German Shepherd, Ben. 

My heart aches so, and there is a big lack of presence in our home now.

Ben was 11 years, 7 months, and 8 days old, 109 pounds, and had been suffering for quite a while. In the past 3 weeks, he took a turn for the worse, deteriorating rapidly. I could see a shift in his awareness, a change signalling body changes leading to death. Even so, I though I had more time with him.

Not to be.  I have cried on and off the past 3 days, and only now have I even wanted to write about it.

In many ways Ben was my best friend. He adored me, accepted me, celebrated me, and totally wanted to be with me. Sometimes, I must admit – too much! When I would work at home, he would stand at my office door, snapping at the air – saying “come on! Let’s go DO something!”  Often, I would. So he knew just the ways to get my agreement to his wishes.

I used to take him with me to work, with Jessie the Beagle. But as he got older and crankier, it was difficult to have him at the office, because when you had to step over him he would get all bent out of shape!

I also know that Ben’s passing will not be a trigger for me to resume pulling.

Today, I do have the ability to stay present with overwhelming feelings, I do not have to detach through a physiological behavior that alters my awareness profoundly.

The night he died, a part of me just wanted to obliviate. To disappear, dissipate. Years ago, I would have gotten drunk, taken pain pills, whatever, anything, ANYTHING not to feel the pain of loss.

So that evening, when I felt the urge to run, to drown my sorrow,  I recognized the need to honor the depth of pain and sorrow, instead of hiding from it.

This is what has transformed my life. Being present for the truth of what is actually happening in this moment.

I did a sitting meditation, maybe 30 minutes or so, aware of my breathing with the lightest touch of attention, and let the feelings simply roll forth like the deluge of a flood. 

Ben deserved this. To totally feel him, his passing, my loss, all in honor of this extraordinary canine being that shared our lives for over a decade.

Today, I navigate the deep waters of self so differently than years ago, and in the change, I have found more freedom.

Ben loved nothing more than to go for a ride, I took this picture one-handed while driving.

Dear Ben, thank you for the honor of sharing time in this life with you!

Love, Christina

Good morning Dear Ones!

Hmmm… I have a bunch of stuff on my mind, so I may just ramble a bit until I hit my stride.

Is trich life-threatening? 

Not often, but it can certainly be life-threatening. For a variety of reasons. Physically, one can develop a trichobezoar, or hair ball blocking the digestive system. Years ago, I spoke to a mom whose 7 year-old daughter had needed half of her stomach removed due to terrible infection from a mass of hair.  Is that child alive today? I do not know. Since then, I have met adolescents who have had one, two, or even several trichobezoars removed, one girl was operated on 4 times.

How many people die from these blockages, with it never being revealed – due to ignorance, shame, or lack of interest?  You will randomly hear about trichobezoars in surgical or medical  journals. Rarely elsewhere.

And how many die from skin picking? Holed up in houses, unable to leave for fear of exposure? How many get septic systemic infections and fall deeply ill or die? I do not know.

A while back I also spoke to the grieving mom of a young woman of 21 who committed suicide as a result of believing she could never stop pulling, and her shame was overwhelming, and she ended her life.

And then, this past week, I have learned of a young man in our community who did the same thing. My heart aches for his family now. How many others are there? I have no idea, but I tell you this:

The degree of sheer suffering from this obscure and ignoble disorder IS capable of driving people to suicide, and IS capable of causing serious physical harm.

Not for most of us, or the disorder would be more well-known. But for a certain number of us, it IS life-threatening.

For myself? For years, I did want to die, and seriously considered if I could live life with no hands (yes, I dreamed of having them amputated), but as an adult, never came close to really considering suicide as an option.

Have you ever contemplated ending your life – because of trich or skin picking? I would love to hear folk’s thoughts on this. I only wish I had known that the young man was in such distress – I had not spoken to him in about 10 months, and was deeply sorrowed to hear of his passing this week.

Over time, I have spoken to many, many people, who have contemplated and / or attempted to killed themselves. Obviously these folks went on living and reached out, but how many don’t? This concerns me deeply. This is my community, people who share my experience, and I care as one who has walked this path and understand it’s entrapment from the inside out.

Today, as a result of my own experience, I do know it is possible to change behavior.

Effectively.

But – here’s the caveat – it takes commitment, time, and hard work, which can be uncomfortable to walk through. Maybe if we had a magic pill, life would be easy – but we don’t!

So what do we do as a community? I do not want those among us who suffer so greatly to simply slip through the cracks.

This is a great conundrum in my life – with the development of TLC as a resource, and all the work that TLC does, we are moving in the right direction. But there is SO much more that needs doing, and people are still slipping through the cracks – all the time.

People who have no access to support, effective treatment, friendship with understanding – there are many out there (are you one?) and it is unacceptable to me to sit back and do nothing about it.

That’s why I am committed to supporting TLC – with my finances (yes, I make a monthly tax-deductible donation), with my energy, with my commitment.

I believe that supporting TLC is the best option to alleviating the suffering caused by hair pulling and skin picking.

So, if you are reading this, and are not a member of TLC yet (get the paper quarterly newsletter, etc), why not become one? Why NOT help? Why NOT make a donation, whether it is $5 or $500? What level of hurt have you experienced from these problems – enough to put a value on it?

Or offer your skill-set – perhaps you are well-connected, a financial wizard, or creative, or savvy in a kajillion ways – to help us mend these cracks that beloved people keep slipping through.

Yes, I am frustrated, but I also know it is so much better than even a few years ago.

Please join us in this work to improve the quality of life of those suffering with these problems!

Much love, Christina

Dear One,  (yes, that means you)

This is a powerful week for me. On May 20th, 1990, I flew to Seattle to do a local talk show on trichotillomania. At the time, I owned and operated a small answering service with my dear friend and business partner, Dana. I had recently discovered others suffered, and had gotten into treatment at Stanford Medical Center in California, also starting a local support group – all in the hopes of meeting others like me.

Well, as a result of running an answering service that provided voice mail services, when I flew up to do the show, I took a voicemail # with me to offer as a “Trichotillomania Hotline.”

The show was Northwest Afternoon, and there were 2 other hair pullers and myself being interviewed. This particular show was live, and accepted live calls from viewers. Well!!! Once we started talking, the phones rang off the hook. Voices were piped in of people sobbing and laughing, stunned to find that there were others, people who understood. The big question was – “how do I get help?”  At the end of the show, the station put onscreen the telephone # I gave them with the words – Trichotillomania Hotline. OMG!!!

Little did I know how my life was to change. In every way, at every level and for the rest of my life. My work, my living situation, my worldview were to get totally changed.

By the time I got home, I had over 100 people trying to leave messages in the voicemail. I was floored. About 600 calls came in over 72 hours. I spent the next few days attempting to call everyone back, and ran my phone bill up over $1200 dollars. It was the best money I ever spent, and transformed my life. After 5 days of this, something inside me melted away and I experienced a huge paradigm shift of awareness and motivation. It became crystal clear to me that SOMETHING had to be done.

That day, in total emotional overwhelm from interacting with so many like me, I lay in my bed and entered a deep contemplative state, experienced the most beautiful vision of my life, completely embraced by the profound awareness of indescribable Love, and it was from this experience that TLC was conceived.

There were all these people, with nowhere to send them, no doctors, no effective treatment, no shame reduction, no support, no coordinated effort WHATSOEVER to meet the needs of this suffering community. MY community. My own private experience was reflected in every contact I made, and together, we began to heal, one phone call at a time. Some of those people I am still in touch with to this very day.

Anyway, like I said, this is a very powerful week for me, and I am so deeply humbled to have been able to follow through all these years, in service of that initial dream. That dream, in simplest essence, was to lay the groundwork for real, significant change, so that no child ever again had to go through what I did and so many others.

We are not fully there yet – need to raise a lot more funds for all the programs we want to implement – but it is EVER so much better that it was 20 years ago today.

If you read this, and it touches you in any way, help TLC help us all! Get involved, be a TLC member and donor (there’s lots of research and outreach to fund!), become a volunteer, work on your own process of recovery – and know you have me as a resource. You can call me at TLC, or email me directly at christina@trich.org.

May all of our lives unfold with great lovingness and healing!

Love to all, Christina

Good morning World! 

I am getting ready to begin my 7 day MBSR training this afternoon, and thought I’d like to post this before I disappear for a week. A while back, on the TLCTrichSupport email listserve (sign up at www.trich.org) someone posted how poorly she felt as she had put together some time and then had a bout of pulling. This was my response to her:

 Good Morning! Wanted to jump in here and comment on your flurry of behavior.

You are doing FANTASTIC! And I mean that with my whole heart. Just the fact you put so many days together, had some emotions trigger a bout of pulling, and then the VERY next day are posting about it, tells me loud and clear you are on the road to recovery.

I don’t  use the concept “relapse” in my own process anymore, as it always gave me a feeling of failure. Today I am either “in behavior” or “out of behavior.” From my perspective, I have learned there is a LOT of truth in the following statement for the majority of pullers. That is:

“For most, we do pick and pull on the road to recovery.” 

Probably because it’s a learning curve.

Rarely have I ever seen someone who stopped, and totally stayed stopped, without any “flurries” of behavior emerging here and there, triggered by emotion, situation, illness, stress, whatever… before ultimately learning to fully navigate without pulling. The key to being on the “road to recovery” for me is this:

Celebrate ANY moment in which you are not engaged in pulling. When you do find that you are pulling or have pulled, accept that it is an opportunity to learn more about what triggers you, and areas that might need some work. (Like processing uncomfortable feelings better… or making sure you get enough sleep so you are not sleep deprived, which makes many vulnerable.. . the list can be long! )

You are not “starting over,” as the days you had cannot ever be taken away, you experienced them, knew what it felt like, learned a lot. You even acknowledge what may have brought on this episode! This is all grist for the mill of your life.

For me, a sign of being on the road to recovery is how you treat yourself when you DO pull. Years ago, my first real signs of recovery were when instead of going in a deep depressive cycle (which was the norm – with anxiety eating at my innards), I began to pat myself lovingly on the back while acknowledging this: 

 ”Yup, I did pull, which makes sense because I have a neurological disorder called trich. But LOOK! I put together a bunch of minutes, hours, days, months, WITHOUT pulling. Yes, I pulled for 2-3-4-5 hours last night, but in the last 1,512 hours, only TWO were spent pulling, when before it was blah blah blah. And today I am working to get back on track to the best of my ability.”

This is one of the ways I nurtured myself until I was able to put years together, instead of days or months. I have now pulled my hair 2 times in the past ten years - once the night of 9/11/2001 (I had almost two years pull free then), and once the day after my father died in January of 2007 (this time I had 6 continuous pullfree years).  During the ten years before that, it was a gradual increase of pullfree time, learning tons as I progressed.

Prior to then, I had pulled an average of 2-6 hours every day for twenty+ years, totally entrapped, from the age of 13 – 34.  

So that was my response. 

In closing, I am now totally invested in shortening that recovery timespan for others, through our work at TLC to develop better interventions, treatments, etc. Your support of TLC will make this dream a reality, so I ask you (beg you!) to become a member, make charitable contributions, get involved!  If you want information on all the things we are working on, give me a call at TLC.

Much love,

Christina