To live in a behavioral prison with bars forged of compulsion – is something the trich community understands all too well. Yesterday, I had a really powerful experience relating to this topic I would like to share.
As I was driving over to the TLC office, I noticed that an old house on Mission Street was being torn down. A big shovel machine was literally tearing the walls apart.
I have some history with this house, as over thirty years ago, when I first moved to Santa Cruz, this was where I lived and started a business with my friend Dana.
This was also a house in which I fearfully entered my own room. Knowing all too well the entrapment that awaited me, for unrelenting hours of pulling and picking lay before me whenever I was alone.
It was in this room that I learned to put duct tape over my mouth (I used to eat my hair). It was here that I tied my hands in ways that they could not be lifted toward my head. This house had the closet that held the soft rope that I would wind around my head and jaw, hoping that the pressure would distract me from the impulses.
It was in THIS house that I learned the following: if I drank enough alcohol to black out, and knock myself out completely, I would not pull or pick that night.
And in THIS house, the sorrow in my soul grew to overwhelm my consciousness, and it would still be many years before I found relief.
Today, the house holding those memories was torn down right before my very eyes.
It was a profound moment for me.
Thirty years later, with a full head of hair, years of recovery and the honor of devoting my life to working for the trich community, I stood and watched an old prison eradicated.
Today, I am free, and I work for the freedom of others. Real change DOES happen and recovery IS possible. Today, this is a real truth, not only for me, but for many, many others.
We don’t have perfect answers yet, but we DO have treatment that works. There’s a long way to go until we have a full understanding about the condition, but we are definitely moving in the right direction. And with your help and support, we will get there together.
What a circle in my life that moment was! I just wanted to share it with you.
Much love, Christina
29 Comments
thank you. a most valuable blog from an incredible person. i look forward to more posts and for a safe forum like this to share. after twenty years of prison i am ready to be free, you are an inspiration.
Wow those are all awful self treatments to put upon yourself. I myself am only 19 and have suffered for nine years already. Although your talk of alcohol abuse scares me, it’ll just be another reason to not drink.
It is also encouraging to know that you have beat trich. I just don’t even know where to start.
hi my name is joann and i was reading ur comment and i feel the exact same way u do and i just found out what IT was called like not to long ago… i didnt even think anyone else had it but me! and i noticed that u r 19 and im only 20 as well and i think we r young and we can fight this thing!
Hi girls, I was working on my homework today, but could not concentrate for the life of me…instead I was picking and getting very fristrated! I have never looked at support groups online before, pretty much just kept the whole Trich thing to myself. But right now I am longing for others who understand. Arielle and Joann, just hearing of two people my age, I am 20,who are in the same situation as myself, is so encouraging! I look forward to the day when I can finally say ‘I am completely free of the urge to pull out my hair’. I know it will be soon, I just have to be patient.
Thank you for sharing this post and so much more, devoted to improving the lives of others. I am signing up for membership, having gone through fall, winter, and spring helping my beautiful, compassionate, artistically and academically gifted teenage daughter stuggle with both trich and an eating disorder, both of seemingly sudden onset. Thank you to all who serve and share.
Hi Christina- I am so glad you have started a blog because as others have said it is so helpful to have this kind of support. I met you at a TLC retreat in San Jose in 1995 or so. I, too, had just put a name to this thing I had lived with since I was 10. It was such a huge relief to know I was not alone. Now, all these years later (at age 48)I still struggle with trich, but I have my self esteem and knowledge that allows me to share with others. Thank you for that, Christine. I also numbed myself with alcohol, but a year and a month ago I decided to change that too and went to rehab. Celebrating a year of sobriety added to my inner strength. Thank you for dedicating your life to helping us understand and over come Trich – whatever overcome means to each of us.
Linda in Nashville, TN
Christina: You are truly an angel on this earth. I don’t know what I, as a mother of a daughter with trich, would have done these past 4 years without you and TLC. Thank you for sharing and for starting this blog. I am glad that your prison was finally torn down because you deserve to be free. We all need you!
Christina, I am so glad you got to experience actually watching those walls be torn down and that you didn’t just discover the house gone one day. It is such a symbolic and triumphant moment to be watching something and realize that the very act of it happening is freeing you. You had already freed yourself but I can’t imagine how wonderful, and a little sad, it must have made you feel to know that even if you wanted to you could not go back there, could not put yourself in that prison again. -Michelle
christina.
i love the picture of you that you have posted here on your blog. it shows contentment and confidence, two elements of recovery. the real truth that i believe you have discovered, is that recovery is a work in progress, and that there will always be growth in recovery if we continue to work at it.
how were you able to face your pulling at such a relatively young age, and see so clearly that helping to free others was your purpose in life?
did you realize then that this would be your biggest ticket to freedom for yourself?
thank you for all the work you have done in bringing this to the forefront. because of you, and TLC, i am now able to do my small part in my community, and will do more.
thank you, christina.
My daughter has exhibited trich behaviors since she was 13. She is 18 1/2 now. We tried counseling, vitamin supplements, tape, gloves, hats, etc… Initially we blamed ourselves as parents. Then we went to the Trich Conference in Wash DC a few years ago and realized it wasn’t anyone’s “fault.” It just was. We went to Hair Club for Kids and got a hair system to put on with tape. She is an A student and plays #1 on her school tennis team. She starts college in the fall, and we just accept that she wears a wig. Really, in the big scheme of things, it doesn’t limit her at all. She tells her close friends and then that’s it. They move on. I do wish that she would want to stop her pulling behavior, but she shows no interest in modifying her pulling. If I mention it (very infrequently now) she shuts me out and gets angry. Not worth fighting about if she doesn’t want to change. Just wish she had her own hair back.
Christina:
Thank you so much for this blog of courage. I hope to get involved with this someday.
Karen:
As unfortunate as that is. And believe me, she wants her own hair back more than anyone in the world.
As someone who has been pulling since age 10 (i am now 19 1/2), I would just like to give you a little insight from what your daugher is feeling. My parents also put me in couseling, tried gloves, socks on my hands, tape, medicines and vitamins. I wore a wig from age 10-about 14…and I finally just decided to be myself…let people either like me or not. My mom also used to mention it to me and doesn’t as much now, but if she had posted a comment on this, it would’ve sounded exactly like this! It almost makes me wonder if you are my mom under a different name! Ha!
But my point is, it’s not that we get angry when you say things, and it’s not that we “don’t want to change”, it’s just that it is the hardest thing that you could possibly do. It is some kind of deep addiction that is triggered by who knows what…I mean, we find ourselves doing it when we aren’t even aware of it. Some, like me, even do it in our sleep. It’s not just something we can simply “modify”
I hope I could help you find a deeper understanding of how this makes us feel…it sounds like you are doing a wonderful job supporting her, though:) It’s awesome to find supportive parents.
Christina,
Thanks for starting this blog and for all of your work in educating the public about trich. As someone you and your team of experts trained in trich, I can say that the training made a huge difference in my approaches, the hope I can pass onto my clients, and in my ability to see some very dedicated folks get into “recovery,” –which I think is a more apt word than “cure.” As you have said, “Every day that is pull-free is a good day.”
Fondly,
Deborah Cole, Psy.D.
Columbia, Maryland
I have suffered from this for years and have never gone for help. I have a beautiful family and I don’t want my children and husband to be affected by this anymore (or myself). I live in WV and I just don’t know who to go to. Could you give me a name of someone that I could go to?
I just read your biography for the first time. It could just about be my own story as I’m sure most of those like us can attest. I have pulled since I was 11 years old and it took over 20 years for me to “come out of the closet” about my hair pulling. Thank God I was in a good place with the wonderful support of great friends and family. I do remember when I first learned there was a name for what I did but that there were others who did it was a real shocker. I would never have wished this affliction on anyone else but knowing others out there truly understand is empowering. God bless you and your foundation!
Christina: What did you do to get relief from TTM?
How inspirational it is to read your thoughts, Christina. Thank you for starting this blog; what a wonderful idea!
I, too, am free plus I believe I wouldn’t have been able to maintain staying free if I hadn’t given up all the other activities I use to do to numb my feelings.
Take care, God Bless.
I hope to get out of my prison like you did. Unfortunately lifes problems have made it worse. I hope one day there will be a retreat in Florida. Thankyou for all you do
Hi, my dear sweet friend. I loved reading your blog and hearing from your heart in this way. You are so precious to so many people. I am hoping you will become a “tweeter” so that I can know what you are doing minute by minute (lol).
Hugs,
Cheryn
oh no! they’re tearing that house down? i loved that place. that’s where i really got to know you and have such fond memories from that time in life. Oh well, I still have the memories and I still have you, too
Consider yourself hugged, my dear friend.
Cindy
Christina – The depths from which you came make me realize how little many of us address those depths, especially when we are in the thick of it. Your stories and your way with words are an inspiration to all of us. This blog is the perfect place for you to share the continued success you experience daily. Thank you for all you do!
Just wanted to share something and ask your thoughts because I find it strange/interesting…
I’m 25 and I’ve been pulling since I was about 5 or 6. I have had periods of time where my urges were lowered, but always fallen back into it eventually. About 3 months ago, after several months of extreme mood swings, I quit drinking caffeine completely. Since then my mood swings are almost non-existent (except for the occasional PMS blues of course). I have also noticed that my pulling urges are VERY reduced. Does that seem like it makes any sense?
Christina,
Thank you for sharing this with us. I can feel what a profound experience that was.
Amy,
I, too, have noticed a HUGE difference when I cut out caffeine! White sugar also seems to be a trigger for me.
Let me add my thanks for your candor.
I met you briefly in Boston, but had never read
about your personal struggle. I hope these blogs
end up as a book. Thank you for your honesty and
dedication.
Debby Knox
Christina,
Thank you for sharing this experience and being so honest. This blog is a great idea.
It is so meaningful reading and getting information from the TLC. I have been struggling with trich since I was 12, now I am 45 and still fighting every day, but better prepared and aware!!
Hint: Taking a shower reduces urge for pulling..for some reason if temperature of my head reduces so does the urge for pulling.
Thanks Christina, for sharing your story. I have been a prisoner of Trich for over twenty years and wonder if I will ever be free of it. I think I have finally gotten to the point where my lashes are not going to grow back.
I am Sonja and I have pulled my hair out because i was abused by my mother. I have been in and out of mh treatments but all the drugs they have given me now going on alomost 30 years does not help…..I belive its a habit and I can not stop. is there help out there? I don’t know but I could use some help.
Sonja age 47 had this since i was around 12
It’s so amazing to see someone who has been so low and come out the other side. I’m glad you started this blog
~Penny – Trichotillomania Blog
I took your blog to my therapist yesterday and cried like I had never cried before. The embarrassment, shame, and feeling like a failure all come with this disorder. It doesn’t surprise me that my self-esteem was affected by this problem since a young child. But I am ready to get my life back. Please keep this blog going. Chrissy, age 38 pulling since age 6.
I started compulsivley pulling my hair when I was around 13. Although I can vaguely remember at the age of 7 rubbing my eyes so much that my eyelashes were non existant. i always pulled my hair from the same area and eventually my mum noticed the patch and after a telling off that left me humiliated and with the ‘threat’ of speaking to a physciatrist hangig over me I relented. I had been ‘free’ of urges for most of the past 15 years with two ‘big’ lapses after the births ofmy two children. Other than my mother all those years ago, I have never told anyone else. I never will. I don’t want anyone to know how odd I am! half the time I don’t realise what I’m doing, I’ve got my hand in my hair searching for ‘the one’ before I actually think ‘Stop it’… It makes me feel like such a ‘loser’ knowing that I do something soooo stupid! but i can’t seem to help it..