Good morning world! Today I am working at home, to allow for some uninterrupted focusing as I work to flesh out some of the projects TLC want to accomplish next year.
But as I begin the process of wrapping my mind around these efforts, I remembered – oh yeah! I have a blog!
So here I am. Another day yesterday of no pulling and no picking. And the day sprang from a week, a month, years. But not by looking at the big picture, or wishing to be pullfree, but by staying in very small manageable portions of time, with a willing attitude.
Yesterday I spoke with a Mom of a young child – maybe 6 or so. She had promised her daughter that if she didn’t pull for the first month of school, they would go to a favorite store and buy a new outfit.
The child went maybe a day and started pulling. Mom was very upset. “Was I wrong to try and bribe her? Why doesn’t she want to stop pulling?”
My response was simple. I asked her if she remembered what being a kid was like, and how summers seemed like FOREVER. Or how when you knew a holiday was coming how it seemed to take a LONG time for them to come. Then I asked her what her daughter’s concept of time was – did she really know what a week meant? Probably not really. To a child, even an hour can seem like forever, especially when there is a prize to be had (a movie, a friend, a toy, whatever) at the end.
I suggested that she work with portions of time that made sense to her daughter developmentally. Like, watching 1/2 hour of TV, or even 15 minutes to start with.
THis is a common problem with Moms who have children that pull and pick. It is easy to forget that a small child is not motivated by the same things as an adult. In fact, most young kids don’t find the motivation of having a full head of hair or all eyelashes a good enough reason to stop! This is hard for many adult women to even grasp – as by the time we have matured, the “importance” of cosmetic appearance has become deeply ingrained in our awareness for many reasons. So if you have a child that pulls, remember that anything longer than a manageable portion of time is basically ungraspable to them. And the younger the child, the shorter the time!
So, back to my topic of manageable portions of time. As an adult, one of the tricks that helped me immensely in decreasing my behavior was this:
I would have an impulse – and was aware of it. THis took some practice. Instead of just routinely pulling/picking as I had done for over 2 decades, I began to insert a little time. Like this.
When the feeling arose to move into behavior, I simply acknowledged it and told myself “You can pull in one minute if you still want to.” Sometimes I couldn’t catch myself before the behavior started, but over time it began to be easier to be that aware.
I didn’t just try to fight the urge, as I had spent years doing just that to no avail. What I worked to do was gain awareness, and to push it out a bit. Because I didn’t say “no pulling,” there was not a fight inside. No sense of being deprived of something I wanted. There was a sense of waiting. Over time, I began to experience what feelings were UNDER the waiting, and for me that was a big key.
After a while, there were times when I simply didn’t need to pull at the end of the “wait.” It was profound to discover that I could live through the experience of an impulse and actually survive! That yes, by approaching it gently and not with a fight attitude, it could change.
In many ways, I had to address that “kid” level of awareness inside myself when I learned to delay and insert bits of time. It was so SHORT – sometimes just a few seconds. But it really, really made a huge difference over time.
SO from seconds, it became minutes, became hours, became days, became weeks, became months, became years.
Today I live with the awareness that yes, pulling and picking behavior may arise at any time, but today I am ready and willing to utilize all my tools.
It has become a pathway to being present. Odd, but true!
Much love, Christina
10 Comments
I just read your bio and recent blog on resisting the pulling impulse for even a minute. Thank you so much for sharing so candidly of your struggle and success. My daughter, age 17, has been pulling eyelashes, and hair from various parts of her body for 2 years. I am not sure she has been able to identify those moments of impulse yet to even be able to talk herself into waiting a minute to pull. Your practical tools give me hope for her that though this might be a lifelong battle there are ways to overcome the impulses.
As school has started again by day 3 my 8 year old has been pulling out his hair with both hands. We have an IEP that says he can use “fiddles”. He has permission to wear hats but then he stands out more as he is the only one allowed to. The kids just make him worse, silent teasers I call them as they makes gesters and faces at him. Teacher can’t hear them and never seems to see them doing it!
Any advise on what else we could add that may help??
I have shaved his head down to a mohawk to try to hide most of bald spots but the cost is killing us to get it done every 10-15 days.
Thanks for this blog- never knew what they were till I found yours.
Hi there! Sometimes educating the class is something that can change the dynamic – His classmates need to know it is a real condition, and that it is not something to make fun of. Often times children will attack what they don’t understand. I do know TLC has school talking points if you want them, I can forward them to you. Let me know, love Christina
yes please forward them to me
I think you also need to educate the educator!! I had to wear a hat in 10th grade because my pulling got so bad. I had one class in which hats weren’t allowed. So my mom wrote a note to the teacher explaining the disorder and I talked to him about it. He was a favorite teacher of mine but I was still pretty nervous. But since he had the understanding that there was a good reason I had a hat on, he just relaxed the rule for our hour of biology. I just wore a baseball hat which was common even for girls at that time, and no one else was reminded that we had a no-hat rule in the class. Just by the teacher knowing what was going on and changing the dynamic of his classroom, it made life a whole lot easier for me.
Also, if you insist on shaving his head, maybe put the $ you would spend on haircuts and just buy a barber’s shaver of your own. If his hair is short you don’t need a fancy one.
I would love some info on school talking points. My 12 year old daughter came home yesterday from school upset because some seniors had made fun of her because she doesn’t have any eyelashes. Thanks for all of your help.
Hi Wendy,
My daughter has an IEP that was set in place before the trich showed up (anxiety, “mood disordered”) so they classified her as emotionally disturbed. Now with the trichotillomania…and it is severe, I am wondering if I should ask for the category to be changed to neurological impairmant?
Thanks!
Leah, does your daughter have issues separate from the Trich that indicate an IEP? That should be the main diagnosis and the school psych should be making that determination. That’s their job as they have the appropriate screening tools. Often, Trich can be seen as a secondary behavior to other “impairments”. I have many students with autism who pull their hair, as well as a child with Williams syndrome, and a couple of kids who have multiple impairments. So just because they pull their hair doesn’t mean the diagnosis or category would need to change.
Hi Christina,
Thanks so much for sharing this post. I’ve just found your blog today and it was a much needed gift, as I’ve been struggling and feeling quite hopeless. So this was a good reminder that it is possible and some useful tools…thanks for the encouragement.
Much love, Rachel
Christina, Jennifer just linked to this post in a HDaT email and I think it is a great reminder. It is way too easy for us, even as adult pullers, to think too big & lofty. It is a skill to take a large goal and break it down into manageable and achievable part. I see lots of goals written by teachers in the schools and even then it is easy to get too broad & set kids up for frustration. Baby steps are the way to go, because then there are lots of successful moments to celebrate along the way to stay encouraged. Before you know it, you’ve met a bigger goal and can really celebrate!