I have never posted before, but I just wanted to offer you hope and support. I empathize with your struggle. Here is the advice that has helped me: The goal of being completely pull-free can seem totally overwhelming and impossible. Instead, just try to go for one day. When you feel your hands going to your head, try to stop yourself and ask, "Must I pull right now? Can I wait 5 minutes? 10 minutes? Even longer?" Just see if you can go for one day, and record it on a calendar. If not pulling is unbearable, see if you can control it --maybe just one or two hairs, and record it on a calendar. See how many pull-free days you can have in a row. Try to replace pulling with deep breathing. Try to be kind and nurturing to yourself (which I know is extremely difficult, especially if you come from an unsupportive family). The only strategy that has worked for me is to set a goal of being pull-free for one day...and then waking up the next day with the same goal. Please maintain hope. Please don't give up! I find deep breathing, placing my hands on my abdomen, focusing energy into my breath, to be a helpful way of directing the energy away from my head. I hope this helps you, and I wish you strength and comfort. You are not alone.

I'm so sorry. Trich is a horrible enough thing to have in a western country, so to have it in such an unsupportive environment sounds terrible. This group could really help you feel supported and accepted. We all know that Trich is not our fault, it's NOT at all easy to control, and it's not weird. It's quite common. There are lots of similar conditions like nail biting and cheek biting. Everyone has their own issues.

Welcome to our lovely group :)

Your support means a lot to me . It has been so long since i have any kind of support from anyone , and reading these words from both of you and in my messages just made me feel very emotional.
I'm trying to be positive and full of hope and I'm going to try again and again .
I need to set up a goal for myself , i don't what is it this time but i'll try to find something that encourage me to stop pulling day by day . I also do nail biting , i have been doing that since i was a child (4 or 5 years ) but it's as severe as when i was young . I used to bite my nail so much that it hurts or bleeds but now it's very mild and i'm more focusing in stop pulling and not caring about my nails.

This article might really help you. It definitely helped me and a lot of others. It's by trich expert Claudia miles. http://helpforhairpullers.blogspot.com.au/2014/04/oh-no-i-undid-all-my-progress.html?m=1

Welcome to our wonderful group, and, no, you are not alone in this. I would add this technique to your calming routine to help focus your "in the moment" since you have nail biting (which is my other major stress reliever). Put your finger on your forehead between your eyebrows and touch your tongue to the top of your mouth. This works for me, it might work for you.

You do not need the support of friends, family, in order to succeed with coping with trich, you have to believe in yourself and give yourself room to grow beyond the simple belief that friends and family offer. They are helping from their perspective which is less than yours. You can not change their perspective, you can change how you react to it and in doing this, it will change the situation for your well-being.

Sometimes, we have to project that confidence even when we feel alone, lonely in a crowd of people, places, and things. So, know you have your support team here, and in your heart!

Best wishes, hugs instead of tugs!

[Confidenticandoit] OMG thank you for this amazing article , it has a lot of points and i hope it will help .
[Mideyebrow] You're right about what you said .
My problem is that when any of my family member say stop it or make any comment about my TTM i tend to pull even more and more , IDK if i do that cause i get angry or is it a way to show them that i don't care and i'm cool with it even though i'm not .
I shaved my head 2 days ago. I shaved it many times before and usually when i do i don't think about pulling but this time i have this eager to pull my hair but obviously i can't :/

drtm you and I are in the same boat - both shaved our heads recently. Glad we are both back here, where we can receive so much support and understanding. To me coming here is like free group therapy.Please don't give up on yourself. We trichsters tend to be very hard on ourselves. Let's not do that. One day at a time, one hour at a time .... we can stop pulling. Let's make a commitment to check in daily and to msg each other through our times of struggle and times of victory. We are here for each other!

No problem. It's great, isn't it? And there are more on her site. She also does counselling via Skype and whatsapp, for a fee.

Oh, that must be very frustrating. Perhaps massage with a nice brush might help?

drtm i really admire your courage to write something here, thats not an easy step to take in the first place, especially when feeling so hopeless. but i think the fact that you chose to write, that you chose to voice your story and your struggle shows how much you do believe in yourself and have the strength to change your situation. and that alone gave me strength to begin to share mine. i'm also a student, in law school, so i can imagine that the stresses you face in medical school are not very different than mine. i spend all day sitting in front of the computer or in the library studying and cramming for tests and i never getting enough sleep and the combination of the two makes it so hard to resist the urges to pull.
its good to hear other peoples voices and know that i'm not alone, that none of us are alone.
i'm so sorry and my heart goes out to you for your family not accepting or being more supportive of your struggle, that must be really difficult, and confusing and frustrating. but you still have not let it become a barrier to find help and support in other ways.
my family is completely locked out from me and my struggle with trich. the only person i've ever had more than a few sentences of an exchange with is my mom when i asked her for financial help to pay for therapy. thats it. and that was soooo hard and i felt so humiliated admitting that i have trich. that was about 4 years ago. since then no word has been spoken of it between us. but then about a month or two ago she made a comment that she was concerned about me and i totally was taken aback because it was out of hte blue and because i felt like she trespassed into wayyyyyy tooooo vulnerable a space, a space that i feel like i should determine who is allowed to enter into, and when. and i was just so stunned that my immediate response was to protect my own vulnerability and i completely shut her out. i know i really hurt her feeligns and i feel bad and objectively i would want to allow her in, shes my mother and she cares and wants to be there for me, but its too painful for me to let anyone in and talk about it. the only person i feel safe talkign about it with right now is my boyfriend. my dream is to one day be able to go public about trich and open the door for other people to feel like they are not alone. my dream is to write an aritcle in a big newspaper or go on tv or something that will just raise awareness about trich and tell the world that each and every one of us has some internal struggle but that it can be overcome and that it is nothing to be ashamed of. but at the moment i feel too vulnerable and humiliated by it to even say anything to my mom let alone the greater public. i first need to reach that place myself before i can share it with others. but that one far off day tv interview gives me some strength today...
and you also gave me some strength to share too so thank you

mellifera thank you for the great advice about channeling the energy somewhere else through breathing. i think that will really help both mentally and physically. sometimes pulling just creates more stress bc i'm angry with mysefl for pulling - so bad energy feeds more bad energy. but your advice is saying - take the bad energy and turn it into good energy. dont be angry with yourself be patient with yourself and regain control of the situation by breathign calmly and funneling the energy elsewhere.

wishing all a good day, or hour, or half hour or whatever you have committed to right now!

Awwww .. your replies mean a lot to me . And ilanit reading that i somehow affected you is just so emotional to me and i'm glad for that , and you inspired me back .
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My 1 st post in this group was this titles as #Losing_Hope
I'm so proud to tell you that i'm now 10 days pull free and starting my 11th day .
Signing in daily really helps so please try your best to do it .
It passed 4 am at my place and i'm so sleepy , but i just wanted to share you my update.

Hurrah for the success you are having! Keep on giving yourself encouragement and support!

You can do this, stay strong!

Thank you all for your support . I've just started my 33 day PF . I had one slip pulling a hair or two but i managed to stop right away which impressed me because i always have this feeling that once i pull one i will be pulling a 100 as this what usually happens with me . But this was my first time to stop myself from pulling successfully .

I decided to share you guys some of my bad experiences with ttm . I've learnt a lot from the bad experiences of some members here who were brave to share those sensitive moments in their lives. And i realized that we can learn from our successful stories as well as other parts of our journey with ttm .

Plz read my post in the link below and i hope it might inspire someone out there .

http://www.dailystrength.org/c/Trichotillomania-Hair-Pulling/forum

You are doing awesome, keep up the hard work. I will head on over and read that in a few minutes, my little one is waking :) Thank you also for being such a huge support to all of us, it is so very much appreciated. Sometimes this journey can seem a bit lonely without you guys!

I have just started my senior year in medical college. The stress is kicking high from day 1 . I have just finished my shift at the hospital and it is already around midnight and i still have a lot to do in a very limited time. I wanted so bad to pull my hair but i'm trying my best not to. I decided to come here to write anything ....and i found some hugs and msgs full of positive thoughts and support . Thank you all for sharing and supporting .
47 days pull free is completed ^_^

drttm good luck starting this new year at university and at being pick free!!! Everyone here is supporting you and cheering for you!! And the best part is that that same support ends up helping us all! Just reading your own message gave me strength after a tough week :)