heh heh heh there is no sunshine in winter!!!! ah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

amazingly its 10 am again and I have not done anything productive, I haven't even made my to-do list for the day.

TODAY IS DAY SEVEN..... LET'S GO.....

Congrats on a week! make sure you do something special/ treat yourself for your hard work! Keep it up :)

Wow, I think today is day 8.

Yesterday I definitely was picking at my hair ends again, twiddling and sucking them.

I dont know how strict I should be with myself about this behavior........... it's like I "allow" it because I'm like, well, so long as I don't pull it out and play with it like my pulling ritual.....

Sucking and chewing on hair is still A GROSS BEHAVIOR THOUGH. What if someone catches me doing it in the office?

8 days = WOOOOOOOOO!

As for sucking and chewing on hair, I agree that it's loads better than pulling because it only damages the ends of your hair, not the roots. HOWEVER, do you really want to be damaging the ends of your hair, given how much you paid for that awesome haircut to get them all neat and even? C'mon. Keep it beautiful (which it certainly is)!

Note: if I'm confusing you with someone else and you aren't the one with the awesome haircut story on Trich World, ignore everything I just said. Haha.

Wow 8 days!!

I find it very hard to stop playing with my hair. Ugh. It requires a ridiculous amount of discipline. Very hard to enforce no playing while you're working.

I just pulled out 2 fringe hairs!!!

Cuz I was playing with them too much.

Sooo don't want to count them, but it was still an undeniable pull.

Thus ends my 11-day pull free streak.

I think I am still doing pretty good though. 2 hairs every 11 days feels so much better than 40 plus hairs every day. I am not going back to that, possibly ever. I just don't see how I could allow myself to.

You're right, 2 hairs in 11 days is such a huge improvement. But there's still room for even more! Congrats on an 11 day streak, and go for 12 this time. :)

I've been playing a lot too. Must remember to keep my hands down!

YAY TO 6!! the first few days are the hardest.

Pull free yesterday but then I just pulled 2 hairs just now.

They were very, very deliberate pulls. As in, I was writing, feeling stressed out, raised my hand to head, and pulled out two hairs in quick succession, seeking relief.

It was somewhat unlike my previous slip-ups, in which I'd be playing with my hair (twisting it and stroking it), and a strand or two would come out in my hand.

This was definitely a pull intended to deal with negative emotions and stress. Not super cool.

Now I am fighting such strong urges to pull again. UGH. So do not want to pull again. Gotta sit on my hand when I am not typing, breathe, and just tell myself if my hands are not on the keyboard typing, then I need to be sitting on them and thinking about what I am going to type next.

URGES!!!

Here's a thought.....possibly a dumb one......! When the urges start getting really intense, try triggering some other kind of urge. If you drink massive amounts of fluid, your bladder urges can overpower your pulling urges. Maybe by the time you're back from the bathroom (AGAIN), the pulling urge will be lessened. If Pavlov was entirely correct in his theory, your pulling urges may start to trigger the bladder urges, and at least you'll have a way to circumvent the resultant action for the time being. I know that sounds weird, but then I use chocolate and pizza to study for and then take exams. Just the smell of either of them makes my studying more effective, and I can recall what I was reading while I was eating it!

Incidentally, after our second visit, my therapist retired!!! ;-)

Ack! Damn those negative emotion related urges... I'm currently trying this thing called the 7 day mental diet. So far step 1 asks you to simply notice all of your negative thoughts. The 2nd step asks you to not dwell on these neg emotions, but instead tell yourself that you're strong enough to get through anything. I'm waiting for third step. Following it via the posts of a psychologist on trich world, Mary something. Cheryn has praised her.

It's a very pleasant diet! But alarming to realize how many negative thoughts I harbor.

You are doing very well though trish. Ha autocorrect made your name "trash", that coulda been awkward!

Ha ha ha ha Trash....

Well I made it through the rest of yesterday pull free but just now (1.03) I had another very deliberate pull in reaction to my stressed out and negative thoughts.

Basically this week I have been thinking about requesting a 6 month leave of absence from my job. Because I am so tired of working at my desk. I just think about the fact that I am gonna be stuck at my desk churning out blog posts for the rest of the year and I just feel like dying.

But I have no idea how to go about requesting a leave of absence and not getting fired. There are not a lot of jobs of news media these days. This makes me feel guilty and wretched for hate, hate, hating my desk job on some days (there are other days I do not mind it).

Anyway, need to try to stay pull free for the rest of the day. These emotional pulls are not.... cool.....

Annnnnd I just totally bit off my right pinkie nail, which is gonna take months to grow back.

Fuck.

1.35

Pulled another hair

Fuck, fuck, fuck.