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farihi , 12 Nov 2018

Trich for 10 years, stopped for 5 years, now back again (understanding the patterns and why i'm doing it)

My story with hair pulling started when i was 12 years old, it lasted for the 10 next years until i turned 22. of course during these 10 years, i lost confidence in myself, i was ashamed, anxious everyday about anybody figuring it out or seeing my huge bald spots that i spend a lot of time hiding before leaving home.
So you can imagine the suffering during all this period for a teenager, skipping going to the beach with my friend, unconsciously pushing boys away and not having a boyfriend because he will sooner or later figure it out, and the list goes on...

When i turned 22, i left my parents house to live in china, where i was studying but at the same time, i started doing what i've always wanted to do, traveling and playing music. During my first trip out of china, to the Philippines (first time ever on an island, i always say that that country somehow healed me), i decided for the first time to not hide my bold spots, and be open about it if anybody asks me about my baldness (surprisingly, no body did), and realized without really putting any effort in it, that during my 15 days in the Philippines i didn't pull my hair, not even a single time! i was released, accepting myself, and learning to love and cherish myself.
Since that day, for 5 years Trich was out of my life (except for one highly stressed period while writing my thesis, a thesis i didn't want to write in the first place because it somehow meant the end of my adventure in china and the beginning of "adulthood" by getting a job and not having as much freedom to travel, but the pulling could be controlled a bit because i didn't want to lose my beautiful hair and go back to wherever i was in the past again).

For 5 years, i could restore all my hair back, i was set free from Trich, i was happy, i thought it was just a bad memory from my past, until recently, when i came back to Morocco (my country), started a job there that i didn't really like, went through a break up, was unhappy about my situation, and feeling low. That's when my old friend Trich decided to move back in and keep me company..
Excessive hair pulling, huge bald spots that soon won't be possible to easily hide, constant awareness about if people can notice them, and losing my beautiful curly hair.. i quite that job and moved back to china, but my old friend is still around..

I'm trying not to panic, and not make of it a big deal, for if i do so it will just get worst.. i have been observing myself and trying to see if there are any repetitive patterns to my pulling habits and realized, that whenever i was doing things that i love, whenever i was traveling, playing music, was very cheered up, and surrounded by people i love, days could pass without me pulling a single hair.. So for my case, it's all about balance and harmony, two things that i should keep in my daily life.
I understand now that whenever my hand goes up to my head and try to pull some hair, it means that my subconscious is trying to tell me that things are not alined, that something is wrong, that i should fix it..

Today Trich is still around, it taught me to listen closely to myself, to take a few steps back and try to understand what's wrong, but i'm sure Trich is gonna leave, just like he did before, as soon as i find the missing tiles of my puzzle.

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