The nervous passenger

The day was December 26, 1999.  My brother David & I decide to venture to the mall for some boxing day shopping.  It had snowed on Christmas the day before but weather appeared to be in check, so we headed out in his little white mazda pick-up truck.  We were 2 minutes away from home when going over a hill, we lost control on some black ice & ended up in the ditch.

That day feels like it was yesterday, 13 year old me, with no control over what is about to happen & just hoping I didn't die.  Clearly we didn't die, we were totally fine & my parents came to get us and really it was no big deal but that really was the turning point for my control issues.

The habits I have now formed when being a passenger in the car relate to that day & to my mothers passenger nerves.  As I discussed here , my mom has a lot of anxieties & OCD's that I have inherited and this is a major one.  It wasn't until I began driving & began being a passenger in my friends vehicle, that I realized the depth of this issue.

The reality is, when I am in a vehicle and not driving, I cannot hold back any thoughts that come to my mind.  Following to closely? You will hear it.  Awful lane change?  You will know.  Speeding excessively?  I will tell you before a cop gets the chance to.  Whatever the situation is, I can't not tell you when I feel like you are driving badly or dangerously.

Hubby is the main 'beneficiary' of my attacks, since we drive together the most.  I hate this habit because it is one of the few times him & I actually fight.  We have screaming matches in the car because I can't shut my mouth.  I have to say I have gotten 100 times better than I used to be, really going over in my head if it is worth vocalizing my thought but it still happens.  I like to think I am responsible for saving our lives 2-3 times, the rest he had the situation under control.

Hubby demonstrating his stellar driving skills

Now back to my mom & the inheritance of this issue.  I have been lucky enough to have my own vehicle from a young age, so the amount of driving I had to do with my mom & for my mom was quite minimal, but there are those times when I will drive her around and it is clear to me where my vocal passenger syndrome came from.

She checks your blind spot, she yells when brake lights come on ahead, she has to comment on your speed, she gasps...at everything, the list is endless.  She is way worse then me when it comes to this, since I now have somewhat of a control on this issue but the apple doesn't fall far from the tree on this one.  When I was growing up I spent a lot of time in the car with my parents, driving to and from my brothers hockey games, so I think that is when it began getting ingrained because even I have moments where I was like "whoa.  that was my mother" when I say something to hubby in the car.

The car is the only place I generally would have full-on panic attacks.  If we come close to hitting someone, or the weather is bed, my body goes into full anxiety mode, and will linger with me for a very long time.  If we come close to say rear-ending someone, I will not be able to breathe properly until we are out of the car, or about half hour, whichever comes sooner, and then that moment replays in my mind for quite some time.  It was in the car that I really began to recognize my anxiety, the feelings associated with it & my issues that I did have.

It all comes down to being a control freak in the car.  When I am in the drivers seat, I have no problems, since I am in control, but put me in the passenger seat & I lose all control (physically & mentally).  I think between the behaviours I inherited from so many years in the car with my mom, partnered with that ditch incident where the 'control' was out of my hands, I have turned into the definition of nervous passengers.

M.I.A.

So I feel like i've been M.I.A. lately.  When I get 5 minutes to sit down, the last thing I have been thinking about is blogging.

I just wanted to touch in to let everyone know I plan on getting back into the blogging more faithfully very soon.  I have been off work sick, away on weekends, have an exam coming up on saturday & just all around busy so I am finding no time to juggle all my 'to do' list.

Coming up later this week, I will touch more on my weekend reveal but starting next week I will get back into the regular postings.  My hair progress has not changed, so I need to continue to do this in hopes of assisting with my recovery.

Please be patient with me & come back soon!

Weekend Reveal: The Nervous Passenger

Hubby wishes this existed in real life.

The title says it all.  I hate being the passenger in a car.  I am nervous, annoying & have to verbalize every thought that comes through my mind when I am in the passenger in a car. 

Come back later this week to find out more about my passenger seat anxiety & the root of this problem.

Thank god it's friday.

                       
I have had an insanely overwhelming & busy week. This is going to be a quick update as a I have a big meeting in about an hour, but wanted to post before the weekend was upon us.

I am on day 4 of my Intra Force 10 day hair system.  I am digging it so far.  To say if it is has made any changes yet, is too early, but I have been taking pictures of the top of my head & maybe after the 10 days, and viewing the pictures, it will be a more obvious way to see if there has been results.

My pulling has been decent this week.  Yesterday afternoon I felt a little out of control & like it wouldn't stop, but I am becoming more and more aware of it.  I vacuumed my car (which had hair everyone), so I could start from scratch with the hair accumulation in my car & I am throwing the hairs out of the window.  This has been another task that has helped to keep me aware of when I am doing since I am an a/c girl & every time I pull a hair it requires rolling down the window.

I have an issue with pulling the front pieces of my hair, and they look very dry and dead.  Last night I pulled one side back in a bobby pin and managed to not pull the one side I put in the bobby pin so I am going to try this tactic today to see if bobby pinning the front accessible pieces may decrease my number of pulls.

I am starting to notice an increase in followers & viewers of this blog, which excites me.  Leave a comment let me know who you are, what you struggle with and if there is anything you'd like to hear more of or see more of in the blog!

Enjoy your weekend everyone :)  Hubby has a baseball tournament so I am looking forward to another weekend away from the chaos.

Come back Sunday for my weekend reveal.

The Last Bite

Strategic eating.  It sounds silly when I write it that way but it is something I definitely do, and all the time.  After yesterdays post, you hopefully got an idea how much I love food so you won't be surprised at my obsession with the last bite.

Since I love food so much, it is always important for me to finish a meal with the taste and sensation of the best part of that meal. 

The reason I included the McChicken in my reveal post because it is the best example I can give people of a perfect last bite and the reasoning behind it.  When I eat a McChicken there is a very strategic process.  I begin to eat the sandwich like any regular sandwich, but around the half way mark it starts to get strategic for me.  As I get to the middle, I begin working my bites around the edge of the McChicken.  Once I have all the outer crust hangovers eaten, there is about 2-3 bites left, this is when I assess the remaining sandwich for lettuce & McChicken sauce distribution.  The last thing I would ever want is to finish a McChicken on the edge.   A McChicken must be finished on a bite that has equal distribution of the ingredients.  This guarantees that my last bite is going to be the most satisfying bite, with the taste and experience of the McChicken lingering in my mouth even after the sandwich is done.

I could give examples all day of different last bites, like how my last bite of a frosted mini wheats has to be 2 overly frosted bites, that I have put aside and avoided the entire bowl..they must also be upside down on the spoon.   Or how my last bite of a pizza slice has to be a bite that includes crust, sauce & cheese so I get all parts of the pizza in one final bite.  Or my favourite meal of Parmesan Chicken Bowties at Jack Astors....strategically finding a good size piece of chicken, 2 noodles with a bunch of sauce on it & stacking perfectly on my fork for one last hurrah in my mouth!

Jack Astor's Parmesan Chicken Bowties.  My favourite meal ever. 

When I am half-way through my meal, that is when I make the determination what part of the meal is satisfying me the most, which flavours I am enjoying the most, and I ensure that will be my last bite.  Below is a good picture to show what my plate may look like before my last bite.  If I was having a meal and the meat, and potatoes and veggies were all working equally for me, i'd put equal parts to the side & ensure on one final fork bit (...no I would not have an ENTIRE potato like below), I would have my last bite.

Last Bite Contender

Hubby is now able to spot my last bite & will sometimes steal my last bite and literally RUIN my meal.  Even when he fakes taking it when he sees it put to the side, he still raises my anxiety levels.  I love food so when I am eating I mean business, it is not something I do because you need to eat to survive, it is an activity I thoroughly enjoy.  The different textures, the different flavours, the whole experience is really one that brings me happiness.

Even though I know this is a little obsessive, it is truly important to me to walk away from every meal feeling satisfied.  The only way to ensure that is by strategically choosing my last bite & ensuring when I walk away from that meal, the last bite I took was the best bite.

Family Ties

I have talked about my family briefly before (here) but thought it might be of interest to give a little more detailed background on my life.

My parents were married on October 6, 1973. They met while my dad was playing hockey in Milton, Ontario.   They came from such different places -  my mother immigrated to Canada from Italy when she was 4 & my dad is from a small town in northern Ontario.  My mom has always held a steady job our whole lives, while my dad is an entrepreneurial spirit who has never really held a steady job & always strived to give his family more.

My parents & Derek - so much suede happening
Thanks google images!

I was the youngest of 3 kids and we could not have been any different from each other.  My oldest brother Derek is 9 years older than me and he is "the smart one".  He was a professional student for many years, until finding his groove as a film editor.  He is an avid movie buff, a fantastic cook, and one of the funniest people I know.  My second brother David is 5 years older than me and he was "the jock".  He was a natural born athlete, excelling at hockey, baseball & golf and is also up there as one of the funniest people I know.  He now welds for a living & has created the love of my life (aside from hubby), my niece Ava.

On the whole, we have a 'normal' family life.  We are very close, we get together for dinner's on the regular, and sometimes we fight.  That is normal right?

Since everyone knows OCD and anxiety are genetic, you have to assume that it is not just me who has a few screws loose when it comes to mental health issues in my family...and you would be right.  I am probably the one who suffers from the most issues, but I also think I am the only one who really is comfortable accepting and being open with all my crazies. 

We have VERY addictive personalities.  We love what we love, and we can't get enough of it.  We all share one similar addiction/obsession but i'll get to that at the end.

I will start with my dad.  My dad used to be an alcoholic, thankfully I am too young to remember since he has been sober now for 25 years.  Alcoholism is a root of OCD & anxiety, and as much as I think I take after my mom, I know the root of it likely comes to from my dad's side.  I have 2 cousins on his side that also suffer from anxiety and there is a long history of addiction issues with his family.  After he kicked the booze, my dad found a new addiction in Pepsi.  I can recall as a child the side table by my dads chair having about 20 cans on it from that day of pepsi drinking (yes he has diabetes now). 

My mom suffers from similar OCD & anxieties that I suffer from, and a lot of my habits have been picked up from her.  I haven't spoken about a lot of them yet (coming up in weekend reveals), but on top of the ones I share with her, my mom is also an obsessive cleaner, and a closet hoarder.

Derek is by far the least 'crazy' of us all.  He isn't very obsessive about anything(except the family obsession), he has an impeccable memory for dates, which I think is a bit of a branch of OCD, but nothing major.  As a teenager he did have all his VHS taped movies categorized, numbered and then a separate book that would index them, but otherwise there isn't much crazy when it comes to him. 

David I think is the most closeted crazy in our family.  He is a total neat freak, which blows my mind considering how he was growing up. Now, he has a cleaning schedule, like "fridays at 4pm I clean the baseboards".   I don't know if he recognizes it but he is obsessed with routine, schedules & timing.  He grocery shops the same time every week, if a BBQ is at 4, he shows up at 2:30 and then texts you every 10 minutes until you are there...at 4.  He also is a pantry-loader & a label facer.  The first time I walked in their cold cellar, I was stunned by the organization & quantities, and his wife confirming it was him that did this. 

We all have our little bits of OCD & anxieties that make us who we are but ....

There is the family addiction...our obsession and weakness that plagues us all.

F O O D

I can honestly say we are all addicted to food.  I am not exaggerating, it is a constant obsession - when eating, we have no shut off, we eat and eat and eat, until we are ready to explode and we love every single minute of it.  When we aren't eating, we are thinking about eating.  Food is what we do.

I honestly wish I could remember more about food growing up, but I do know there was never a limit.  I know I have always loved it and always eaten beyond my means.  My mom being from Italy where they came from very little, has always had that European mentality of "EAT EAT", and it is one of the outlets for her to show love and feel like she is taking care of us.

You would think my family would be all 300+ pounds.  We all struggle with our weight, some more than others.  I was always fat, and only in the last 5 years have had successes with controlling my weight and being a normal size.  My dad is overweight, like unhealthy overweight, and has no self control EVER with food.  My mom has always been the healthier of the bunch but she struggles also.  Derek was always just a big guy, he is very tall and was always thick.  In the last year, he has dropped almost 40lbs and looks incredible.  David then takes the cake (no pun intended) for the worst eater.  He is an absolute food-aholic.  I cannot even begin to give you guys a picture of what he is capable of eating.  He is the most yo-yo with his weight, but generally resides on the overweight side of the spectrum.

At any given family event, we will have a pasta dish, pizza, potatoes, 2-3 different kinds of meat, potatoe or pasta salad, and then a minimum of 3 different kinds of desserts.  It still never ceases to amaze hubby how much my family can eat.  We all have a love affair with food, and I could write all day about food and the effect it has on our family.  I am in a happy place just thinking of eating.

Some of the greatest family memories are from the last 5 years when we have all moved out, and come back and laughed around my parents table, stuffing our faces and leaving wanting to puke. 

We all may be a little bit crazy, but at least we are not alone.

A random bag

I'd say my progress has been virtually at a stand still this week.  I have days where I do very little pulling & it feels like a success, then the next day, I do a task or activity that ends with a lot of pulling.  This post is going to be totally random but I just sort of feel like talking about a few different things in my life.

I picked up that 50 shades of grey book everyone has been ranting & raving about. 

I know I am supposed to be reading my Brain Lock book but I'm a pretty quick reader so thought it wouldn't hurt to pick it up and see if I enjoyed it.  This book is seriously SOOO good, like could not put it down good.  I had to say I was surprised with how few sex scenes there actually were, I thought it would be like every other page was a new crazy sex-capade, but instead it has such an interesting underlying story.  People are so focused on the fact she is quite explicit with the wording & their sexual encounters, but that is seriously not the good part of this book.  I have to say it went in a totally different direction than I had anticipated, but it was really really good.

I have decided I am not going to buy book #2 or #3 until I have the time to commit to reading them, because I have this feeling, they will consume my life much like this one did.

Now that this book is done and I can resume my regular life, I started my intra force 10 day treatment.  Can't comment on it much yet, since it has only been one day, but my scalp felt super tingly & I'm happy to report it didn't have a negative effect in terms of making my hair look/feel different once styling so I am excited to see what kind of results I can get.  

Last week I went to the hair dresser & she said I likely could stretch out the treatment and not need to use the entire bottle in one day, and she was right.  I was VERY generous with the treatment and I didn't even use half of a little bottle so I think this 10 day treatment is more like a 20, maybe even 30 day treatment.  If it works really well, I'm going to do it for 20 days to kick start, then go from there.

I began to take pictures of the top of my head so I can have a better gauge on if it makes an actual difference.  My hair dresser & I were joking that next time I come in I am going to have this dense, thick upper part of my head, and stringy bottom half from the surge in regrowth.  Sorta something like the image below, but a lot less 80's.

                                                      

Even if I wanted that style, I can already tell the time it would take to achieve is not conducive my schedule.

Weekend Reveal: The Last Bite

The bittersweet last bite.  Bitter because the meal is over, sweet because if done properly, it is the best bite of the whole meal.



McChicken.  The last bite catalyst. 

This reveal is likely going to snow ball my food conversation on this blog. Aside from my trich, my biggest obsession is food. The obsession runs deep & has many different aspects. 

Come back next week for a more in-depth look at the last bite.

Hubby & I

Hubby found me out, my blog that is - I had told him about it, but had yet to share it with him.  In true hubby fashion, he went to type in "home depot" and "hair pull blog" came up, so now he knows. 

We are polar opposites to the regular outsider looking in. I am chatty, opinionated, & very 'vocal'. He is very quiet, speaks when spoken to & quite laid back. Over the course of the last 9 years, he has toned me down & I have helped bring him out of his shell. When it comes down to it though, we are the same person. We love the same things, we have the same values & we want the same things in life.

We met back when we were 16.  He worked with all of my friends at McDonald's and began hanging around them on a more frequent basis.  At a party on the last weekend of summer before we started our last year of highschool, my best friend told him I liked him, she told me he liked me (I am still not sure if this was even the case for either of us) & within 2 weeks, we were dating.

After highschool, he started his apprenticeship immediately, I worked for a year, then headed off to college for 2 years.  Through my college years, we continued our relationship, travelling back and forth to see eachother every weekend.  After I graduated college and moved back home, the reality that this could be something more than young love began to set in.

At 21, we purchased our first home, at 24, he popped the question & at 25 we were married.

The best day of my life

He knew about my trich relatively early as I can't hide much from him.  When we first started dated, I was not suffering from it at all, but when I began college & those aimless nights of sitting at the computer really brought trich back into my life.  It began to spiral as I took on a job sitting at a desk & started to creep into all areas of my life, not just at work, so he began to experience the signs of it more and more.

He is my #1 support, he is always as understanding as he can be with my 'crazies' & tries to help me beat my trich.  It seems in the car or while we are watching TV, he tells me dozens of times a day to "stop".  Despite the annoyance, and that him telling me to stop raises my anxiety levels, I know he is doing everything he can to help me beat this.

His help & support are just another tool in my aresnal of tricks to kick the trich.

Look what arrived!

The mailman knocked on my door this morning & delivered this little doozy to me one day early!  My 10-day Redken Intra Force system has arrived!

Redken Intra Force 10 Day Hair Advance System

This is definitely not what I was expecting it to look like, I thought it was going to be two bottles like all the google images that pop up, but I am happy to see it is 10 individual bottles.  I was wondering how I would know how much to put on each day & how to spread it over 10 days so this system seems much more effective.  The white round things on the side are little nozzles that attach to the top of each bottle that allow you to apply it on your scalp.

I am interested to see if like the other products, it doesn't make my hair oily and I am still actually able to 'style as normal' with no change to the appearance of my hair. 

I am thinking I am going to start it Sunday, since I am really only going to be seeing my family instead of going to work so if there is any negative appearance that comes along with it, I will be prepared versus dealing with it before work on Monday morning.

I am pretty pumped to see if this system is all it's cracked up to be

Straight Shootin' Blog Titles

The nice thing about tracking my pulls and breaks into my ziploc bag was it gave me something tangible to discuss on the blog everyday & it gave me a title for my blog posts.  I always struggle with the title for every blog post.  You want it to be catchy, or at least interesting enough that the reader wants to continue to read onto the post.

I read several blogs, all with different title tactics.  One of the blogs I read, she does a quote by someone about food as the post title - I think this is cheesy and like she is trying too hard to be 'deep'.  Another does a 'pun' regarding the post, which entertains me, since I consider myself to be a 'punny' person, but again, it feels sorta cheesy and like they are trying too hard.

Oddly enough my favourite blog, has my favourite titles.  She literally just has a title that is going to tell you what the post is about - nothing extra, just shooting it straight blog titles.  She's a regular girl outta Australia, who blogs about everyday things and is really successful at it.  http://www.fatmumslim.com.au/   Wishful thinking but maybe one day I won't have anymore crazies to talk about & I can have a successful blog, just talking about my everyday life.

I think I am going to try with straight up blog titles.  She's successful with it, and I would rather not waste my energy trying to think of a catchy blog title every morning.

Alliumphobia: My Onion Phobia

Whenever people find out about this phobia, they are baffled.  They question me on if I had some kind of traumatic event where I was attacked with onions or if they were force fed down my throat as child, but unfortunately for this one, there is no catalyst moment.

Every since I was a child, I have hated onions.  My mom did not cook with them because I hated them so much.  The "fear" aspect of it really began when I became an adult & began eating at other peoples homes & at restaurants on a more frequent basis. 

I had always managed to keep my phobia under wraps from my friends.  My family obviously knew & hubby knew from very early on in the relationship.  I was always very cautious of the meals I ordered, sticking mostly to chicken fingers and fries & limiting the times I would eat at people's houses to occasions where I knew it wouldn't be an onion infused meal.  I did not feel the need to expose the onion situation to anyone. 

Then it happened.  We were in grade 12, and a group of about 20 of us were out celebrating a birthday at a local restaurant and ordering off my "safe menu", I choose a standard choice of Fettuccine Alfredo.  As our meals came out, mine was placed in front of me & the scent of onion hit me like a ton of bricks.  I look down and on top of my beautifully tossed fettuccine alfredo, is what appears to be about half a white onion chopped and spread over the top.  My instincts kicked in and I had to basically launch the plate across the table.  That was the day that my onion phobia was out in the open & my friends have been nothing short of a-hole's regarding the onion phobia since then.

For me it is the smell & the texture of a raw onion that is the basis of the fear. The biggest culprit of onion madness is Subway. As one of my favourite restaurants, I visit Subway relatively frequently - there was even a time where I ate it everyday for a good 2 months (note: I get my lunch paid for).   Whatever genius at Subway decided to put the chopped onions, next to the lettuce container should be shot.  During a Subway visit is when my onion anxiety is at it's peak, since the likelihood of a rogue onion appearing in my sub is off the charts.   I have to thoroughly inspect every sub that I get to ensure no onion has made it's way into my sub, it is a meticulous routine that I could not bite into a sub without doing. If the person before me had onions on their sub, I make the sandwich artist change their gloves since I know the flavour of the onion would carry onto my sub.

Onion beside tomatoe. AMEN!

My worst experience with an onion was at the hands of a friend on a weekend away at a cottage.  After the restaurant experience, there was various attempts at forcing me into having an onion or touching an onion, that were completely unsuccessful, until the worst possible prank was executed.

We were enjoying a BBQ dinner and I had prepared my hamburger to my liking & turned around to put the ketchup back into the fridge.  I found out later in that moment, my "friend" Mike had slipped an entire slice of onion into my burger.  As I took the first bite, I could smell onion but assumed it was the person next to me, and as I went in for the second bite, I felt the slide of onion across my tongue.  To put it mildly, I freaked right out.  The next half hour included some tears, a lot of scrubbing with my toothbrush & even a shower.  To this day, that is the worst onion day of my life.  I can still feel that onion on my tongue, I can still taste the flavours.

I have hopes that maybe one day, I will be okay with going to someones house when they say "We are having lasagne" (the meal I avoid the most at other peoples houses!), or being able to bring onions into my house so my future children can maybe experience them.

Change of pace

This ziploc bag is not working for me. 

As with most tactics I take on to battle the trich, the idea and the execution were very successful for the first week or so, but my brain begins to conquer it somehow, and I am back to square one.  Yesterday, I did keep some hairs in a bag, but as the day progressed, I noticed myself throwing them away without putting them in the bag, like my mind had had enough.

Maybe I get discouraged when I don't see a noticable change fast enough, but whatever the reason, my ziploc attempts are fading.  If I had to guess, i'd say my breaks were the highest day yet, I felt like I was non-stop breaking.  Pulls would have been quite high as well.

I met with Barb in the afternoon & we determined that most of the typical behaviour therapies, such as aversion, are not successful options for me so we are going to try something a little different.

As I mentioned last week, I am starting to read the book "Brain Lock".  I am only about 60 pages in, but before we meet next I need to be done this book.  One technique I have never tried is attempting to beat my other OCD's in hopes that it will correlate to my trich.  In "Brain Lock", they have a 4 step process that has proven successful.  If I can learn these steps, apply them to all my other crazies, then maybe it will somehow positively effect & carry onto my trich.

It is worth giving it a shot, so that is the new plan.  One of these have to work!

Redken Intraforce Review

My hair dresser recommended this product to me about a year ago.  Apparently Redken had been working on this formula for years & have had a lot of success in clinical trials with people with thinning hair & even cancer patients.

Intra Force has "Redken’s most powerful combination of active ingredients: Zinc PCA, Arginine, and Vitamin E".  I have no idea what any of these ingredients actually mean to the world of hair, BUT they gaurantee results within 30 days or your money back. 

I began using just the Shampoo and Toner (a.k.a conditioner) and as I said in my post last week, I have noticed a serious change in some of the strands of hair.  I now have these thick, strong strands I have never had in the past & my only assumption can be due to this product.  In the last 2 weeks, I have purchased the treatment steps & the micro boost formula in an attempt to kick-start some new hair growth.  I have yet to see a noticable difference, likely because my pulling has been so bad, but it makes my scalp tingle so it has to be working right?

You apply the micro boost first, then the treatment & style normally.  The one thing I really like is I can apply both steps to my hair & when I style, it isn't noticable that I have these products in my hair.  When people recommend oils, or other hair products, it sometimes causes my hair to look disgusting, so I am pleasantly surprised with the lack of doing that.

Step 3 - Treatment

Intra Force Micro Boost

 After looking at their entire product line online, I saw the 10 day program to kick-start growth.  They recommend using it twice a year for 10 days, in fall & spring, when hair thins (I had no idea hair thinning was seasonal!) and it's apparently amazing.  So I ordered that from the only place I could find it in canada (www.spaboutique.ca).  I received confirmation that it has shipped and it is supposed to arrive by this Friday, so I will be tracking my progress over the course of the 10 days once I test out this system.

Redken Hair Advance 10-day System

The line at the start may seem sorta on the pricey side but I bought the salon size 1L bottles about a year ago, I think they were like $25/each and I am still using them so really, for a product that really changes your hair, that price is not astronomical.  If you buy 3 bottles per year of Pantene at Walmart, you are looking at about $18-$20 for the shampoo, so when I break it down that way, it is beyond fair the price that I paid.  The Treatment step is around $20 & the micro boost was I think $40.  I find these products go a long way, so even with a steep initial investment, you only have to buy these products one to two times per year.

I think for anyone looking for thicker, stronger hair, this product is fantastic.  You can search salon locations on the Redken web-site to find your closest retailer or you can order it from places like spaboutique. 

I am away this entire weekend, but as long as my shipment comes in on Friday like they said it would, I will be starting my 10 day hair advance system on Monday.  I will take daily photo's of the top of my head & see if it really makes a significant difference.

Hair Pull Fail

So this bag attempt is going horribly wrong.  I was doing so good with it, but I have fallen off the bandwagon for 4 days straight.  Granted I have been very busy & when I leave the house I have not been thinking about it, but you would think it would be a top of mind priority.

I am going to try to get back on it today, I see Barb the Therapist this afternoon & want to make sure I have the bag going so I can track my day better.

Yesterday was a pretty heavy pulling day.  It started off by breaks, but the hair texture was too strong & thick yesterday and I kept opting for pulls instead of breaks.  I have shorter pieces in the front that are pure break-age & I try to stay away from them because they are quite noticable but yesterday, since I hadn't played in a while, they felt so good and rough that I pulled out probably half a dozen within 2 minutes of starting.  I am really struggling with this, and as the days go by, my hair is continuing to get worse and worse. 

This weekend is my birthday and I was really hoping to be in a better place by the time this birthday came around.  I know how much my hair can change in just a month of low pulling, so I really thought when I started this blog a month ago or so, I had thought how nice my hair could be for my birthday.  Well that was clearly wishful thinking as my breaks on the top of my head are slightly out of control at the moment & the bottoms of my hair are totally broken.

Hopefully after my visit with Barb today i'll feel more motivated & something will click.

Everyday people are winning the battle with trich, why can't I?

Too many breaks & too many pulls

Do you ever have those days where you don't feel like blogging because you are grumpy or tired?  Ya that is me today.  I have a few blogs in the works that will be of detail this week, but for today, I am feeling pretty unmotivated when it comes to blogging.

I had a tough weekend.  I didn't keep my ziploc for the second weekend in a row.  Saturday my pulls in the morning were off the charts.  I had an exam to write and for the 2 hours I was in there, I was pulling/breaking.  I occupied my hands most of the afternoon & evening so it wasn't too bad of a day.  My Sunday pulls were out of control in the morning & in the evening, and I was feeling pretty low in terms of my trich.  I saw a picture on a friends phone and my hair looked like absolute shit.  Its so broken in the one spot, a straightner isn't even doing the trick anymore.

So far today, I have only broken 5 hairs & haven't had any pulls, likely thanks to the hoodie wearing.  I am tempted to just keep my hood on and remain in a sleepy ball until tomorrow, but reality sinks in and I have to go to work. 

One story I can share though from this weekend:  I was at a baby shower and the host was telling me a story about how her daughter straight up chopped off the entire one side of her hair, when she left the daughter alone with the husband.  Since I used to do this as a child, my instant reaction is 'this girl is going to have trich'.  I am sure it is normal for kids to cut their hair, but of course since I did it a few times, I assume it is related.

For all you other trich sufferers who read this, were you hair cutters when you were a kid??

Weekend Reveal: Alliumphobia

Alliumphobia - the abnormal fear of garlic that may extend to a variety of plants characterized by their pungent odor including onions, leeks, chives, and shallots. Allium is the onion.

SICK!!!!!!!!

My fear is not of garlic, and doesn't extend to leeks, chives or shallots - it is strictly onions.

Come back later this week for an in depth look at my fear of onions.

....and no, this is not a joke.

Hair Types

Now that I am tracking, it is clear to you people that I pull/break a lot of hairs in one day.  One of the interesting things about my disease is everyday my hair takes on a different feel or texture.  This is obviously mental, as my hair does not change from day-to-day, but I think it also effects the amount of pulling and breaking I do.

Some days my hair breaks really easy, it feels brittle and weak and the amount of breaks just keep on coming.  Other days my hair feels strong, and thick, then the next day it will be rough and textured.  Most people would never think this about their hair, but since I touch mine so much I am very in tune with my hair. 

I started using a product called "Redken Intraforce" about a year ago.  It is a line they have designed for people with thinning hair.  I plan on writing a much more detailed post on this line, but for now, it is just general background.  Since using that product, my hair has really taken on a new form and I find hairs that never were in my hair mix-up before.  I now have 3 hair types, versus my usual 2. 

Below is an image illustrating the 3 hair types.  On the left you will find my thin hairs.  These hairs are light in colour, and literally are so thin and weak they snap with no effort.  The middle hair is what I like to consider my typical hair.  It is a brown shade, it requires some effort to break and I think the thickness is normal of someone with regular hair.  Then there is the best hairs in the world on the right.  These hairs literally excite the sh*t out of me.  You can likely see the significant difference between the left and middle hair versus the one on the right, but all these hairs came from the same head. 

The hairs on the right should not normally be found in my head.  A dark, rich shade of brown that are so thick and strong, sometimes I can hardly break them.  They give such an amazing feeling of hope as I run them through my fingers, that this could one day be the hair type that is supposed to make up my entire head.  The irony of the whole thing is, since I can usually tell when I have found one with my fingers, I need to immediately see how thick it is, so I pull it out, thus reducing the amount of thick pieces in my hair.  ugh!

My mom has hair very similar to the hairs on the right - and yes I know this because I have had her pull out a hair so I can play with it and see the texture/thickness. 

My Mom's Full, Thick Head of Hair

Maybe these new hairs on the right are signs of good things to come & I can one day have hair as thick as my moms.

63 Pulls 59 Breaks

I pulled 63 hairs yesterday and had 59 breaks.  My pulls out numbering my breaks is a first and I cannot figure this one out.  Did my mind subconsciously know in yesterdays post that I commented on reducing my breaks and cause me to pull more?  Could that even be possible?  I don't even know what to make of yesterday.

May 24 Pulls

I guess I should be celebrating not having pulled 100's of hair yesterdays at the rate I was going but I'm just so confused by the shift in pulls versus breaks.  How can I so consistently break more hairs then pull and all of a sudden have it turn around?  I had a bad day in the car, but then I had to drive an hour or so to hubby's baseball game.  I was behind the wheel this time, versus the night before, and this time I would say I pulled 20 hairs in the course of that hour while I was driving and only a few while I was reading.  I think there is a correlation between having people in the car talking to me and the number of hairs I pull.  We drove 2 other baseball team members to the game so I couldn't do my ziploc hoarding so instead I decided to collect them on my thigh and once they were outside warming up I would put them in my ziploc.  By the time we got to the ball diamond, my thigh was COVERED in pulls and breaks.  Having people talking to me must bring my mind to a different place and my hands are left to work a number on my head.

When I am sitting around with people, chatting, I am aware and making a conscious effort not to pull.  When I am in the car, it is as if people can't see me and I just go about my business pulling.  I don't know how I am going to conquer my car battle. 

I started my day early today so I hope my pulls are manageable.  I have a ton of reading to do tonight for an exam I have tomorrow, so I am going to throw my hoodie on hopefully eliminating an entire evening of pulls to bring my numbers from the last few nights down substantially.

Anyone have any suggestions how I can beat this car battle???

64 Pulls 87 Breaks

Yesterday I had 64 Pulls & 87 breaks.  I am pretty dissappointed in these numbers since

I was on track to have a very stellar day, then a couple factors came into play that really took my numbers to the next level.

May 23rd Pulls

Yesterday was my first attempt at writing each pull or break before I put it into the bag.  It seriously saved me a ton of time this morning, which if only for that reason is worth it, but I really felt the benefit of doing this.  For the pull side, I wrote out the numbers and for the breaks, I began doing individual 'ticks', to see if I found any difference between the two psychologically and by the 12th or 13th tick on the break side, I knew I needed to see a number.  I am definitely going to continue with this method of tracking since it was also good because if I accidentally threw a hair about out of habit, it would register and I would be able to still account for it.

Pull Tracking Page
(Not an ad for Monte Carlo Inns...Only piece of paper I had)

As you can see above, I pulled 64 hairs. Throughout the day I did such a good job of tracking each one at a time, but then you will notice near the end the numbers start to jump several at a time. I was at 29 pulls at 5:30pm, a far cry from 80 I had likely pulled the day before at this time. I was feeling VERY good about the days progress & felt I would manage to stay under 40 pulls, but that changed in a hurry. The red pen indicated when I got into the car for the evenings events (not strategically, I only had a red pen). We had to drive about 40 minutes to pick up a washer & dryer, then from there another 30 minutes to hubby's baseball game, then I had an hour of sitting & reading in the car while they warmed up. In the span of less 3 hours, I pulled 34 hours which is more than I pulled in the 8 hours prior.

As I have always known, being in the car is a real problem for me, but the last major jump happened in the hour that I was left alone in the car to read.  Oh mylanta.  With all my mind power, I COULD NOT stop.   The second I began reading my hands would immediately find my head & the worse part was majority of the time while I was reading it was pulls & not breaks.  I am not sure of the correlation, but I am now determined to find some kind of solution for when I am reading.  At home, I can resort to my hoodie, but in this situation of reading in public, I am not sure what to do.

Break Tracking Page

My breaks still continue to be a struggle, but as you can see, the majority of breaks actually happened during the day and only 27 happened after starting my evening based on the red pen.  The problem with breaking is it still keeps me in the habit of playing with my hair which is really the root of the problem (no pun intended!).  I need to work just as much on reducing the breaks & if I do this, I know my pull numbers will be positively impacted.

I think I am on the right track here, and honestly, if I had an evening where I stayed in & was able to wear a hoodie, I know my pulls would have been under 40 & my breaks under 70, but that wasn't the case, so I have to continue to work on the car & reading situation.

One big thing I noticed yesterday, there was probably 7-10 times where I was on the verge of breaking a hair, I felt it about to go & my mind was aware and I was able to resist the urge to break it, even though I knew it was right there, ready to break.  This may seem little to some, but for me, having my mind recognize and resist that moment is something new.  My numbers would have been much closer to 100 if I had followed through with those breaks.

This evening we have another baseball game, this time an hour drive from home, and I will have that hour of sitting in the car reading again.  I am going to come up with something so my pulls or breaks during that hour do not spiral out of control, or even happen.

Brain Lock by Jeffery M. Schwartz

Yesterday during my visit with Barb the therapist she mentioned a book called "Brain Lock: Free yourself from Obsessive-Compulsive Behaviour" (I realize it is spelt "behavior" on the cover of the book, but being Canadian, I can't spell it that way)

Brain Lock - Jeffery M. Schwartz

She has another client who told her about it, and after getting about half way through, felt I could benefit from reading this.  So since my mind was told I should read this book, I obviously had to stop on my way home & pick up a copy - waiting to get home to download it to my iPad would have been too long.

I am still on the introduction but there was one paragraph that really struck home. 

"Washing, checking & other OCD rituals consume hours of time each day & make the lives of people with OCD miserable.  People with OCD may even fear they are going crazy - they know that their behaviour is not normal.  Indeed, the behaviour is apt to be foreign to their personalities or self-image. . . they are unable to stop themselves from responding to the brain's false alarms" 

-Jeffery M. Schwartz, Brain Lock



The main part of this that struck home for me was the bolded section.  OCD does not define a person.  We all have unique personalities and what our mind is doing to us, does not reflect who we actually are.

97 Pulls 102 Breaks

...yikes.  I thought I had plateaued when I hit 70 pulls, thinking that number was astronomical, but yesterday, well it was a REALLY bad day.

May 22nd Pulls

It may have been the extra hour or so of being 'ready', or it could have been because I told myself it was going to be a bad day, but I did not expect THAT much hair.

By noon, I had a fair amount collected in my ziploc & I felt pretty down about the whole situation.  By the time I saw Barb the therapist later in the afternoon, I was full-on having a really bad day.  I think for the first time I was actually playing with my hair while I was in her office.

I had told Barb I knew today was going to be really bad, and how I sorta felt like I threw all progress out the window after my weekend mishap.  She assured me i'd be able to get back on the wagon & today I am feeling much better.  One idea we threw around was tracking my pulls as I go.  I determined I won't be able to count them in my mind, since sometimes the whole ritual of pulling is very thoughtless, so I know I would lose track.  Instead we came up with the idea of writing them down so I am going to tape a piece of paper to my ziploc and mark the number everytime I put a pull or break into the bag. This tactic will hopefully be a better trigger in my mind for where my actual pulls and breaks stand versus seeing them accumulate in the bag and it will save me the 15-20 minutes it has been taking me to count the stupid hairs.

Lets hope I have better results to report tomorrow morning.  I feel the tracking while pulling/breaking could be a great discouraging tool, but I thought that about the bag too, so here's hoping!

PVR Anxiety

I revealed on Sunday that I have some severe anxiety surrounding our PVR.  For those of you who may not have this beautiful invention, it is a digital recorder for all your TV shows.

Our PVR!

I love watching TV - It is a relaxing time that I truly enjoy.  I would rather watch TV and catch up on shows, then go out on a Friday night.  Consider me a loser if you will, but I like to do what makes me happy, and a good episode of House (it ended last night! Seriously upset btw) or Ellen Degeneres usually does the trick.  Leading the busy life that hubby and I lead, we would never get to watch any of our favourite shows if it wasn't for our trusty PVR.

There are times when I will be so busy I will not get to watch TV for a week.  So when the time comes to finally relax and watch some TV, hubby and I take our respective couches, he turns on the TV, and once he goes to our recordings, my eyes instantly shoot to the % full line.

If it is above 85%, my heart starts racing & as he scrolls through, I try to convince him to delete any of the shows that don't need to be there.  Unlucky for me, he has zero care in the world about the level of fullness.  He has the last 3 seasons of Family Guy taking up valuable space, half the episodes he never watches, but can we delete them...of course not.  Unless it is at like 98% or above, there is zero urgency for deleting any recordings.

I don't know what the fear is, I guess that a show I actually care about will not tape, which frankly is not the end of the world, but it doesn't make the anxiety any less.

If I know that the % full is over 85%, I can't focus on anything else.  All I can think about is getting a hold of the remote and getting that number to below 70%.  The entire time we are watching a recording, all I want is to take 3 minutes to go through the list and purge. 70% my safe haven number since I know the likelihood of it reaching 100% before I get to purge again is unlikely, so I feel comfortable at 70%.

Sometimes I get to catch up on a lot of shows, or just come to terms with not having time to catch up on a series, and I delete a whole bunch of shows, and get the % into the 50's and it seriously feels like I won the lottery.  I have to rejoice to hubby "Woot!  Got the PVR to 58%!". 

It's amazing that the tittle things make me so happy, and the littler things give me anxiety.

PS.  Is littler a word?

Problem Zones

So I was bad again.  I didn't keep my ziploc baggy of hairs yesterday and I have no idea what my pull/break numbers were.  I already have my ziploc bag going for today, so I should be on track to monitor my pulls for tomorrow.

I did good for the start of the day and I would say my pulls were under 10 until about 2pm when I sat down on the couch, then the pulls starting coming at a higher rate.

I have touched on this in the past, but I will expand a little.  I have two places that are very bad pull spots for me and I would say 98% of pulls happen in these 2 spots.  First, being my car & second being my couch/being on the computer (they usually happen at the same time).

When I started my current full-time job, my pulling in the car was not an issue, it was actually a spot I never pulled in.  I had been working a desk job, and the pulling was gradually becoming a problem, so when I transitioned jobs, I was excited that I would be in the car since this wasn't a problem zone.  Well that quickly changed.  I would say on a daily basis, 75% of all hairs are pulled or broken in my car.  If I was a 10-2 driving, with both hands on the wheel, this obviously could not be an issue, but like most people, I drive with one hand, which leaves my second hand with nothing to do.  I have tried occupying it by playing with things, but no matter what, as soon as I am thinking about something other than my pulling, I am back pulling.  I have spots in my car where I used to drop the hairs after pulling, that I would have to collect the hairs from everyday and throw them out the window, since the accumulation would be so high.

My second problem spot is when I am on my couch on the computer.  When I am typing a blog post for example, I have no urge to pull as I am using both hands, but the second I stop typing, I am pulling.  I have pulled 2 hairs since I started this post, both when I was done a paragraph and having a thought process on the next paragraph. (I just re-read that paragraph and broke 2 hairs)  Generally I try and always wear a hood when I am on the computer, because I recognize the problem, and in the privacy of my own home, have the ability to wear a hood, but this morning I had an appointment early and I am back home already dressed and ready for the day, so I can't wear a hood since it would mess up my hair.

Hairs on my laptop

I am working on getting better in both of these spots, and the ziploc bag has significantly helped with the car pulling, not as much with the computer pulling, since I think I am in a different state of thinking when on the computer.

I have already pulled more hairs then I normally would pull before 11 a.m. so I am going to try and rope in my pulls for the rest of the day and try and stay present.  If I keep up this pace, I may be in trouble with my pull and break count tomorrow

Hair Pull Fail

Well that went horribly wrong.  Friday around 5pm I went to place a pulled hair into my trusty ziploc bag & it has dissappeared.  Duing my shopping & moving things around to head away for the weekend, my ziploc bag dissappeared.  Somewhere lying on the ground is a ziploc bag full of my little hairs.

Already on my way away for the weekend, and for some reason not packing any additional ziploc bags, I was bagless for the weekend. 

Friday was an average pulling day, and based on my guesses i'd say I pulled about 50 hairs, breaks are unknown since they register less in my mind.

Saturday was slower.  I spent most of the day doing renovations at a student rental property we own so using my hands, equals less pulling.  I'd say my pulls were under 40.

Then in comes Sunday...Oh mylanta.   I spent over 2 and a half hours in the car, then 3 hours sitting around socializing with my family then another 2 hours sitting around a table chatting with my hubby's family.

I had a really bad day.  I don't know if my mind was being defiant because it knew I had no bag to track, but I would say I pulled WAY more than the 70 hairs I tracked the other day.  I was totally out of a control.  I hope that will be my last BAD day.

I now have a game plan to always have additional ziplocs because I believe it reduces the number drastically and makes me more accountable for my actions.

In Canada, today is Victoria Day so we do not work so the plan is some gardening outside which will occupy my hands, so hopefully I can have a low pull day to start my week on the right foot.

Weekend Reveal: Full PVR

I can honestly say, my favourite thing in our entire house, is our PVR.  But it is also the source of this weekends reveal. 

Over 85% ....cue anxiety levels rising.

Come back later this week for more on my PVR anxiety!


PS.  Bering Sea Gold = AMAZING show.  Find it.  Watch it.

41 Pulls 62 Breaks

Well that experiment went well!  Yesterday I drastically reduced my number of pulls to 41 and my breaks to 62 & I got the number of 'pull breaks' to 1.  I wish I could have reported zero but my urges got the best of me, and I broke one pull.

May 17th Pulls

This morning as I was tediously emptying my ziploc bag (the little breaks static to the bag!), I knew immediately my numbers were going to be much lower as the pile looked so different than the last two days.  A rush of excitement came over as I counted yesterdays pulls, anticipating what that final number was going to be.   For the first time in the last 3 years, I felt change coming.  I really can't believe I was able to reduce those numbers so drastically in one day.

I worry about today, as I know I am going to be spending a lot of time in my car, which is my number one pull spot, but I am now totally determined to continue to reduce that number.

Yesterday I started my day a tad later than normal, so that helped with less car time, then when I was in the car, I was really trying to fight the urge.  It really is so incredible that even when I am working so hard to fight something, the second my mind drifts off and thinks of something other than not pulling, I am back pulling.  In the evening, I spent from 5pm-midnight with a girlfriend & out at my hubby's baseball so I was really conscious of not playing with my hair.  On the 45 minute car ride home, I wore my hoodie which also played a part in the reduced number, because normally a 45 minute car ride spells trouble. 

So even though I am celebrating yesterdays low numbers, I cautiously move forward, knowing today could be just as bad as Wednesday.

The weekend is usually low pull season for this girl, so I have high hopes when I recap my  pulls on Monday morning, I will be able to report some low numbers but regardless, yesterday was a step in the right direction, and I'm pretty pumped about the progress.

Enjoy your weekend xo

Pull vs. Break

I go through phases with my trich.  Sometimes my fad of the month is pulling, other times it is breaking.

For the last little while, it has been breaking, and eff, is my hair taking a toll.  Around ear level of my head, you can see a distinct line of broken hairs & the top of my head has an insane amount of what most people would consider to be 'fly aways', but are actually breaks.

Let me give you a little background on how the habit works:  when my hands are left with nothing to do, they immediately revert to my head.  It always innocently begins with running my fingers through my hair, then I proceed to find a single stand of hair, and run it through my thumb nail & the edge of my index finger (see below for the lovely callus' I have developed from doing this so much).  A distinct sound runs through my head of my nail running along the strand of hair, then it always end with the sound of a break, or the sound of a pull.  Yes...they have their own sounds too.

Callus on my index finger

For me, my goal is always a break versus a pull. My thought is even if I break the hair,at least the root is still in my head and I won't be bald.  It is a difficult process to explain to people who don't have trich, but basically when I run my fingers along a strand, the end result is either a break or a pull. 

Below gives you an idea of what a 'break' looks like.  It is a very small piece of hair, usually less than an inch, that comes off the end of a piece of hair, that thankfully has remained in my head.   Succcess!  (Except when I do 95 a day! sh*t!)

Hair "Breaks"

Below is more what a "pull" looks like. It is generally a longer strand of hair, unless I have yanked a fresh growth piece from the top, and I feel some serious 'remorse' after every pull.  Yesterday, I felt this feeling 70 times. 

Hair "Pull"

When I talk about the other kind of breaking - a "pull break" -  I am referring to my habit of taking a 'pull' and in a systematic way, stringing it through 2 of my fingers and breaking it into a smaller piece, then doing this for as long as possible until I feel it is broken to its full potential. 

This entire process - from the initial touch to the final break - is quite thoughtless, and is done in an almost robotic way.  This is why yesterday's achievement of only 3 breaks is off the charts.  On Monday, I would have broken those 70 hairs further to make anywhere from 140-200 pieces of smaller hairs.  Yesterday, to only have done it 3 times, is such a step for me.  I am beginning to bring awareness to myself, fight my urges & break the habit.

This should hopefully help you understand the difference between a break and a pull, then the "pull break".  A wee bit confusing, but in my mind, I have no other way of calling them or explaining them.  I am hoping the "pull break" is quickly going to become a thing of the past, with the other 2 to follow!

70 Pulls 95 Breaks

Yesterday I pulled out 70 hairs & broke 95 pieces of hair.  I am completely shocked at this number.  I would have said my pulls would have been under 50, and I really did not think I break off close to 100 pieces of hair in one day.

Yesterday's Pulls & Breaks

If I keep on this pace, I will pull out 980 hairs & break 1130 pieces before the end of May.

The one good thing that came out of yesterday is I did not consciously break a single fully pulled hair.  My total for the day was 3 - that is full hairs broken smaller than when pulled, and those were strictly out of habit & I was peeved as soon as I broke them and realized.  That is pretty outstanding for me.  Not a single hair on my post yesterday had not been broken to what I felt was its full breaking potential.

All this pulling & breaking talk is even confusing myself so I think it's time for a more detailed breakdown on my trich habit which i'll touch on in my next post.

So depsite the surprisingly high numbers of yesterday, everyday my goal is going to be to decrease that number in my subject line & end goal, for both to be zero.

I think I have a long way to go, but I needed a starting point and here it is:

70 Pulls 95 Breaks

Daily Recap of May 15 2012

Today I am going to begin what is a time consuming but I think beneficial activity - daily recaps.

I had an a-ha moment yesterday where I realized I needed some accountability and something tangible to compare & work towards.

Below are yesterdays pulls.  I took the time to collect every hair I pulled into a ziploc bag.  I would say this is about 95% of the hairs I pulled yesterday.   There was some obvious throw aways that slipped my mind as I still try and get into this new habit, and a few pulls from the morning before I decided to start collecting them.

Part of my habit is breaking each piece of hair, as many times as possible, so I couldn't get an accurate count on the total number of pulls versus breaks which I am going to do today.  I am going to try and not break any pieces of hair.  Not saying I won't break any pieces off my head, but if I pull a full hair, I will not break it into smaller hairs.  I know this is going to spike my anxiety levels but in order to be able to track my pulls, I can't break the hairs.

The picture is slightly disturbing, which I guess is the point of this exercise, to be able to get a realistic grasp of what I am pulling.  When I toss them away, and don't see a day's worth of pulls in one daunting image, it seems less like a problem.  Hopefully this new activity will be the accountability I needed to shock myself into having a lot more self control.

Not breaking my hair after a pull will be a feat in itself and a baby step towards kicking the habit, as I have determined the break is just as addictive as the pull.

Hopefully I can stick to my guns and have a break-free Wednesday.

Enjoy your day xo