I have always loved Easter and everything about it including the candy. With a major sweet tooth and weakness for chocolate, it seemed fitting to indulge on this day of celebration. That was until I started following the John Kender diet after learning that sugar and chocolate literally cause me to pull out my hair.
In the past eight months I have made major changes in my diet, but it is far from perfect. I still eat things I know I shouldn’t from time to time and I always regret these choices when I am battling intense urges. It is harder to resist the sweets I so love when they are right in front of me, say when I am packing Easter baskets or when there is leftover candy that just didn’t fit in the baskets. At least the candy is gone now, so I can detox from all of this sugary madness. Its crazy how fast the sugar cravings come back once you start eating it again. If I can just get through a few days with no sugar things will be much better…no more cravings or sugar induced urges and pulling.
Considering my sugar intake, April has been off to a less than stellar start. My scores for the first 10 days of April are:
6-5-7-2-2-2-1-7-7-3 (5 good days and 5 bad days)
My April goal is to have more good days than I did in March, so I need to kick some trich butt for the rest of the month.
This is a great post about realizing trich is something you have, not something you need to feel guilty about. I too have struggled with this. I also love your explanation of short term goals. Just stopping is too big, but taking it one moment at a time will slowly lead to progress. I admire your outlook, keep it up.
Strands of Sanity
When I first started to finally tackle this, to finally rid myself of this I told myself that I was going to just stop doing it. I thought that my inability to stop pulling out my hair was due to a lack of motivation. That I was not trying hard enough, that I just didn’t want it bad enough and I needed to kick my butt into high gear.
After some therapy and doing tons of research on this I have come to realize that expecting myself to “just stop” is unrealistic, especially since I have been pulling for 20+ years. I have had to learn to forgive myself for that. Everyone who has this knows that forgiving yourself is one of the biggest challenges. It is so difficult to separate it from yourself and realize that it’s not your fault. It’s not.
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The last few days have been rocky. My daily scores for the last week in March were
0
0
6 (coffee in the AM)
8
1 (eggs in the AM)
2
8 (thanks eggs…now I remember why I need to ditch the yokes)
I see a definite connection in my bad days and the bad foods I ate preceding the pulling. The longer I keep a food journal the more of these patterns I see. It reaffirms my commitment to the John Kender diet. It is a tough diet to stick to, but it is worth the benefits. It’s been 8 months since I began following the John Kender diet and using a food journal. In that time I have learned what causes pulling (for me) and how long it takes to affect me and wear off. I have learned what I can eat, but am still looking to increase my options. There are so many specialty cookbooks for different diets, but unfortunately no one has made a John Kender diet cookbook…I’ve looked. I’m working to create my own collection of recipes and meals that are good for us trichsters.
This month my goal was to have more good days than bad days in regards to my pulling. I use Claudia Mile’s recommendation to rate my pulling from 0-10 each day. The rubric I created to rate my pulling is below. I defined good days as 0-3. I have accomplished my goal of more good days than bad. My goal for April is to have more good days than I did in March.
This month’s totals:
| Score |
0 |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
| # of Days |
8 |
1 |
7 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
5 |
4 |
1 |
1 |
|
Good = 17 |
Bad = 14 |
| Score |
#Pulled |
Rules Broken |
Time Spent Pulling |
Areas pulled From |
| 0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| 1 |
1-3 |
|
|
1 |
| 2 |
4-10 |
1 |
<5min |
|
| 3 |
<20 |
|
|
2 |
| 4 |
20-30 |
2 |
<15min |
|
| 5 |
30-40 |
|
|
|
| 6 |
40-60 |
3 |
<30min |
3 |
| 7 |
60-80 |
|
|
|
| 8 |
80-100 |
4 |
~1 Hour |
|
| 9 |
100+ |
|
|
|
| 10 |
Way too many to count |
5 |
>1 |
I blog about my personal struggle with trichotillomania and bipolar disorder. I also discuss helpful strategies, reflections, and treatments.
Trichy Insights 