My first battle with hair pulling ended after about nine months when somehow, I managed to will myself to stop pulling. Finding my first bald patch, about the size of a 2p coin, had seriously freaked me out and so I’d been determined to stop. The first few days were absolute hell. It was like my fingers were magnetically attracted to my head and the longer I didn’t pull, the stronger it became. Have you ever held two magnets close enough that you can feel the pull between them? It was a bit like that but all through my body. I won’t lie, the thought of shutting my fingers in a door so that I physically wouldn’t be able to do it did occur to me more than once. I couldn’t concentrate on anything; my whole brain was focussed on not pulling out my hair. It becomes a habit and you do it without thinking about it so when you try to stop, you have to think about not doing it all the time, just in case you slip up. And then the need to do it just overwhelms everything.

I’m not sure that feeling exactly faded but I learned to compartmentalize: I managed to cram it into a box and think around it. That sounds impossible now. When I couldn’t do that, I tied my hair up in a ponytail and allowed myself to pull the hair out of that, the resistance from the elastic band fulfilling some of that need. But I wasn’t allowed to pull it out. It wasn’t perfect but it did keep me from relapsing. For a while, that is. I didn’t pull for over a year but then I started again. I’m not even sure why, if I’m honest. I think I was tired. I was tired of fighting it. The urge to pull hadn’t gone anywhere and suddenly I was back in that vicious cycle, pulling and pulling and pulling.

That was about eighteen months ago. I’ve tried all my old tricks: wearing a hat, playing with fidget toys, fiddling with my spinner ring. But so far nothing has really worked. The hat worked best but the anxiety of not being able to get to my hair almost sent me into a meltdown and at the moment, pulling out my hair is the lesser of those two evils. I guess it’s not surprising, considering the amount of anxiety I’ve been dealing with recently.

In the last couple of weeks, I tried (again, hence the 2.1) to stop. In some ways, I was lucky the first time round: when I was pulling, I tended to pull from a point that was hidden by my hair most of the time. I mean, it still sucked but at least I didn’t have to deal with anyone else’s reactions. But this time, I’m pulling from all over my head: my fringe, my parting, my hairline… Literally everywhere. I’m triggered by a change of texture in my hair, from smooth to almost crunchy (if you have any advice on ‘fixing’ this, please let me know!) and that’s not specific to one area. And that means it’s much more likely to be noticed. Maybe it’s vain but that’s my motivation for stopping and I figure any motivation is good motivation.

So last week I tried to redirect my pulling away from my parting and my fringe. I was ‘allowed’ to pull from other areas but not from those two. I thought I was doing okay until I realised that I was chewing the inside of my cheek, with the effort or the redirected urge I don’t know. I stopped as soon as I realised, although not before it had bled quite a bit. Again, I thought it was all okay until a day or so later when the inside of my cheek started to hurt. I figured it was just healing but within a few hours, the pain was blinding. I’m writing this out and thinking, “This is ridiculous. You’re exaggerating. It was just a little gash inside your cheek.” I’ve always been sensitive to pain and easily overwhelmed by it but I don’t think that matters. In all seriousness, it was so bad that it made me cry (which only made it worse because, obviously, you move your mouth when you cry). It was that strong. For three days, it was so bad that I wasn’t able to do anything. I was barely able to eat, or drink, or talk. I almost cancelled an event I was looking forward to because the thought of having to talk and smile all evening was unthinkable. I woke up on that morning feeling a little bit better so I did decide to go but it was still very painful.

A few days on and I’m mostly pain free. That was not something I’d expected when I made the decision to try this again and it was really upsetting. I’m not sure when or what I’ll try next but I’m sure I’ll find something.

Conclusion: Failure.

Lesson learned: Be careful of where you redirect the urge and/or the effect that your attempt is having.