Day 1

This is day 1 of a hard and long process. It's time to say goodbye, forever. But before that, I wanna tell you my story.

I started my "relationship" with trich at the age of 7, when I started pulling out my eyelashes. I didn't know why, I just liked it, it was almost pleasurable. From then on, my mother believed that my eyelashes had fallen out due to a cheap mascara I wore doing a dance show once, and took me to uncountable doctors and bought hundreds of different eye creams, hoping that her little girl would get her eyelashes back. Even I believed that was the reason; I didn't know any different, I didn't realize what I was doing.
Now I wish that just one of those doctors had been capable of seeing that my eyelashes hadn't fallen out but been pulled out. Maybe that would have stopped me.

At 17, after a decade of pulling with nails and tweezers until my eyes were red, and after a couple of years spending all I could on make-up to cover up my eyelash-less eyes, I decided to google my problem.
That day I broke down in tears. I discovered thousands of other people with the same problem as me. That it wasn't that I was crazy, it was an actual problem. I felt so relieved.
After my discovery, I found the courage to tell my boyfriend at the time, who was amazing with it. After that I was able to tell my best friend, my mother (who cried a lot and blamed herself), my brother, two other close friends and my current boyfriend. The support I recieved was amazing.

Weeks after my discovery, with the help of my bf at the time, I was able to stop pulling from about October of that year 'till February, when we broke up. That showed me that I was capable of stopping pulling, and that I shouldn't depend on anyone but me to recover, because if I don't, when that person leaves so do the lashes.

It has been more that a year and a half since I discovered I had trich. Since I stopped, started, stopped, started. Kilos of mascara to hide it, hours pulling, counting lashes, crying. It's been hard.
So many times I have said I'll stop. After Christmas. After I turn 18. When summer ends. When 2012 ends. But it hasn't worked. I've tried keeping notes, a diary. I now know when I pull, and why. That doesn't mean I can stop it.

One thing I have promised myself, though, is that when I have finally recovered from Trich, I will tell eveyone I know my story. I want to be there for other people that have suffered, I want to be an inspiration.

There's a chance no-one will read this. Maybe they will, I don't know. But as an aspiring journalist, writing is a way of relaxing. It calms me down. And if only one person reads this, then it will have served its purpose.
This blog will be my diary. From today on, I'm gonna do everything I can to stop, forever. I will use photos to show my progress. I will share my victories and my failures, my days without pulling and my (hopefully less frequent) outbreaks. If I can do this, anybody can.

No matter what, never stop smiling.
G xxxx