So recently I have been researching new ways to tackle TTM. I fell off the wagon I was doing so well for 60 days (the longest I've gone in the past is about 3-4 months, but that was a lifetime ago now). I actually need to get back into a better routine, get my training back in gear, try hard not to over eat macros and to remember to charge and wear my Fitbit and Pavlov wristbands.

Pills I've tried or currently taking:

So the new pills I've decided to try are Probiotics with 30 billion CFU's. I am not sure what 30 billion CFU's does or what it means but it was suggested on a blog.  I read and heard from the TTM community about these and in particular a blog reporting the benefits of it. It's worth a shot. The blog can be found here. Give it a read it's interesting. I'll talk about my experiences further in the blog.

I've tried a supplement back home too a while ago, which was a form of Amino acid and what some body builders use apparently. This particular amino acid is called N-Acetyl Cysteine. I took this back in the day a bottle cost me a whopping £8. It costs more to order some online now in Korea though, however I am willing to buy some of them to take in conjunction with the rest of my supplements.

St. John's worts are supposed to be a natural way to treat depression and anxiety type mental illnesses (supposedly). I don't believe in taking SSRI's or anti-depressant's, just because I don't think it's safe messing with brain chemistry. Now I used to take these, sadly I can't take these anymore, as these interfere with the effectiveness of the contraceptive pill (as in, I can get pregnant on the pill.) It was what influenced me to come off the pill for a few years amongst other things associated with my weight and mood. So this is a no go for now. I can not comment on the effectiveness of these as it was a very long time ago I took these. I didn't take these for a long enough time to really give a verdict on these. But I would like to take these again one day.

Omega 3 capsules are what I use regardless of mental health or not, these are great, I feel less foggy, my attention and memory genuinely do improve If I take these for long enough. I feel they must contribute somehow to my mental health just because of the memory and alertness substantially improves. Fogginess and the fact I zone out a lot and easily distracted is a huge issue for me, so these really work for me. Plus all the other added benefits of fish oil.

Again not TTM related but living in Korea means increased risk of getting ill namely because working with kids, hygiene is not as highly regarded here, I think personally, not to mention the fact people even when contagious still go to work here. Another thing is the yellow dust, which causes me to cough etc. I feel germs can be easily spread in that way also.

Multi-vitamins, people claim you just pee them out but I feel like I should be taking them. I take this brand, because of the added greens which I think is important in maintaining health. These make me pee fluorescent yellow though. So be warned! Again, I don't know if they are effective I just feel I don't eat enough fruit and vegetables and want those added nutrients. I haven't noticed a correlation between these and hair pulling sadly.


Lastly, I used to take a lot of stacks aka bodybuilding supplements in forms of pills (L-carnitine, BCAA's) etc. Basically more Amino acid's. They are NOT steroids I just want to make that clear. They are supposed to aid in weight loss but I did not notice an increase in fat loss. It's best not waste your money on them personally. I took these specific ones due to reviews and the endorsement model. They again have no correlation with mental health in any way.



Pill's I want to try/ yet to try:

I've wanted to try Biotin for a while now after seeing those blue gummy hair vitamins advertised all over social media. I saw the ingredients and it contained biotin amongst other stuff. So I decided it's probably best just to buy biotin tablets at a cheaper price because they aren't endorsed by a Kardashian. Now this isn't associated with stopping the behaviour of pulling but aids in growing healthy hair fast, but as I find a mix of castor and coconut oil so effective in doing the same job and probably more useful in terms of restricting hair pulling, I am not in a rush to add it to my already high consumption of pills.




Probiotics do they work?
So here's the down low on my experience thus far, I received these pills on the 5th May, I started taking them on the day, I take just one pill a day, with a meal because I've only bought the 30 pack, so I didn't waste my money if they proved ineffective. A month seems sufficient enough to test these. The first 2 or 3 days I was pulling my hair way more than normal (when I am not stressed.) I was pulling like I was under extreme worry and stress, this is usually when I zone out and pull for hours and when I regain awareness 2 hours+ have passed and theres thousands of short strands in the perimeter of my bed. After those 2 manic days it calmed down and yesterday I was thinking, I don't have that urge but I do miss the sensation.

Now usually when I grasp a hair before even pulling it out usually the tension would start this intense tingling/itching sensation I am so addicted to. This time all I felt was the pain thats usually masked and overwhelmed by the tingling/itching sensation, it usually takes a back seat, becomes almost non-existent, even though we subconsciously know it's there it's not enough to affect the sensation or urge.
Well this was different, I reached and there was absence of that sensation of ecstasy all I felt was pain and I immediately stopped without hesitation, without second thought. I literally have this feeling in my chest that wants to pull, but no sensation in my head to want to. I just tested this, I have just pulled a hair out and the unpleasant sensation is not only more amplified but lingers after the hair is removed no tingly/itchy sensation I enjoy. The satisfaction is lacking, I mean we never are satisfied hence why we keep pulling out hairs, finding that holy grail hair, we may or may not find it, but it doesn't satisfy that craving. I'm going to continue and I'll come back to report again soon on these.

Have you ever felt a sense of regret? Have you ever felt racked with guilt, because you could have done more to help someone?

Well this is the first time, I've ever regretted a decision, I'm feeling sick to my stomach, I'm racked with guilt, I just want to cry endlessly and drown in my own tears. I've never felt so responsible for another person's wellbeing before to the point I feel like it's destroying me inside. What do you do when you hurt someone you are supposed to love?

So I need to come clean, around the day 60 mark of being pull free (it should be day 85 now.)  I went through a stage of being overwhelmed with worry on a daily basis, to the point one day I was consumed by this worry and without even knowing it, sub-consciously I reached for my head and pulled out hair. I maybe pulled 10 hairs that night, the following day this occurred again the amount increased to maybe 50-100 hairs by the time I came to realise this I was in bed surround by clumps of fresh new short strands of thick glossy black hair and plagued with guilt.
This of course made me more stressed and since then sub consciously I've been pulling and I don't even know it. It's like my mind has been over ridden by this urge and found a way to fight back when my hair gets to a certain length.

I'm increasingly finding more white hairs, I am getting old but thats not it, I've pulled so much over the last 17 years, it's come to the point I've damaged the follicles and the hairs are now growing back grey. It started with just a couple, but the past day I found 6 grey hairs in one pulling session!!!!!!!!!!!! These were from new spots, I already know of a couple of spots other greys grew. What makes it worse is those white hairs are the holy grail of hairs to pull out, the amount of satisfaction removing them fills me with so much elation. Yes it sounds crazy and thats because it is. Pulling out hair enjoying the pleasure of it and yet despising yourself is crazy!!! Yet here I am 17 years later still doing it and with no signs of me actually stopping!!! It's a fucking paradox, I cant fix. No one can.
I literally can't tell you which day's I have pulled and haven't because it's all a blur, even I don't even know. I am not sure if I have had a pull free day since then.

I've just had this thought, life is on the upwards turn and yet I am stilling ripping out quite a lot of hair. I'm slowly going back to day 1 before shaving my head,  its not as scarce and the areas circumference is not as big as previously,  but its nothing to be happy about either it is still pretty bad how much damage I have done to myself,  it will get worse if I don't take action now.

I've just run to the bathroom and rubbed tons of oil on my head in hope this can save my scalp and help the new growth catch up and maybe even prevent me from touching those precious new strands.

Which got me thinking what am I doing to prevent this? So here I am charging up my Pavlok and reverting back to electrocuting myself to sanity again. Who says 21 days can create good habits? Because I went way past that and yet I am back here again, guilty of my own self-disfigurement and all I can think is, that bitch YouTuber is right, we will never be cured, we will forever live with this, we just have to find a way to handle it much better and to accept it. Should I accept it? I don't know. I have no answers, just many of my own questions.

So here I am hitting the reset button, I don't really want to shave again, I feel like I could make this work If I can integrate this Pavlok in too. It's worth a shot, if all else fails then its no longer hitting a reset button but a whole factory reboot and starting from baldness again. *sigh* I just want to be pretty.

So last month, the second movie of the 50 shades trilogy was released. I didn't go to the theatre to watch it because unlike the majority I can see what this story and movie for what it really is. Abuse and manipulation.

There is absolutely nothing sexy or romantic about the story. Unless you think rape, manipulation and dating a control freak is attractive and morally OK.

The reason why women find this character attractive is because he is rich, handsome, and charming, until he uncovers his secret desires and by that point it is too late because you've fallen in love with Mr. Grey. This occurs often in real life as I am about to explain.

It took me a while to realise my relationship was built on manipulation and abuse because I was young and emotionally vulnerable at the time. I read the books and watched the first movie I was probably in my 4th year into my relationship at this time. So this stuff came out whilst I was deep into this relationship, thinking I can relate to the character, I thought because it was popular and so many women wanted to be the protagonist in the book, what I experienced was normal and something I should be happy with. I even went as far to defend the movie against the feminists who said it was abuse filled, I wish I had listened to them because they were so right. This shows just how deluded I was in that relationship, I believed I should be treated this way.

Now lets make this clear I am not knocking anyone's sexual fantasies, if you enjoy BDSM, you don't harm anyone, you both consent and are safe then that's your business. But there's the right way to carry out this type of behaviour and the wrong way.

I didn't know this then but what I was experiencing wasn't harmless fantasies it was real life abuse. If you know anything about BDSM there should always be a safe word, so at anytime the activity can stop when it gets too intense. Mr. Grey didn't have one and nor did the man I was involved in.

Its kind of hard to tell when this began because we of course grew together sexually, we were each others first we were young finding ourselves and what we liked, it started innocently, some handcuffs, light spanking etc. however as our relationship progressed became more toxic with our arguments and inability for me to trust him, things also grew worse.

It grew worse but I never noticed then, he would be extremely jealous and have physical fights with men, but he would freely tell what he would explicitly tell me what he would do to other women he saw when we were out,  I mean there was a point when I realised this feels wrong I am not comfortable with this its going  into actual pain and mistreatment in the sense he was forceful and controlling, which later started to occur outside the bedroom also.

If you recall in the books Mr.Grey would control what Ana used to eat. If she wasn't hungry he would insist to the point she would have to eat, it was forceful. Well that would happen with me except he would do the opposite he would guilt trip me into eating less, take food from my plate and told me to lose more weight, he wanted my body to look like a porn stars (his exact words), (at that point I had lost a substantial amount of weight) I was a healthy weight, but guess what because he told me I was not good enough I believed it and did everything I could to make him be pleased with me and to make him feel attracted to me, but to him I was still fat and my body wasn't too his liking.

This wasn't limited to food and exercise, in the bedroom he would address me as a slut (a term i despise with every cell in my body) he would make me sleep at the foot of the bed "like a dog" as he would say, and i would have to stay there the whole night.

He would even force sex upon me even when I didn't want it, he wouldn't stop even if I wasn't interested and expressed it (something Mr. Grey and him also have in common.) If he did, he would guilt trip me again until I gave in despite still not wanting to.

It took me a long time to realise what he was doing was rape. When people think of rape they think of strangers or a random person doing these actions with physical brutal force. That's not true, I was physically forced at times but I was also emotionally manipulated into believing I should give him sex if I want him to love me. I found out years later un-consented sex even with a partner is considered rape.

The physical pain was more tolerable than the emotional manipulation honestly, he would force objects in me (i wont give too much details but i'm sure you can guess what places), clip things on me in intimate places that was painful. He ignored my dislike towards these things, he would say "just keep it on a bit longer." I guess he got off it because they were physically hurting me. For me, my desire to have sex dwindled. I dreaded sex and realised this man was a worthless piece of shit not worthy of my love.

After countless times of leaving him then begging him to take me back, a day before our 6 year anniversary I left him for good. The fact he cheated on me 2 more times made it much easier. So in that respect I am grateful, if he hadn't I think I would still be in and out of that relationship, no doubt stuck in my miserable London life, broke and depressed.

Two years after that I was pretty much abstinent, my sex drive had crawled into a dark space and died.

For these reasons and experience alone, I will never agree with the books or movies, it glamorises abusive and manipulative relationships. Its not normal to experience these things, if you feel uncomfortable with your situation voice it if you can, I was lucky and didn't experience domestic violence in the sense he wouldn't hit me, our arguments were extremely volatile we shouted and screamed, he would break stuff. Nevertheless all abuse is abuse and some can lead to death. So I urge every man or woman to seek help if you experience these sort of behaviours. It is hard it took me 3 years to leave this guy, but once you do, only then do you start living life.

I GOTS PINK HAIR!!!!!!!!!!!
.. I don't really, my hair doesn't grow that fast.

And now I have your attention, as you know I purchased a new wig on payday just because why the fuck not, it was relatively inexpensive to what I am used to spending but again this is synthetic not human hair, but I am really loving it! Let's have a little catch up on my life shall we?

For a few weeks, I'm at my peak, I don't how or why now, I've turned into this super woman, I'm literally kicking my life in the ass, I've gone from focusing on how much I hate my body and myself, pulling out my hair, to this person I know I have the potential of being, I feel so empowered, strong and positive, life is so easy right now.

So let's start with the obvious, I'm here because I have a reason to celebrate, its my big 30, (not my birthday) but I hit the first 30 days to the rest of my life being pull free, I'm so fucking proud. I don't know where the will power has come from but I'm stoked let's hope it stays that way. Also hair is growing mad fast!

The next thing I wanted to touch on is due to the fact my motivation has sky rocketed, I've started to believe in myself again, I'm not wallowing in this pool of self hatred, I really really reallyyyyyyy dislike my body still but I feel less "hatey" about it, and what is the most logical thing to do if you don't like something? Well, you try and remove it from your life, or  you can try and live with it and end up like me, developing a psychological disorder that makes you foggy because all you concentrate on is all your flaws and how much distaste you have for them.

So 24th January 2017, I took it upon myself to start taking nutrition seriously again and start to slowly integrate exercise again, I'm sick of feeling like a fat lumpy whale with rolls, I look like the fucking Michelin man. I literally don't know how I came across it, but I remember hearing about macros back in my weight loss day but I ignored it because I was set in my ways with my clean eating (it worked for me, why fix whats not broken?) I had no clue about macros, I studied nutrition back in 6th form college and I can recall macro and micronutrients but for the life of me I had no idea what that meant (blame my old woman memory).

This next part I don't know if it was fate, coincidence or what, but somehow on FB I came across the IIFYM page (If It Fits In Your Macros), it's also known as flexible dieting, I have no idea how, but I found it, I joined and saw people's posts of success in such a short time and the best part of it all is, nothing is off limits, like the name suggests, if you can make it fit your macros you can eat it. I won't go into huge detail about it, you can google it if you want to know more, also I am no expert yet, I've been partaking for just under 2 weeks and up until about 3/4 days ago I got my macros correct and started to meet my protein requirements, but I can already notice differences! These are some of them:

• Increase in energy.
• Being able to push harder and recover faster during exercise and extending the length of time I workout.
• Walking faster to work (my phone tells me everyday how many minutes it takes to walk to work it usually varies from 12-14,  I walked to work in 10 minutes today!!!! 
• Waking up early for work so I can eat a decent breakfast (I used to sleep in 15 minutes before i had to leave and not eat or I packed my breakfast to eat at work), the reason this changed was in order to meet the protein allowance I needed to plan better for an even dispersion of protein throughout the day otherwise, I will be left at the end of the day trying to eat 2 whole large chicken breasts after being full from my already large protein filled dinner, not to mention I will be starving in the morning.
• I weighed myself I've put on weight, I measured my body, I'm still the same size, so I gained muscle, I can also physically see that I am less bloated around my abdomen.
• No more intense cravings for sugar and gauging on sweet foods. I got cravings twice and I was able to control it and adjust my macro intake to have a small treat for that day.
• I'm so much more positive and feeling a lot happier.

Say Goodbye to Fat Michelin Man, Hovis rolls Cherry!

So life is going great, I was on vacation for the past 10 days and had my family over the past 2 weeks.  I'm back to work today but all I am doing is desk warming which means I'll probably do some working out because I am in the English building completely alone, not even Lester the rat is here to keep me company today.

 I'm motivated to exercise especially with all this space available, however, I always feel run down and hungry at the moment with nausea on top, but I must find my motivation again!!! Caffeine wouldn't hurt either! I just paid for 1 month of premium service for my fitness pal, because today I am taking this Macros thing seriously. Using macros to burn fat is a lot more lenient than you think, you are allowed to indulge as long as you can fit it in your daily macros which is freaking awesome! I've noticed I'm eating way too many carbs it seems, despite my breakfast being one piece of brown bread with PB and a banana. My lunch is gluten free brown rice pasta with tuna, plain yogurt and a little mayo mixed in. Dinner is going to have to be carb free I think and I need to eat more protein!!!!  (Taco seasoned baked chicken breast with steamed broccoli anyone?)
Sadly due to the bird flu epidemic here eggs have gotten too expensive *cries* I would like to change my breakfast to poached eggs and toast if possible!

Anywho, I am not here to touch too much on diet and exercise, even though it is encouraged in helping with TTM and my other disorders. I am here to report on my progress. Tomorrow marks 3 weeks since I stopped pulling completely and it has been 2 weeks since I shaved my head, I've been using the castor + coconut oil mask and just after 2 weeks there's been miraculous results, they speak for themselves. However I am a little concerned, the hair that is growing, is growing fast healthy and thick, I feel my head is looking gappy and lacking hair, I'm hoping this is because it's still early days and hair renewal for more damaged hair may take longer to grow. I pray I haven't done any real serious damage and my hair catches up.


I really don't know where I am finding this strength to not pull, I have had urges but I've been able to say to myself no, I want to grow my hair out and I don't feel it anymore. I feel like something inside me has lost the fight to make me pull, I am really not finding it difficult yet, but I am also not really working right now, throw in stress and worry again and It's possible it may return, although, it's difficult to pull with my hands, only with tweezers on this length of hair right now which I guess is good it means its only half the battle. I am also avoiding mirrors when going to the bathroom because my head close up opens up the opportunity to notice hairs that stand out and that of course means wanting to pull.

I only have desk warming this week tomorrow and Thursday then its a Korean holiday woooo until Tuesday which means more desk warming, also tomorrow is payday which means I can buy some adventure time and gudetama work stationary in downtown and buy a new and affordable wig! Wooo!!!! I've decided now I'm open about my disorder and wigs, I'm going to have fun with it and invest in a few colored wigs, I got my eye on a rose gold one and a grey one, I'm also going to look into some turquoise and blue ones.


Oh and I'm off travelling by myself in 3 weeks. my motivation to work out is just to lean out a tad, I don't expect much in 3 weeks but let's see what I can achieve in a safe and healthy way for the beaches of Boracay and Bali. (More will reported on my trip on my travel blog.)

So I introduce to you a fidget cube!

This is the one I mentioned in an earlier post that I had ordered. But this is one from eBay, not from the original creators, they are having issues with productions and thousands of pledgers are still waiting for theirs, only some have gotten their orders so far. I hear though these cheap knock offs can vary in quality from cheap and awful to close but not perfect replicas.

If you don't know what one is here's a short video on the original.