Check out Abby’s latest article on Trichotillomania in Going Bonkers August 2010 issue.

Here is an excerpt from the article:

Most hair pullers are bright, insightful, highly sensitive and intuitive souls constantly straddling two worlds; the world of a functioning, successful individual and the secret world of their seemingly never-ending urges to pull “just one more hair”. The extraordinarily successful businesswoman may be negotiating a multi-million dollar deal with you while her mind is split between what you’re seeing and the inner realm of her urges. She wants to sit on her hands to keep them from reaching to her head. She wants to force herself to stop her crazy desires, but she’s unable. [Read the rest of this entry...]

Hair pullers are not crazy.

Chances are, if you’re like any one of us who has stopped hair pulling and ended their struggle with trichotillomania, you never understood why you started pulling. Don’t you owe it to yourself to finally understand why you pull and how to heal it?

To stop hair pulling and heal Trichotillomania, you need to want to.

Many hair pullers feel they are alone and do not know where or who to reach out to because they are ashamed. You are not alone. You can stop hair pulling.

But you really need to want to?

Listen why Abby called her Trichotillomania the perfect addiction. Discover why and how the ‘gift’ of being pushed down further into the depth of her pain, saved her and created the awareness that only she could heal her compulsive hair pulling. Part 2 of a 3-part series.

In this second segment, Abby discusses:

1. How did I turn a corner and begin working on my hair pulling
2. How I came upon the healing system I now teach
3. How I teach people to heal and how I healed myself
4. How I finally stopped searching for someone else to heal me.

Have you ever wondered if the comfortable feeling you get when you pull your own hair, one by one, feels the same to other compulsive hair pullers, who also pull their hair out? Would you like to know when I realized that I was a ‘hair puller’? What about trying to understand why your hair pulling serves a need in your life? Come. Listen to Part 1 of this 3-part series.

In this first segment, Abby discusses:

1. What hair pulling feels like and how it becomes addictive.
2. When did I know I was a hair puller and why does it serve a need.

Do you know what is under the bald patches and missing eyelashes and eyebrows that you see?

My students often share that before they found my TrichotillomaniaFree Women’s University online program, they did not have a way to uncover or express their truths.

Through years of counseling, willpower, anti-depressants and anxiety drugs, Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT), hypnotherapy, NLP, EFT, EMDR, special diets, supplements, taping their fingers …through both conventional and alternative treatments, ignoring the problem and even religious or spiritual approaches to stopping trichotillomania, these truths sat silently waiting for the day when my students could finally express their inner experiences.

At last, these are their words…words they were never before able to tell themselves, let alone tell you. [Read the rest of this entry...]

Want to know what goes on in TrichotillomaniaFree Women’s University?  A ton! There’s an amazing curriculum, an honest and engaging continuing dialog about the truth of trich and an incredible worldwide support community completely focused on healing.

There’s no conversation about how to live with trichotillomania for the long-haul. Because for our students that not even an option.

Ever wondered what real support looks like?  Here’s a snippet–only the names have been changed to protect our students’ privacy:

[Read the rest of this entry...]

“The first time that you challenge your addiction, and the second, and the third, you may not feel that anything has been accomplished.  Do you think that authentic power can be had so easily?  As you hold to your intention, and as you choose again and again and again to become whole, you accumulate power, and the addiction that you thought could not be challenged will lose its power over you…”                                                                               –Gary Zukav

In case you haven’t heard, there’s a new study out about hair pullers who took the amino acid, N-Acetylcysteine.

The Trichotillomania study has received lots of press, but many hair pullers are wondering why. In some participants, high doses of N-Acetylcysteine lowered high-moderate hair pulling to low-moderate hair pulling, but did not stop it, nor did it improve their quality of life.

N-Acetylcysteine is made from chicken feathers, pig bristles and human hair consequently it may have some homeopathic influence but the smell, taste and lingering-effects of this amino acid might cause some hair pullers to resist trying it. N-Acetylcysteine reportedly smells like a combination of garlic and sulfur.

On a more serious note, N-Acetylcysteine comes with a warning bell from the University of Virginia. Taking this amino acid may lead to pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), a serious condition producing high blood pressure in arteries leading to the lungs.

Please see my full article at: N-Acetylcysteine and Trichotillomania

Have you ever thought about just how problems get solved?

Can you solve any problem without focusing exclusively on it for at least one minute?

Remember that to fix any problem you must be willing to totally focus on it for the time that it takes to solve it.  I learned that to fix my problem, I had to be willing to focus on it-not just to make it a priority in my life, but to make it THE PRIORITY in my life.

Have you ever been willing to focus directly on your trichotillomania and make healing it THE PRIORITY in your life?

You may fear that if you focus directly on it, your hair pulling will worsen and you are unwilling to take this risk.  This fear is justified, but to heal you must be willing to move through this worsening state.

As I began to focus on it, my trichotillomania did temporarily increase.  As I continued to “front-burner” my problem, I found that I was strong enough to deal with this temporary worsening to reap the greater rewards of complete and total freedom.

To solve any problem you must go beyond your comfort zone and focus on it.  You must start to feel!