Posting here for traffic, apologies but I'm desperate!
Backstory- I have trichotillomania (I pull my hair out). Have done for about 20 years now, started when I was at secondary school. Not sure what triggered it originally, I was being very badly bullied at the time and then got headlice so suspect that had something to do with it. It's classed as an impulse control disorder- I definitely do it more when I'm anxious or upset, but it has also become an unconscious habit so if my hands aren't occupied they often just go up to my head without me being aware of it. I have tried CBT and various antidepressants, but apart from a roughly 9 month period when I was about 16 I've never been able to stop altogether.
I first started wearing a wig in 2009, then in 2013 started getting an intralace done which worked well for nearly five years, but I had to stop last summer as it is extremely expensive, so went back to wearing a wig. I don't wear it all day every day, whilst I'm at home or just popping out I put what hair I do have in a bun on top of my head and a big headband is enough to hide the bald areas.
The thing is, I'm now pregnant with my first child, and I'm becoming very worried about the effect this may have on him/her. One thing I'm worried about is the health risk of there being hair on the floor all over our home- I'm reasonably vigilant with vacuuming but it's nigh on impossible to get it all up all the time. The other thing I'm most concerned about is DC copying my behaviour and ending up doing it themselves. That would just break my heart.
My DM is type 2 diabetic (or what in my family you could call a "too much chocolate diabetic") and recently had a hypnotherapy session with a Harley St practitioner with the aim of no longer being addicted to chocolate. It's only been a couple of weeks but so far she said she's had no desire to have any chocolate at all so it seems to have been successful.
Then a couple of days ago my DH suggested it might be worth me giving it a try to see if it could stop me pulling my hair out. It is quite expensive (although pales into insignificance compared with how much I spent on the intralace system) so I'm just a bit hesitant as it's money we could put towards preparing for our baby. But at the same time, it's been 20 damn years of my life that I've been pulling my hair out and varying degrees of bald and I'm sick to death of it!
But I know that a condition like mine is not necessarily the same kettle of fish as a chocolate addiction, so I wanted to see if anybody else had had hypnotherapy treatment for this sort of issue and whether it worked for them?