Exhausted.

I have been a miserable bitch for as long as I can remember, but every now and then I get these waves of major negativity and Paranoia. It is so difficult to try and put this in to words. I essentially live in a constant state of waiting for something shit to happen. If the shit has already happened, then my mood will be low and gloomy until the problem is solved. For example, if I have a friend that I text every single day and on one particular day, I have no reply then I will obsess over it. I will not be able to relax or distract myself until the issue has been resolved. This friend may reply 12 hours later and tell me their charger has been lost or something and that all is well. During those 12 hours of waiting, I will have convinced myself that I have done something wrong or said something wrong. Rather than giving a million examples, the quickest way to say this is that I will assume that any problem is caused by ME in some way. I will not being able to stop thinking this until I hear from the person.

I couldn’t be friends with me. It must be so draining for anyone that knows me.
The reason I am posting this is that I am currently stuck in one of these situations. There is someone I need to talk to. I had been looking forward to chatting to this person the other night so I could move forward. But at the last moment, the option of talking to this person was taken away, for a minimum of a week. This has been the longest fucking week ever for that reason.

I need to find a way to cope and move on. I need to stop putting myself first. I need to stop wallowing in self pity and remember that I am the one that caused this problem. I need to stop myself from repeating old mistakes. I need to stop putting myself in a position that causes people to get hurt. That could be condensed in to a single sentence which is effectively… I need to grow up.

Back in the game?

I don’t think I have posted here since January. I started my job in the first week of February this year and working nights is so much more tiring that working days. I feel like I have either been at work or in bed for the past 6 months.

Things have been pretty shit lately and I have been struggling to clear my head. As a rule, I don’t bottle up my troubles, but in recent months there hasn’t been anyone that I feel I can open up to. Nobody wants that friend that is always miserable and negative. Depression is a constant battle for a lot of people, but it can also be quite draining for those friends that have to listen to your list of problems.

I have reached that “Who am I?” slump.
I regularly fuck things up and make stupid decisions that I know will come back to bite me at some stage, but the “I’ll worry about that when it happens” attitude is a path I have always chosen to go down. When the bad choices do inevitably knock on my door, there always seems to be a cluster of them. Everything shit happens at once. Obviously this leads to a huge low point for me and I end up finding that I can barely function. Everything races around my head and I see no way out. I get angry at myself for allowing the situation to escalate and vow to sort my shit out and make sure it doesn’t happen again. Then fuck me, a week later, a month later, a decade later – whatever, the cycle starts again.

As I write this, I am at that exact moment in the cycle where I realise that I have screwed up and desperately look for a solution to the mess I brought on myself for a millionth time.

I am going to start posting here again. Something has got to give.

 

MissesCee xx

 

My ridiculous eating habits.

My ridiculous eating habits.

For as long as I can remember, I have liked to hide away in my bedroom. When I was growing up, we were always skint. So if I managed to get a packet of crisps, I would put them under my pillow, eating one every now and again and making them last all day.
Eating whilst watching TV has always been a ‘thing’ as well. Even now, if I am planning on watching something, I will have my snack ready (usually crisps) and I won’t start eating until I am settled and have just pressed play. I don’t know why this is.

Thing took a weirder turn a few months ago, though.
Main meal wise, I don’t eat breakfast or lunch because I’m not hungry through the day. We sit at the table to eat our meals, but I got in to the habit of cooking for everyone else and making something for myself later on. I then started going to bed early at night. Stupidly early, and the routine was:

Make dinner for everyone

Shower the kids

Clear up

Go to bed and take my dinner up with me.

After a short while, I found myself trying to stay up later, but unable to eat with everyone else. I can’t explain it very well, but I would prepare my food and wait until I could go to bed. Once I decided that I wanted to go to bed, that was it. All thoughts were about eating my dinner. It didn’t matter how hungry I was, I wasn’t going to eat it until I was in bed. Oddly, as soon as I go to bed and finish my food, I often find that I don’t want to be in bed at all, and I’ll go back downstairs and sit with everyone.
Occasionally, we might have a takeaway, or whatever, and I will go without purely because I don’t want to sit and eat with everyone else, and I wouldn’t reheat the takeaway food so there was no point in getting any for me. It’s all about the routine and ritual. It is driving me mad because I don’t understand it. I’m not someone that doesn’t like people watching them eat. I do want to spend time with my family, etc, I just don’t get it.

If I make myself a sandwich the kids ask me “Mum, are you going to bed?”, because they know what I do.

If I fancy a packet of crisps or something now I won’t have any. I will only have them later on when I am in bed. Why?? Seriously, it’s fucking ridiculous and I have no idea what it is all about.
Any ideas? I am very open to ideas on this.

Intrusive thoughts.

I am glad I stopped taking the medication I was on for my Depression/Anxiety/Trichotillomania. In a strange way, I feel better without it.
Having said that though, I wish there was something that could stop the horrible thoughts that are constantly running through my head.
I am always fighting against horrible mental images of something happening to the kids.

I have had this problem for a long time now, but it got significantly worse when I had a nasty dream and can remember every detail of.
I was at an airport with the kids, and for some strange reason, Harlan, my youngest boarded a plane which ended up being a small van (wtf?). I watched it take off and he waved at me though the window. I then saw this weird flying van just drop from the sky, and as it hit the ground, the windows went red as they were covered in blood.
I feel sick just thinking about it. It was fucking horrible. I woke up confused and in a panic because it seemed so real, and I can still see the whole thing if I close my eyes.
Stuff like this is so hard to shut out.
If my other half does the school run and I stay at home, the whole time is spent thinking up ugly scenarios of things that might happen to the kids on the journey home.
It’s always so graphic and leaves me in such a state. I try so hard to block it all out and ignore it, but I just can’t.
I am open to suggestions if anyone has any idea of how to cope with this. I know it’s normal to worry about your kids, obviously, but this is so extreme and affects me more than people realise. It can’t just be me?
It is just about the kids, either. For example, if my mum says she will give me a ring at 5 o’clock, by 5.05 I have managed to convince myself that she has been murdered, or had a heart attack, or something else, and I say again, it’s always so graphic and nasty. I know it sounds stupid and OTT but I can’t seem to help it. Once the thoughts and images have weaseled their way in, that’s it.

Fifteen, schmifteen.

When I was 15 years old, I knew everything. Anyone in authority was wrong, and I laughed at them and their shitty advice.
I wasn’t old enough to legally buy a packet of fags, but that didn’t worry me. My brain, mind, thought process, whatever, was about 25. (At least, I believed it was)
I did what many people do at that age. Smoke, drink, drugs, whatever. It was all just fun. Big, grown up me, laughing at the boring consequences. But where did it get me? I had already left school at 13 and fucked all that up. Here I was, in College with the older kids. School was shit. College was great. I could wear what I wanted rather that a stupid uniform. I could be myself. I listened to music I enjoyed without having the piss taken out of me, and I just generally felt more accepted.

I made a friend straight away. Lee. Lee, Lee, Lee. He was, and is just lovely. We all knew he was gay but he didn’t ‘come out’ for about a year after we met. I remembered him from school. He was the year above me and I had seen him before, in the school ‘Sex Ed’ play as a matter of fact. He played the lad that got a girl pregnant after unprotected sex, which we chuckled at a couple of years later.
I noticed this lad at College one morning, jeans, leather jacket, huuuuuge red mohican and a lip piercing. I showed Lee my discovery and he went and nabbed him for me. Result!
Once again, 15 year old me knew it all. Me and MoRed had different lesson times and I would skip my classes to hang out with him. 15 year old me didn’t notice at the time that I missed my classes, but he never missed his. He ended up at Uni in Portmouth and becoming a teacher, and I ended up working in Burger King. Well done, me!

I know I was young, and stupid, and I regret all that now, but more than 12 years later, I still have to explain that shit in job interviews.
“And where were you educated?”
“Well, I left school at 13, went to College briefly at 15, missed 2 of my exams, left one early to hang out with my boyfriend and skipped my second year entirely to work at Burger King”.

Nice one!

Since I had my daughter and moved away, I had pretty much been a full time mum, which no onr has respect for. It is assused that you are lazy and looooove living on benefits.
In my case, I moved to a town where I know no one apart from my daughters dad, and he went out and left me at home so I never got the chance to meet anyone. I had zero confidence and just retreated further into myself. The only conversation I ever had was from the checkout people at the supermarket.
People are out of work for all kinds of reasons. Sure, there are plenty of lazy people that either don’t want to work or are stuck in that rut of endless rejection and just give up; but there are many others that are looking for a job. Thousands of people that don’t have a gleaming CV and need someone to take a chance on them. Everyone needs to start somewhere.
Go back a few years and all you had to do was walk in the local butchers and ask if they needed any help, and that was that.

I have skipped entirely over the years of doing drugs and getting in to trouble and generally fucking about with my boyfriend and out ‘friends’ at that time. It was a fun time and a stupid time. It’s a time I look back on and wonder what the fuck I was playing at. It scares me to think about what my kids could get up to when they are that age. I Just hope I have done/am doing my job well enough that they will follow a better path than mine. Some of the things I got up to could’ve killed me.

Telling a teenager that they don’t know it all is pretty pointless, isn’t it? We all go through it and learn the same way that our parents might possibly, maybe have been right about something.
Still, I wish I had paid more attention. If I had, I might be in a better position to set a better example to my kids.

 

Well played, younger me.

Time, kids, skills and lives.

It wasn’t all that long ago, that time in my life when I listened to my mum saying “My house, my rules”.  I remember thinking “It’s alright, one day I’ll have my own place with MY own rules”. I couldn’t wait to be an adult. It’s something we all go through.
We were all told that being a grown up isn’t as fun as we thought, but we didn’t listen to that! It’s one of those things that we only learn when we reach that stage ourselves.

This only makes it more frustrating when the tables are turned and we are the ones saying it.
My daughter is 8 and she tells me that she can’t wait to be an adult, and I give her the same speech that was given to me. I watch my words go straight over her head and I imagine her having this conversation with her kids in the future.

Do you ever look at your kids and try to imagine them as adults?

I do, and it’s totally bizarre. I can’t picture them being taller than me, going to work and booking holidays. It’s so strange. I look at them all and try to save the mental image, because they really will be adults one day with their own lives. There will come a time that they don’t need me anymore. They won’t run to me with a grazed knee, or come in to my room in the middle night to tell me about their nightmares. I won’t be presented with cold tea and soggy toast on Mother’s Day. I won’t see them every day when I wake up because they will have their own homes and families

You only get one chance to be a parent. Once the kids have grown up and left home, they are only equipped with the life skills that we have given them. If they can’t wire a plug, it’s because we never taught them how to. If they can’t cook, it’s because we never took the time to let them help in the kitchen.
When I left home, I had never used a washing machine and didn’t know how to iron clothes. I didn’t know how to cook a roast dinner or use a drill. I didn’t know much of anything. But my mum did. Why didn’t she teach me? If a shelf needed to be put on the wall, she would just get on and do it!

My husband tells of how his granddad used to weave baskets. He never passed that skill on and it died with him.

If you can cook, sew, knit, paint, make, weave, wash, iron, clean, darn, play the drums, speak another language, or anything really, share it with your children! If you don’t, then all of these skills and things that probably seem quite simple, will go to the grave with you.
Life is precious

This thing I have.

It’s a funny thing, this thing I have. Although it doesn’t make me laugh.
It’s a strange thing, this thing I have. Although it is no stranger.
It’s a tiring thing, this thing I have. Although I still can’t sleep.
It’s a controlling thing, this thing I have. Although I’m not in control.
It’s a secret thing, this thing I have. Although everyone knows.
It’s a shallow thing, this thing I have. Although the pain runs deep.
It’s a worrying thing, this thing I have. Although nobody is worried.
It’s a quiet thing, this thing I have. Although the thoughts are deafening.
It’s understandable, this thing I have. Although I don’t understand it.
It’s nothing, this thing I have. Although it feels like everything to me.

Mini post.

This is not going to be the longest post in the world, but I am excited to say that I have a job!
I have no idea when I am starting yet, but I am soooo pleased!
I have been applying for everything I possibly can and getting next to nowhere.
On Tuesday I received an E-mail inviting me for an interview after finding my CV. I booked myself in for first thing the following morning (yesterday) and the manager called me later on in the day to offer me the job! 😀

I am going to be a support worker for adults with physical disabilities and learning difficulties. I never thought I would get the job so I am extra chuffed with myself.
Although, until I am given a start date, I am worried they’ll change their minds, so fingers crossed!

MissesCee xx

Accidents at school

My son started going to his current pre-school in September and has come home with 3 accident forms. The first two were bumped heads and bruises and despite stating what had happened on the forms, there were “no witnesses”, so how they could tell me exactly what happened is beyond me.
Yesterday, he came home with a 3rd accident form. My other half warned me that he had an accident at school before I opened the front door as he knows that I panic. (A couple of years ago, my son was jumping on the sofa and somehow flipped over the back of it, catching his teeth on the shelf of a bookcase behind the sofa. There was blood everywhere and he was covered. I totally freaked out and didn’t know what to do. Luckily, my husband was able to remain calm and rational. Paramedics came and pulled out the tooth that had been torn out and had wedged itself in his bottom lip. We were then bundled in an ambulance and my son had to have a further 2 teeth taken out under a general, as well as having his gum stitched back together because it was ripped on both sides. Ever since that happened, I can’t cope with him having any kind on injury. If I hear him cry I just freeze and assume it’s going to be awful again.)
I opened the door and he was barely recognizable! He was bleeding from his nose and his top lip was about 5 times bigger than it should’ve been. I looked at the accident form and saw, once again, NO WITNESSES! I find it a little bit too coincidental that there have been 3 accidents that have taken place at the precise moment that the staff just happened to be looking in another direction. I spoke to the manager of the pre-school and she tried to reassure me that he was responded to straight away. Not only that, but there were FOUR members of staff in the garden area at the time. The outside area is small. Just one person could easily see all the kids by just standing in the doorway, so it worries me that there were 4 people and not one person saw the accident happen.

Is this acceptable? Harlan has just turned 4 and has always been clumsy and he is so easily distracted that accidents can, and do happen. But the thing is, if I took him in to school 3 times in 4 months with the same injuries and I told them that no one witnessed what had happened, they would have an obligation to report me. If I went to the doctor and Harlan had these injuries, and again I said nobody had witnessed any of the incidents then they would report me as well!
The manager has acknowledged that Harlan is distracted, full of energy, clumsy and very active, so you would think that after the first 2 accidents, they would keep a better eye on him.

When you leave your child in someone else’s care, you expect them to come home in the same state they were in when you dropped them off.

MissesCee xxx

Trichy situation.

I go through phases when it comes to talking about Trichotillomania.

The update to this post is just the photo. Taken around 5 years ago, when I was using the black hair spray on the top of my head. which is here http://s1308.photobucket.com/user/MissesCee/media/mehair_zpsasus7p1k.jpg.html?filters%5Buser%5D=144521738&filters%5Brecent%5D=1&sort=1&o=0
Can’t figure out how to get the image in the post. Grrr

I shaved my head 3 and a half years ago after suffering this bullshit since the age of 9. At that point, I had hardly any hair on the top of my head and I dyed my hair black and used a black hairspray to ‘cover up’ the bald bit. When I started using the coloured hairspray, the bald patch was only about the size of a 50p coin. It grew, gradually, and while I was fully aware that my problem was getting worse and worse, it wasn’t until I had been covering it with the spray for a couple of years that I suddenly realised how disgusting and terrible it looked. In my head, I had covered it perfectly. I did get the occasional comment from random strangers though, such as “Have you shaved the top of your head?” and I thought, WTF? Why would anyone do that? It slowly dawned on me that the issue was far more obvious than I had realised, although, oddly, if I ever brought it up with people they would tell me they would never have noticed. Bullshit.

Anyways, I made the snap decision to shave my head. I had never considered it before but just randomly thought “Fuck it”, and just went on and did it. I had already bought my first wig and found it difficult to wear with my actual hair underneath. It also felt pretty tragic, clinging on to those last few strands, looking like the dude from the library in Harry Potter.

My daughter was massively confused by my different look at first. She was also upset and asked if it meant that I was “A boy now?”. The comment just cements the point that for me, and many others, having hair like all other women is what helps you to feel feminine. Don’t get me wrong, if I decided to shave my head because I wanted to, or because I fancied a different look, then fair enough. Even if my shaved head looked like a normal shaved head I might not worry so much, but my head is covered with many smooth areas where the damage is permanent and new hair just does not grow. Anyways, this was purely my last hope in terms of breaking the physical aspect of pulling my hair out. The idea was simple: No hair, no pulling. By the time my hair grows back, the urge will be gone. Or so I thought.
Shaving the head has worked for some people, but not for me. As soon as I shaved it all off, I was sat in front of the mirror with a pair of tweezers. If anything, it helped me be more precise! I would let it (the areas that do actually grow new hairs) grow an inch or two and the pulling would be so bad that I had to shave it again.

I hate it. I used to only wear my wigs when I left the house but I feel so ugly and unfeminine that I wear them all the time now. I can’t stand looking at myself without my hair. All the make-up and pretty clothes in the world do not stop me feeling disgusting. The shit thing about it is that I am powerless to stop. I can’t think “Well, I’ll just stop pulling the hair out now and grow it all back” because it doesn’t work like that. It is impossible to explain that frustration that comes with NEEDING to pull and simultaneously begging yourself to stop. Whilst pulling, you are fully aware that you are just making it worse and worse, but you can’t stop. It’s totally fucking infuriating, and no one that hasn’t experienced this understands or gets it. Never once have I seen a GP that actually has any useful advice. I have been given talking therapies and a million different medications, but nothing helps at all. I have tried wearing a hat, keeping hair wet, using a ‘tangle’ or stress ball, shaving my head, taking meds, going to , distracting myself with something positive and getting my other half to bring it to my attention when I am unaware that I am pulling. The latter is the most difficult though. Often, I sit about pulling my hair without realising, and having someone tell me not to do it only makes me feel more anxious which just leads to that urge being stronger.

I read so many stories of people that have managed to overcome Trichotillomania, and I am in awe of every single one of them.
I will end this by answering some of the questions I have been asked over the years, as well as responding to a few comments:

Why don’t you just stop pulling it out? Do you want to be bald?
No. I don’t want to be bald. But thanks for the suggestion, I hadn’t thought of it.

Are you sure you haven’t caught Alopecia?
Yes. I was actually asked this. In fact, not only was I asked this but the person asking the question has known me for nearly 10 years and has witnessed the progression of it all and listened to me tell my stories about finding out that Trichotillomania was an actual thing and that it wasn’t just ‘something only I did’.

Have you thought about seeing a doctor?
Yes. My mum first took me to the GP when I was 9 years old after she was freaked out by my little bald patches. She told the doc all about it and we were simply told “It’s just a phase, she’ll soon snap out of it”.
I went to see different doctors over the years and was told similar things. This was until I actually Googled hair pulling in 2008 and discovered the word “Trichotillomania”. After this, I had to educate my doctors and tell them about it. In 2009 I met the first doctor that actually wanted to help and had a genuine interest and took me seriously. He tried everything he could to help me, but as of today, Jan 2nd 2016, nothing has helped.

Why don’t you just go out without wearing a wig?
If I felt feminine, or ever human without my wig firmly attached, then I might consider it. But my totally smooth scalp across several places on my head just screams “abnormal” and I don’t feel comfortable with that. It may seem shallow, but to me and the way my mind works, women have hair. I have always loved long hair and I don’t feel like myself without it. I won’t even put the wheelie bin out when it’s dark outside and no one is around without wearing it.

It’s disgusting, you know.
Thanks. That was helpful & encouraging.

I’m getting used to walking around with you now, I’m not embarrassed by it any more.
Again, thanks.

 

I would like to add that as well as the above, I have had a million more negative comments, but I have also had some lovely messages from people all over the world. Everyone with Trich deals with it differently and we all need help and support. It doesn’t matter whether the individual person only pulls their lashes out, or pulls from absolutely everywhere. The issue is the same and the reasons behind it, whatever they are, are all linked in some way. Again, to all of you that are much, much further down the recovery road than I am, I cannot tell you how much respect I feel for you.

This could probably do with a proof read and a cheeky edit, but I am going to post before I lose my nerve.

MissesCee xx