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

Bullshit.

I hate the politics or parenting. We all do the mum or dad thing differently, and as long as the same principles are followed then we have no actual right to judge other parents. We all have things from our own childhoods that would be frowned upon now, such as a variety of punishments that just wouldn’t be allowed here in 2015. For the majority of us, ‘We turned out alright, didn’t we?’.

But I find myself almost playing up to other parents. I will elaborate slightly and say that if I am in the process of telling my child off just as another ‘rent walks by, I feel the need to over explain the situation to my child just so the other parent will assume I am doing a good job. Harlan, my youngest (3) is a nightmare. He has 7000 times more energy than any other child on Earth and just doesn’t seem to care or respond to much! So most of the time we are out of the house, I am looking pretty harassed. I am a (wo)man of my word though. If I tell him he has one more chance before such and such happens, then I mean it. But passers by don’t know that and probably assume that I have told my child this 5 or 6 times. It frustrates me because that isn’t the case. But again, I feel the need to look good in front of others. I, myself have seen parents in the supermarket saying “Right, if you do that again then you aren’t having any sweets!”. The child will continue with whatever he or she was doing and mum will repeat this same threat. We’ve all heard it, and we’ve all seen it. I sigh to myself and move on. I don’t comment on it, it isn’t my place. I might form an opinion but that’s as far as it goes.

Anyway, I recently had a man stop me to tell me that if I want my child to listen to me, then I must follow through with what I have said. Fuck you! I do. 100% of the time. I am by no means a perfect parent, quite frankly I have no example to follow. My mum never passed on any valuable information to me when I was growing up. No life skills, no suggestions or anything, just lot’s of shouting, really. My mums other half just beat us up and told us how ugly and worthless we all were, but despite all that, I try my fucking hardest to get all the right ideas across to my kids. I live on a council estate, yes. We moved here earlier this year as renting privately was far too expensive and we had 3 children sharing one bedroom. I have lots of facial piercings, it isn’t that phase I was told I was going through when I was 15, 12 years later, I still look the same. I wear wigs that are brightly coloured and such because I have no hair of my own and I don’t really fancy the blonde-bob wigs that are more widely available. I wear red and black, well, everything because those are my favourite colours and I like the style of clothes that I like! I can read, I can write and I can even spell properly which is incredible considering I left school at 13 years old and while this may only be one other example of someone that went to the same secondary school that I did, she completed years 9, 10 and 11 whereas I left in year 8, but the point I am getting to is that she spelled croissant as “Qwozont”. If I am totally unsure on how to spell a word, I would just avoid it. I am digressing but I wanted to try and explain that I am not totally fick. I can cook (without the need for Dolmio, HomePride or chicken nuggets), I can sew and make clothes and blankets and toys. I have mounds of motivation and drive when I am in between bouts of Anxiety and Depression and above all else, I don’t need advice from some random on the street that thinks he has the right to look down his nose at me and undermine me in front of my son!

I may have exaggerated slightly when I said I could write. Finishing school may have helped me learn how to form paragraphs properly and control myself when it comes to easing from one subject to another. I also never learned what the semi colon was for. I have just reminded myself that the point of me writing any of this was purely so I would have somewhere, anywhere to get my frustrations out and I must also remind myself that there is not a single view of any of my posts. So with that, I will note that my mission has been accomplished and continue making my daughter the angel wings she needs for her Christmas play. Night!

SIDENOTE:

I do have the occasional Dolmio day, HomePride Pasta Bakes are gorgeous (Cheese & Bacon, I love you) and I am partial to a chicken nugget dipped in gravy. Providing the nuggets actually have chicken in them. Never have been a fan of areholes, poultry or otherwise. Ciao!

Windy wintery weather wig wearing woes.

Windy, wintery-weather wig wearing woes.

 

I have been a wig wearer for 3 and a half years now and I still hate it. I have Trichotillomania and have suffered with it for more than 18 years. I have tried absolutely everything to find a way to curb this bullshit. After years of having people tell me to “Just stop doing it!” or asking “Don’t you want a full head of hair?”, I decided to go for the scariest option which was to shave my head.

The thought process behind this was simple.

If I shaved my head then there would be no hair for me to pull out. (I pull from everywhere, not just the scalp, but it’s the head hair that is the most obvious and soul destroying) And by the time my hair grew back, the ‘habit’ would be broken and I would strut down the street with my perfect full head of soft silky hair.

No such luck.

I was quite emotional after shaving it off. I didn’t feel feminine and I couldn’t stand to look at myself. My daughter was 5 at the time and was shocked when she saw me the following morning. She asked me if I was a boy now! I am sure that sounds hilarious, but for me, it was devestating. Anyway, out came the tweezers on day one. It was obvious that even with a millimetre of visible hair on my head, I was still able to get at it. The frustration at pulling whilst telling yourself to stop is unbelievable.

At one point I actually managed a week or so without pulling, which was a massive record for me, but then, bugger me, I started again and couldn’t stop. Out came the hair clippers. This has been the cycle for the past 3.5 years. Shave-tweeze-pull when long enough- shave again.

I also hadn’t realise the extext of the permanent damage I had caused until I shaved off my hair. Rather than my head being totally stubbly, there were huge patches of nothing. The main patch being the whole of the top of my head. All this time laterof shaving/growing/shaving/growing, NO new hairs have grown in these areas, so like it or not, I am stuck with wigs for the rest of my life.

If you don’t have Trichotillomania, then you simply will not understand. Some people I have talked to over the years have assumed that it’s all about vanity and that “it’s only hair!”. It may only be hair to people that have hair. Some women look good with a shaved head. I don’t! It isn’t for me. It may not even be so bad if I had a full head of stubble! But the massive blank spaces show something other than ‘normal’ and my anxiety levels are far too high to consider ever going wig free. I genuinely admire people that DO have that kind of confidence.

I write this now because it’s November. There have been gale force winds round my way recently and I dread it. The constant worry of my hair flying down the road (I won’t blame you for chuckling) or it receding and exposing my scalp. I just find that I spend 100% of my time spent outside in the wind moving hair out of my face or trying to discreetly (this is impossible) hold the wig itself in place. Of course people with hair get irritated by strands flying about the place as well, but there isn’t that fear of total humiliation if it goes wrong. The wigs I have used can only be ‘parted’ in one way, and trying to keep all the strands where they should be is also impossible. I can’t concentrate on anything other than trying to tidy it up so that people walking past me won’t think “Ha! Look at her in her obvious wig, desperately trying to hide the fact she’s wearing a wig”.

Rain. Rain is not wig friendly either. again, the ones I buy may be different but the rain water doesn’t get absorbed into the hair like everyone else. It sits in perfect little drops all over my head, again making me feel like I may as well get “Bald” tattooed on my forehead. The wigs I have bought are synthetic and don’t last long. I find that most (not ll, but most) wigs are aimed at ‘older women’. Short bobs and such, and that isn’t ‘me’. I used to dye my hair a different colour every week. I don’t want a ‘choppy bob’ or a shoulder length blondfe wig with a full fringe. The styles that are available are not styles I would ever have. So I have to wear ones that I can compromise with. I also find that 90% of wigs online are party wigs. I try and search for different wigs and most of the search results are for ‘Smiffys’ or other fancy dress places. Given the fact that the majority of wigs are costume wigs, these sellers must assume that all people wearing wigs do so for fun. Not all of us! Some of us rely on wigs!The wig I buy most of the time typically last me around 4 weeks. Around week 3, the hair starts to fray. No matter what products or brushes/combs etc that I use, the fray is inevitable. These wigs end up being 1 giant dreadlock. There is often an awkward overlap between a wig going shit and a new one being delivered and it’s never a calm, chilled or relaxed time.

I would love to have a human hair wig, but I can’t afford one. I bid on a perfect one on eBay and won the auction! I was thrilled!! But, I was scammed. I waited and waited and then checked the sellers feedback. They had been on eBay since 2006 with great feedback up until the last month. Then it was only ‘fraud’ and ‘scam’ comments and the seller closed their account. Awesome!

If anyone can recommend a wig shop/maker/seller then I would appreciate the info.

I have heard lace front wigs are also better?

This little post had quadrupled in size again. Ooops!

This is why you should say “I’m good, thanks” when somebody asks you how you are!

 

Misses Cee x

Next blog: Misery and gloom