How I Got Over...

We never can understand the effects we have on people. Just being kind or rude can change a person's life at least for the moment. In the world we live in we are very judgemental. Cultural bullies who will crush an individual just to reinforce social norms and belief of how people should be and what they should do. Worst of all is the negative force of the family.

When I was in my early teens I began pulling my hair out and eating it. But let me start just a symptom earlier. First when and wherever on my body I had hair I began to itch. It felt as if something was crawling on my skin. I immediately felt that I may have had some type of bugs like lice. I would shake dandruff out of my hair and stare at it for minutes to be sure that nothing moved. I had to be about 9 or ten at the time this started happening. Then I began to pull my hair out and bite down on the kinks to make it crunch in my mouth. Anywhere there was itching, I pulled the hair out in an attempt to satisfy my hair pulling craving. My eyelashes suffered the most. And what compounded the situation is the fact that they were pulled out in patches not the whole eyelash–– just a middle portion; not the whole brow just noticeable patches of hair missing.

Sometimes I would double over with stomach pain thinking that I may have had some type of tapeworm. Doctors and a whole bunch of caster oil compliments of my mother didn't help these issues. My mother wasn't going to take me to see a shrink. Why? Because I came from a culture that did not and does not trust the psychological establishment in America. But that is a whole other story. So, no psychological help. No reason for my condition except I was a weird child. So here I am a 12-year-old black boy pulling his hair out. Now let me pause just one second. The reason for this post is to show how my disease at the time was taken away. Now I'm not sure if I am cured but I was changed by one moment. My mother whom I love was a terror. I was living under stressful conditions that a child should not have to endure. I suffered from the threat of physical abuse as well and, more commonly, the threat of verbal abuse.

My mother did the best she could. Unfortunately, she planted a lot of thorns in my mental garden. So, I believe that most people suffering from a mental disease suffer more because of the social stigmas that place their "disease" in a negative light. Even the word disease is an example of that. So here is this young black kid not only pulling his hair out but eating it as well. My mother's way of dealing with it was to add more stress to the situation, "Boy what are you doing?" Nothing more positive than shaming a child into a deeper sense of self-loathing. But this was her culture and how she dealt with what was stressing her out. When a person is diagnosed there are negative stigmas that follow that diagnosis.

These social stigmas can, in my opinion, add to the stress that the individual is going through and elevate the symptoms they are trying to repress. In my case, if you yell at me and increase my stress then I pull out more of my hair. In steps my stepdad-ish person by the name of Jessie. I hated Jessie. And at every moment I had I let him know. Why did I hate him? Because he was dating my mother and no other reason than that. But one day in the midst of being caught not only pulling out my hair but snacking on it like chips, he not only came to my rescue but mentally helped me overcome my disease.

"The Moment Someone Stood up for Me"

"Boy, why in the hell are you eating your hair?" I was stumped.

I had no idea how to respond so I said the most common response of all children, "I don't know."

"You gone catch a disease doing that."

I was humiliated. I was a weirdo who was being ostracized by the very person who was supposed to protect me. My mother. Then, out of nowhere, Jessie spoke. In a joking second, he crushed everything my mother had ever said about me. "Leave that boy alone. If he wants to eat his hair let him. He ain't bothering no one and, shoot, it may be good." Everyone laughed. But not at me because I laughed as well. Jessie without any training in psychology demonstrated the forgotten art of not negatively judging people.

Maybe he sensed my embarrassment or maybe he just really believed in not negatively judging people because of what they do or because they are different. I didn't feel like an outcast, and those well time words stopped me from pulling my hair out. I'm not saying that this will help everyone but what it will do is relieve most of the stress any person has to deal with because of negative social stigmas placed on them because they are diagnosed or just different. My name is Sylvester Wright and as a kid I had Trichotillomania and someone said, "so what? Leave him alone." I hope my words help someone like Jessie's' words helped me.