Life with Trichotillomania

I stand at the bathroom sink, hands clenched tightly onto the white porcelain edges — so tightly my knuckles are bright yellowish pink. The kind of yellowish pink your knuckles turn when you're holding onto something for dear life.

Don't pull. Don't pull. Do not pull one more hair. I repeat this to myself over and over until some of the tension starts to slowly leave my body.

I take a breath. It's risky because if I let my body know I can still move, it might try to convince my hands to move up to my scalp again in an effort to pull more hairs. My body is tricky like that — always trying to get me to do things to hurt myself. I have to be careful.

The sink is covered with short little dark brown hairs. They're only about a centimeter long because that's how short I have to keep my hair these days. I've been standing here for...I don't even know how long. Hours, probably. My husband is snoring heavily in the bedroom. I only came in here to use the bathroom, but I saw that one hair — that one hair! — in the mirror and knew I could not go to bed until it was gone. That hair couldn't stay on my head. It was too dark, too coarse, too silver, too red, a fraction of a millimeter too long. Whatever the reason, I had to pull it out.

Pull it! Pull it! That hair has to go! My fingers were already reaching for my scalp, grasping the tiny little innocent hair, and yanking. But I didn't, couldn't, stop at just one. Hairs are like potato chips (in my brain); you can't stop at just one.

And now? Now there are tears of anger and frustration and terror starting to roll down my face. I have a huge, bright pink and shiny (and swollen) bald spot on the side of my head. That one hair turned into several hundred that turned into a ghastly, unmistakeable spot. A spot I've got to figure out how to cover up before I go to work tomorrow.

I don't have a wig, which would be really nice, because every time I think about buying one, I hear my dad's voice, "Don't buy a wig. You'll look terrible." So no wig. Thanks, Dad. Instead, I have an arsenal of supplies from dark brown eyebrow pencils, eyeliner, and fake hair fibers; none of which work really well but suffice because what else is there? Life goes on and life costs money and I have to go to work in the morning.

Thank goodness there's makeup to hide my bald spots. But there's no makeup to hide this aching, broken thing inside me. The little girl in this adult body who feels vulnerable and ugly and wants to hide away where no one can see her.

My feet hurt from standing on the cold bathroom tiles for so long but I don't turn away or sit down. I keep looking at myself. In my half-crazed mind, I think, "Maybe if I can just pluck the perfect hair, pop the last pimple, micro-manage my face just right, maybe all this will go away. My hair will be back, and I'll be beautiful."

The panic starts to set in as I slowly realize, truly, that I have to go to work tomorrow. Sometimes in the insanity of pulling hair, I feel as if time has frozen, and it will be these dark, lonely early morning hours for eternity. But time moves on. Morning will come. And I will have to leave my house.

My mind reels. How could I let this happen? Again? I can't face my coworkers tomorrow looking like this! I cannot deal with that. And all the older people who will come to the desk needing help and saying things like, "Do you have cancer?" or, "Why'd you shave your head?" or my favorite, "I thought you were a little boy!"

Blows to an ego that's already been beaten and bruised.

I can't face it. I know! I'll call in sick. The flu's going around; I'll blame it on that. And then I can just rest tomorrow. I can sleep and sleep and sleep because my body never feels like it has rested enough. I don't have to worry about going out into the world for one more day.

I can hide a little bit longer. And when tomorrow comes, I'll deal with it then.

I crawl into bed as the first streaks of weak pre-dawn light are threading across the sky. My soul is so, so unbearably heavy, but at least for right now I can sleep.