Trichster

I am looking at my reflection and surprised what I see. There’s a young, pretty, healthy-looking girl looking back at me. She pouts with dark lips and bright brown eyes. She has something I haven’t seen in a while: a beautiful head of hair; cascading brown waves. I toss my hair to one side. I run my fingers through the curls, admire them over my shoulder. I missed having hair like this. My hand unintentionally grazes a spot of sparseness and I feel the naked skin of my scalp. I jerk my hand away. I don’t want to be reminded of my years of struggle.

Once upon a time, I pulled all the hair from my head. I pulled them out one by one, every strand. I had a patchy scalp like a chemo patient and the self esteem of a rat at the dump. I remember the pile of hair I left underneath my desk when I took the SATs. I remember years of journaling and sessions on my therapist’s couch, trying to understand the frustrating anxiety disorder I have come to develop. And I remember how it started.

I grew an obsession with my split ends in high school, an anxious tic and distraction. I have generalized anxiety disorder, which basically means I have more anxiety than the average person. When the world around me was too overwhelming or cruel, I focused on the wishbone ends of my hair I split to distract myself. I kept up this habit throughout all my classes. I inherited my father’s focusing discrepancies, making paying attention in school difficult and frustrating. It should have been a given that even the hair that hung on the sides of my face would end up as entertainment.

So I split the ends of my hair, morning to night. At school, at home, in the company of friends, my boyfriend at the time, or by myself. When my sisters pointed out how scraggly my hair looked as a result of stripping it, I was disappointed and embarrassed. But I couldn’t stop all together, I had become too accustomed to the habit. So I started pulling. The logic was if I pulled out the full hair, I could split the broken end without having a head of hair with thin, unhealthy ends. It doesn’t hurt, pulling out your hair, as you’d think it would. It almost made me feel in touch with my body. Like I was in control. I started obsessing over the root, the hair follicle, that came with tearing hard enough. When the nerves came to crawl under my skin, my hands reached to my head to distract me from them. I couldn’t stop. But I had a beautiful, thick head of hair, and hair grows back! No need to worry….

My therapist reassured me it was like biting my nails. That it was self soothing behavior, something that I could focus on in a moment of anxiety (which was every moment, unfortunately). With my ADD, sitting still for a long period of time is a struggle for me. This new habit added a layer of stimuli, a physical sensation. But my self-soothing, nervous tick turned self destructive, and I hated myself for stumbling down the rabbit hole of habit and hatred.

At 17, my hairline started to recede. My high school senior picture shows my sad widow’s peak, hopelessly trying to grow back despite my constant tearing. It still sits in my dad’s office, along with my sisters’ beautiful, “normal” senior photos. All I can see is that patchy hairline and horrid braces.

I began wearing headbands, every single day. What started as preference turned into necessity: I needed to cover my balding head. I got cute ones from Forever 21, neutral ones to go with every outfit. I resented the fact that I needed to wear them, but had no choice but to shrug it off and comply. It was my own doing, anyways. My friends didn’t ask questions, my family avoided their eyes. The headbands became like wearing a bra: kind of annoying that I always had to wear one, but essential. I spent my entire senior year of high school covering my head with headbands and hats.

On graduation day I kept my cap on when everyone else threw theirs in the air in celebration. I was devastated I couldn’t partake, an outsider at my own milestone. I could never reveal my bald spots to anyone, especially not a crowd of my peers. It pains me to see the pictures from that day. My undecorated graduation cap, and later, the out of place headband that clashed with the dress my mom bought me for her last child to graduate.

The bald spots creeped to the back of my head. Big, gaping spots. I was so embarrassed, so frustrated that I couldn’t stop. Because that was the simple solution: to stop. Why couldn’t I just stop? My hair was everywhere: I pulled before getting out of bed, before going to sleep. I scooped up tufts of my beautiful brown hair that I yanked from my own head. It was a vicious cycle: my hands drifted to my head to pull out hair in moments of anxiety. But as the pulling ensued, I would get more anxious. Waves of self loathing and resentment toppled over me; I struggled to keep breathing.

I had to convince my boss to let me wear a headband at work. It was a strict rule at the catering hall, but he sighed as I said I had hair loss problems.

The hair powder came next. I forget how I discovered it, but to cover the bald spots in the back I began shaking this thick, dark-brown powder that acted almost as makeup for my head.

I remember ducking into the catering hall’s bathroom, quickly covering the spots before anyone saw. Before they saw who I really was: sick, and in pain.

Pretty soon I didn’t have much to work with. Going to community college during the week and working on the weekend made me feel left out from other people my age who were out partying and meeting new people, making memories. I felt even more alone in my anxiety disorder, yet clung to it for familiarity. The headbands covered the front okay, but the back of my head became so bare from my pulling that the hair powder wasn’t cutting it anymore. I had pulled too much. I needed a wig.

I did research online. There was a place in Teaneck, New Jersey that sold wigs, primarily for the Hasidic women population of the area. I met with a nice woman who didn’t think twice as the tears silently streamed down my face as I saw my reflection. “This is a safe space,” she coaxed. She chose an auburn wig of straight hair for me which was a whopping $800. I believe I paid $200, but to this day I can’t believe my mom foot the rest of the bill. It shows the kind of person she was: even though we couldn’t afford this splurge, she knew I needed this to feel better. So I wore the wig.

I wore it to work, where everyone was so supportive and purposely naive, which I greatly appreciated. My guy friends asked, “Did you do something different with your hair?”

It was awkward, and my face flushed. “Yes, I did” I replied.

I wore it to school, at community college, where I kept my head down anyways. I wasn’t interested in making any friends, I was holding on to the notion that my time there was only temporary. I was hoping my time in a wig would also be.

Eventually I got tired of stuffing the ends of my hair into the wig. The top of my head was patchy and mostly bald and the length of hair that I did have could only be publically seen underneath hats. I decided cut it all off: the remaining of my hair, so the wig could fit more comfortably. So I could have a fresh start of growing back, hopefully this time I wouldn’t pull out the hairs as soon as they grew back. That was the goal, at least.

I remember that day when my sister helped me shave my head with an electric razor.

“Are you sure you don’t want to go somewhere to get this done?” She asked.

“No, I need it all gone. Now.”

I remember crying when I saw my reflection. I was unrecognizable. I looked sick and sad and ugly. I remember my mother’s hand covering her mouth to stifle her gasp.

After I shaved my head, I wore the wig everyday. The lovely, empathetic woman from the salon cut some bangs for the wig, and I almost liked the way I looked for the first time in a while. Almost. I don’t think it was satisfaction I felt when I looked in the mirror, but a lack of disgust I haven’t experienced in a while. These moments were fleeting. With no hair of my own, no friends, classes I hated, and little to no self esteem, I fell into a deep depression. I turned to food to cope, something I also inherited from my father. I stuffed my face with anything I could find that could create even just a moment of pleasure. I gained weight and felt even more sorry for myself. I lied to everyone, I talked to no one. I distanced myself from all my high school acquaintances. I wanted to hide, I felt like I couldn’t tell anyone the truth. How could I explain to someone that I pulled all my hair out to the point of baldness?

Underneath the synthetic auburn hair, my real hair was growing back. I hadn’t had a full head of hair in almost a year, and even though it wasn’t longer than an inch, I was happy to see less bald spots. I went through a phase of pulling out the super short hairs with tweezers, but thankfully that was short lived. Little by little, as the hair started to grow back, I started wearing the wig less and less.

One day, my friend DJ saw me at the gym, with a hat on, but no wig. My bare neck exposed, he saw what was underneath, what I had done to myself. His face softened. “You look beautiful,” he said. I knew he was just saying it to make me feel better, but it touched my heart nonetheless. A year later he brought up that day. “You were so brave,” he said. “I had no idea.”

And I felt brave, when I decided to go to work without the wig for the first time in months. I couldn’t help but tear up when my coworkers met me with hugs and encouraging words. I felt so exposed, showing up in just my work uniform and a buzz cut, but their immediate, unwavering acceptance felt so good. A couple people asked me what happened. I said, “Well I was actually wearing a wig..”

“I know,” my boss, Michael said. “What happened with it?”

They knew the whole time! And they pretended not to care, not to notice. I silently sent them gratitude, thankful that my appearance wasn’t actually as big of a deal as I thought it was. And it wasn’t a big deal, for the passing students at college or customers at work. I was just another face, the hair on my head didn’t matter to them.

But it mattered to me. It mattered to me that I had succumb to this habit, this nervous tic and self destructive behavior, and in result was stuck first bald, then in a wig, and then with a buzzcut at 18 years old. Sure, plenty of females shave their heads. But I felt like a fraud, I wasn’t artsy or edgy or making a statement. My appearance reflected what I was feeling on the inside: gaping, desperate and sad.

And then one day, I stopped. Just like that, like an on and off switch. I convinced myself like it was like alcoholism: I couldn’t just pull one hair, like an alcoholic can’t just have one drink. I couldn’t and wouldn’t allow myself to lose all my hair like that again. So I distracted my hands. When I watched TV, instead of my hands idly reaching for my head, I gave them a crochet hook. I bought spool after spool of bright yarn from the Michael’s sale bin. I made countless string bracelets for my friends and family. My hands made knot after knot, inching away from my terrible habit. I wrapped tape around my fingertips morning, noon and night. It was annoying, but without feeling in my fingers I had less incentive to pull. I read the tip on a trichotillomania site, something my mom urged me to google. I ordered trichotillomania books online, and I finally felt like I was in control of my situation.

My buzzcut grew to a cute little afro. I still felt like a stripped version of myself without my femininity, style and confidence I had in high school. But I was learning to like this new boyish version. I didn’t really have much of a choice.

I transferred to New Paltz, living with roommates and on my own for the first time. I was convinced I had gotten my hair pulling under control but I still had my challenges. My buzz cut had grown in at weird lengths, and I still felt the most comfortable wearing a bandana to cover any patches.

One night during my sophomore year, my friend Gabby asked me to tag along to a documentary being shown on campus for extra credit. It was called “Trichster”- a play on trichotillomania. The movie screen displayed the lives of individuals living with the same anxiety disorder I had. A young girl no more than 10 wore a tie-dye bandana, and her mother patiently asked her to explain why she needed to pull out her hair. “It feels good,” she replied. Another girl, closer to my age, made a stop motion video of her pulling out full sections of hair from her head within hours. Her eyes were red with sadness and she seemed to be looking right at me, in the back row of the Lecture Center. The scene returned to the little girl in the tie dye bandana. It was what her sister said that made me leave the screening. “How do you feel when your sister pulls out her hair?” she was asked.

“It makes me sad,” the girl said. I immediately thought of my own sisters, how sad my bald head must make them. It was too much. My eye blurred with tears, and I rushed out of the room, abandoning my seat and my bewildered friends.

I couldn’t get away from the room fast enough. At first it was comforting to watch people like me. I had a weird, nervous tic, but so did all these other people. But these other people, these other beautiful souls, also felt the pain and confusion I did. They felt the intense self hatred, the frustration of not being able to stop. Their family members looked at them with confusion and sadness, knowing there was no way they could save us from this suffocating habit.

Gabby caught up with my in the hall, concerned with my outburst.

“Hey,” she said softly. “Maeve, it’s okay.”

I was shaking, my tears hot against my cheeks. “That’s me,” I said. “Gab, that’s me.”

After splashing cold water on my face and a lot of deep breaths, we returned to the lecture center and finished the documentary. The ending was one of acceptance. The faces on screen were happy and radiating despite the lack of hair on their heads. I ached to reach that point of peace.

I don’t know if I’ll ever find that peace. My hair habit never left me. Still to this day, at 21 years old, I find my hand involuntarily reach for my head. As much as I hate it, I still yank out the hair. From the sides, the top, when my hair’s up or down. When I’m driving or at work. I still shift my hair around to cover bare spots. I still use the equivalent to men’s Rogaine religiously, hoping to even out all the areas on my head where I’ve pulled over the years. My hair is still uneven in length and texture from my habit, and I still obsess over my split ends as a nervous tic. I’ve gone through phases of wearing headbands, bandanas and hats to hide from the world the burden I have been faced with. But it’s still been me underneath the whole time. “It’s just your thing,” my therapist says. It’s just my thing, and I’ve come out stronger on the other side from what I have learned about beauty and vanity, about self acceptance and hatred, and about perseverance and love.