My Struggles with Trichotillomania

January 18, 2016

I've been struggling.

So I am in regular counseling (I even have an appointment tomorrow, yay), and I think that counseling going to help me a lot. However, I am still pulling at an alarming rate (even for me, which is pretty bad). When I was doing really bad in the summer of 2015, I was only pulling one strand at a time. Now, I'm pulling up to six strands at once. And I'm doing it a lot more.

This scares me for a number of reasons. It means I will start having serious bald patches on my left side of my head, and when that happens, people will find out. I'll start getting teased because I'm partially bald, questions will be risen, no one will even want to look at me. Well, no one does anyways because I'm out of shape, ugly, and I'm just generally disliked. Bald spots will take it to a whole new level.

I'm extremely self conscious about my looks, and it doesn't help that people stare at me in P.E. because the fastest mile I have ever run was over ten minutes long, and I'm almost always that one person who everyone doesn't want on their team. I'm not necessarily fat, but I am far from in shape. People laugh, I get stressed, I pull. I hate it.

It also doesn't help that it's winter, and I am always so much more depressed and sad in the winter than I am in other seasons. As I speak, it is dumping snow outside, and I usually just stay inside, listen to music, cry at times. 

My family also fails to understand my pulling. My mother probably understands the most, but my brother and my dad don't at all. Whenever we talk about it, it's always "Why can't you just stop pulling?" and "You obviously don't WANT to be cured if you aren't trying to stop". Just today, before my dad left for a business trip, his last words to me were "Don't pull when I'm gone". No "I love you" no "See you in a week". Even I will admit this is very out of character for my father.

And with my brother, it's even worse. I like to hang out alone in my room a lot, mostly to read, watch anime (main reason why I'm in there. My parents do not approve of it and I do not really want them to know I love it :P), listen to music. Besides, when they want me in the main room, all they do is talk and I never really get a say, so if I'm not included why should I even be there? Anyways, back to my brother. Because I am constantly in my room, he is convinced I pull in there. This is only half true: yes, I pull in there, but not every waking moment I'm alone. He doesn't trust me when I am alone and checks on me practically every fifteen minutes, which is beyond annoying. 

Another thing that has been bugging me lately is school. Counseling and school usually butts heads, because my counseling is once a week, almost always during school. I've had to be excused about three times for the past few weeks, and I'm pretty sure my teachers are slightly suspicious about why I'm missing school. People are also going to ask "Why do you keep missing school?" And I won't have a good answer. I've used the "I'm going to the doctor's" or "I'm going to the dentist's" already, and those won't really work anymore. What do I do?

Anyways, I really needed to vent today. Thanks for reading my long rant thing.