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A Taste of Trich

It’s ironic when I look back on the very first time I intentionally pulled a strand of hair from my head. Who would’ve known that pulling one strand would lead to ten, to a hundred, to a pile of hair on the floor next to my bed. Not a single strand on my head is safe. Each one is at risk for being stroked, twirled, tugged and eventually pulled. “It’s just one, I have so many more”, I’ll reassure myself. My anxiety begins to build, my heart rate increases, and I can feel my mouth begin to water as if I’m a part of Pavlov’s conditioning experiment. I feel my hand go towards my head, unable (or, unwilling) to stop myself. I feel the patches of short, stubby regrowth, and my anxiety is now through the roof. I find one of the coarse strands, but I’ll first search for a better one; one that will hopefully satisfy the urge I can’t shake, better than that previous strand. I’ll pull one, then two, then a hundred, and with each one feel a rush of relief, like a drug addict who finally got their fix. I’ll finally stare at the strands that were not long ago attached to my head, and I’ll feel my heart drop the same way it does every time after a pulling episode. Being the type A that i am, I’ll quickly gather the evidence of my weakness–if it was a good day, only needing to gather with one hand–head straight to the trashcan, and dispose of what my body worked so hard to grow. I’ll then fish for my lint roller, maybe even the hand-vac, and clean up each stray strand I find while my blood pressure begins to decrease. I’ll sit back down on my clean, hair free couch, desk, or wherever Trich won the fight, feeling relief for a minute or two, only to be haunted by my own thoughts of how disgusting of a human I am. “Hair is what makes you pretty”, “Your boyfriend of 3 and ½ years won’t look at you the same, so you better hide it well”, “Those extensions are getting ratty, everyone probably knows why you have them”…I continue to torture myself with these thoughts literally everyday, multiple times a day more often than not.

To someone who doesn’t have this little monster called Trich, tugging at their shirt like a child who wants attention after you just told them to give you a minute, it may sound easy to push the monster away, and continue on with your daily tasks. On the other hand, for those of us who sometimes can’t fight that little bastard on our weakest days, please don’t think to yourself “Why don’t they just stop pulling…it can’t be that hard”, because believe me, if I or many others could, we’d all have hair probably better than yours.