In other news, I found out that Everything is Terrible!: The Movie will be playing in Chicago when I’m there! This is entirely too exciting. I am lame.

Hey Mom,

First, calm! This is a letter, yes, but it’s nothing that you should be concerned about. I’m writing this rather than speaking this not because it is a big deal, but because it is somewhat embarrassing. I hope you understand.

For the past year and a half or so, I’ve been using the resources at school to help me deal with a disorder called “trichotillomania.” Trichotillomania is an OCD-spectrum disease that causes compulsive hair pulling and affects about 4% of adults. If you’d like to learn more about it, you can visit www.trich.org, which has lots of resources and information. I have been struggling with this problem for six years (give or take), something that I’m fairly confident you’ve noticed but have kindly not interrogated me about. When I went to the psychiatrist last year, I was indeed diagnosed with dysthymia and ADD, but my primary reason for going was to find a medication to combat the hair pulling. The Wellbutrin has helped a great deal, although I am still not completely pull-free. I just picked up a bottle of N-AC, a supplement that was found in a U-MN study to improve symptoms in 70% of patients, which are the best clinical result obtained from any tests so far and will hopefully help me as well. Still, I doubt that I ever will be completely pull-free until new medications tailored to this problem are developed.

At any rate, I’ve come a long way in the past 7 or 8 months but the cumulative effect of six years of this has taken its toll on my hair. Two weeks ago, I purchased a wig. Wearing a wig will have two main advantages for me. First, it will make it much more difficult to pull out my hair in the first place. Second, I’ll be able to have an actual hairstyle while letting my real hair grow out (which, of course, is a really slow process).

I’m pleased with the wig that I bought– it’s real human hair and I got it for relatively cheap, considering it’s medical quality. It’s a cute, medium-short cut and it’s chestnut brown. Tomorrow I want to start wearing it regularly and before I leave for ________ I’m planning to dye and cut my real hair so that I can co-mingle it with the wig hair.

I tell you all this because, first, you’d clearly realize that something was up when I suddenly became a brunette. But I also figure that you deserve to know what’s happening in my life and, moreover, one of the reasons that you are paying for a prescription medication of mine.

I do have a few requests, however. Please be aware that I am taking all necessary steps to combat this disorder but that, ultimately, it is only as harmful to me as I am ashamed of it (if that makes sense). Inherently, there’s nothing dangerous or problematic about trichotillomania, however annoying it may be. It’s taken a long time for me to come to terms with it, but ultimately, it’s JUST a cosmetic problem. I would like to be pull-free, but if I don’t get there I refuse to beat myself up for it. As such, I’d really prefer not to be asked about how my hair is doing, pestered if you notice me pulling, or bothered about going to another therapist or something like that. I really don’t particularly want to talk about it more than strictly necessary.

Anyways, I’d appreciate your sharing the contents of this letter with Dad, as long as he also respects the requests I listed above.

Let me know when you’ve read this and I’ll show you my new “hair.” At some time, I’d like help picking out the hair dye and accoutrement (hair pins, wig stand, shampoo) that I need in making this transition.

Thank you and I love you.

Kate

How exquisite it would be to create something so joyful and life-affirming! I want nothing more from my time on this earth than to someday, somehow contribute to something that stands defiantly in the face of death and despair as a monument to the queer, strange marvel that is life.

Not too much to write about today. I cooked dinner– caribbean rice with honey-lime chicken and mango. It turned out pretty well.

I’m still working up the nerve to tell my mother about the wig. It’ll have to wait until Sunday or Monday, since D is here. Actually, I’ll commit myself right here and now to tell her on Monday morning. I think I’d chicken out with a face-to-face conversation, so I’m going to write a letter explaining everything– what trichotillomania is, the steps I’ve taken to combat it, why I don’t want to have continuous conversations about it, my decision to get a wig, etc. My hope is that she and my father will be able to accept that I really do not want to be asked for updates on my pulling or how my medication is working in this regard. Honestly, I don’t want to talk about it, period. I’m not ready yet. Someday, I may be. But not yet.

I should have told them long ago. R demanded that I do so once, actually. This was while I was wavering on the question of whether or not I wanted to try medication and I stalled for time so desperately that he more-or-less issued an ultimatum– tell them and get help, or else he’d leave because he couldn’t keep enabling me. The doctor put me on Wellbutrin and I knew that it would show up on our health insurance. My courage having failed me each time I’d tried to broach the issue, I eventually resolved that I would just tell them when they asked about the bill. When the phone call came, though, I just could not do it. Hearing the concern in my mother’s voice, facing the prospect of explaining an unfamiliar mental disorder and the shame that entailed, I lost my nerve and said it was for ADD and mild depression. Which was partially true– the psychiatrist did diagnose me with ADD and (major) depression. But it wasn’t THE truth.

I got the help I needed, but didn’t fulfill the other tenet of R’s demand. And I lied to him. I told him that I had told them. It was cowardly, dishonest, and it weighs on my conscience to this day.

I want to put it right. The first step is actually informing my parents, something that (though I hate to admit it) will take a weight off my shoulders. The next is to own up to my lie to R someday, if it seems like our relationship, friendly or romantic warrants it. It’s terrifying, but it’s the forthright and proper path.

So here’s a little promise to myself: On Monday, day twenty five, I will leave my mom a note about the situation. That day, I will begin wearing my wig full time.

If I could pinky-swear with the callous interwebs I would.

But today I found the best, roundest, flattest skipping stone ever. It was as smooth as an eggshell and gray like the moon. It fit perfectly in the palm of my hand, warm and comfortable.

I flung it at the river and even before it hit the water I knew I’d done well. Well, by my standards at least… I’d like to say that it made it all the way across to the other bank, 25 or 30 feet away. It didn’t. It wasn’t even close. But it did skip like 5 times, which is, of course, more than twice my average. Looking at the ripples emanating from the spot where it had finally succumbed, a respectable distance away, I felt excited and accomplished.

You take what victories you can get,  you know?

While this experiment is worth it in itself and while I’m excited for the next 4 months, I won’t lie: I look forward to Day One Hundred Forty Eight partially because it’s so close to Day One Hundred Fifty Two. The day I see R again.

When we’re back on campus, it will be very difficult to see him, to know how to act and what to say. We agreed before we left that we’d see if we want to give it another try, though I don’t think either of us appreciated just how much psychic room 6 months occupies.

Bleh, I still love him. But one of the positive effects of these past twenty days is that I’m more aware of my needs, my insecurities, and my problems. That, and I’m not dissolving into tears when the thought that we might not get back together in the end crosses my mind. It still sucks to not have him around and to think that maybe I’ll never kiss him again, but I just feel better, less “dumped,” about the situation now than I did a month ago. I’m willing not only to admit that I have conditions for renewing the relationship but also to walk away if those standards aren’t met, even if he wants me to stay.  And I can live with, even be happy with, being friends instead of lovers.

I’ve also made progress on the body positivity front as well. I’ve actually managed to stop myself in the middle of pinching my fat in disdain or mentally berating my thighs or hair.  I’m exercising every day, consciously avoiding the scale, and eating a healthy, normal amount of food. I haven’t completely unplugged the mental calorie counter, but I am vigilant about squashing its disordered messages. When my mother and C have started going on about how fat they are, how miserable they feel with their bodies, I haven’t just offered them the usual don’t-worry-you’re-not-fat schtick but instead have tried to challenge their attitudes about attraction and self-esteem. My mother in particular has been tentatively receptive and, at the very least, C has understood that I am not friendly to body snarking, diet talk, or self-belittlement.

I’m still pulling, but eh. This is not a pullfreeathon and being pull-free is not one of the big goals of this experiment. Though trich still seems so monumentally unfair and embarrassing, it isn’t quite triggering a refrain of, “Ugly, ugly, ugly,” in my head like it used to.

Overall, I’m pleased with my progress, especially in light of how incredibly unstable I was at the end of July. Hopefully the next 128 days will bring more positive changes!

Biking is my preferred form of exercise, since it’s actually effective without making me hate life (a la running). That, and I enjoy the sensation of traveling, of letting go, of exploring.

The route winds through woods, fields, river beds, along highways, small roads, over bridges, through gullies, up hills, and down hills. It’s fantastically varied for being no more than 5 miles long from the trailhead where I park to the trailhead I turned around at. Before I made the trip back to the car, I parked my bike behind a tree and wandered down to the river’s edge.

It was sunset. I walked on the wide cobble shore, looking for fossils and ceramic pieces and old nails. No one else was there. I drank my ice water as took off my shoes and socks and waded in knee-high to cool off. A railroad bridge was only a few hundred yards away and I was excited when I heard the not-too-distant whistle of a train. I waited in the water for it to pass by.

Its horn shrieked as it roared over the bridge. The birds in nearby trees erupted in alarmed cries. Its wheels beat a steady driving rhythm into the air. I looked up at the windows of the front car, wondering if maybe some person was looking down at me. How does  one become a train conductor anyway? It would not be a bad existence.

I put my shoes back on and biked back. When I drove home, the classic blues program was on the radio. I sang along with Mahalia Jackson and rolled the windows down.

A good day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5y9A4DKmjM.

(“I am Not My Hair” by India Arie.)

It’s technically about the struggles black people have with their hair– “good” and “bad” hair, natural, relaxed, straightened, dreads, and all the racist messages and baggage that come with those things. But it’s not too hard to see the application to trichotillomania, even if it’s not the song’s intention.

In particular, these lyrics resonated with me:

“I looked in the mirror for the first time and saw that, hey, I am not my hair. I am not this skin. I am not your expectations.”

“It’s not what’s on your head, it’s what’s underneath.”

“Her diamond eyes are sparkling. Her bald head like a full moon shining. Singing out to the whole world like, hey, I am not my hair.”

I think what we trichsters have to keep in mind is this: the worst case scenario is that we are bald, which, in the end, is not a terrible fate by any means. It is just hair. It is JUST hair. No matter what our hair or lack thereof looks like, we’re valuable, wonderful, and even beautiful people. Period.

The beautiful part, while the least important, is admittedly the hardest part of that sentiment to swallow. But sometimes I’m able to grasp it, feel it. In this, I owe a lot to body acceptance activists like Kate Harding and Laurie Toby Edison and to my personal feminism.

To quote the aforementioned Kate Harding, attractiveness is subjective.

There is nothing innate or biologically ordained about the ideal of beauty espoused by Cosmopolitan or Elle. And while there are undoubtedly girls who are beautiful in a way society appreciates, that girl on the cover of the magazines, that living embodiment of perfection, DOES NOT EXIST. Even that model or actress or singer gets digitally nipped and tucked and altered. It’s all an artist’s fantasy. When even Jessica Alba’s thighs are photoshopped to look skinnier, it’s easy to see that holding oneself to that standard is actually insane. It’s an ideal, it’s perfection, it’s something you’re supposed to aspire to but can never reach. It’s supposed to make you say, “If only my pores were smaller…” or “If only my teeth were whiter…” It’s meant to compell you to rummage in your wallet for the cash to BUY lipsticks, Botox sessions, that gym membership, shampoos, plastic surgery, skin whiteners, hair straighteners, conditioners, foundations, contact lenses, laser treatments, and any one of the other products that earn their keep by telling women that they are ugly without them. There’s money in generating deep self-loathing among the masses.

That, and it maintains the fiction that women are valuable for their looks, not their humanity.

This is not to say that fashion, make-up, common hygiene practices, shaving your pits, or what-have-you are evil. Cultures inevitably have prevailing trends of dress and body care that do shape their members’ preferences. This is not necessarily bad, as long as people recognize that a pleasant or unpleasant exterior does not contribute to or detract from a person’s natural worth and dignity.

But even despite the existence of an ideal, attractiveness is subjective. Some people, for whatever reason, somewhere, like traits that do not fit that standard. That could mean something as little and un-revolutionary as preferring small breasts to large or finding size 8s sexier than a size 2. Or it could mean that person digs short fat transgirls with bald heads and body hair. Are these people rarer and more illusive than those whose “perfect” mate is something like Carmen Electra? Yes. But they exist. In sufficient numbers to make life wonderful, diverse, and exciting.

This break from R has given me some necessary space to evaluate some unhealthy aspects of our relationship. I always felt ugly around him. He lived in Orange County in high school, the epicenter of Cosmo-esque persons. His ex was a tanned, full-haired all-star athlete who maintained an enviably trim figure through varsity soccer (and a cocaine habit, but that’s another story). I’m not fat by most accepted standards, but possess a curvy rather than athletic figure. I wore glasses when I met him. I have trich and thus wore my hair in boring ways to conceal it. I am as pale as a sheet of paper.

R once requested that I take off my glasses for a picture, so he could send it to his friends at home. It was like a punch in the gut. I got contacts.

He never really said anything when I went through periods of higher weights, but the lavish praise when I lost it made his position on the issue crystal clear. I became obsessed with losing weight.

He was emphatic that I should seek treatment for my trichotillomania, practically forcing me to make an appointment with a psychiatrist. He was motivated by genuine concern and love for me, for the most part. But I am 100% certain that it was also in hopes of having a girlfriend with “normal” hair whom he could show to his friends without embarrassment.

“It must wreak havoc on your self-esteem,” he said to me once. It does. But it didn’t help that I knew that my pulling, if it got any worse, even though I didn’t have any control over it, would make me lose him. Because he did not, could not, does not find a me with “bad” hair attractive.

None of this is to blame R in the slightest for my issues. He has a right to find whatever he likes attractive. He has the right to communicate it, wish for it, and suggest it. He was not cruel to me in the least. But I have to accept that not fitting someone’s standards does NOT mean that am a bad person. It also does not mean that I am an ugly person in an objective sense.

I am not destined to celibacy and loneliness because I’m not exactly one person’s cup of tea. This summer I’ve had people tell me that I look so sexy that they want to get me off, that I have a “rockin’ body,” and that they find me distractingly cute, among other things. I’ve hooked up, kissed, fucked, and flirted. Clearly, some people consider me attractive.

With R, I got positive reinforcement for acting on my insecurities, leading me to develop and act upon new ones in self-damaging ways. If, in the winter when we are both on campus again, we decide to get back together, I will need to have more courage, more backbone, and more confidence than I did before.  I need to be able to evaluate which changes to my appearance are inconsequential and painless enough that I don’t mind yielding to requests and which I am not eager to make and will not compromise on. I need to be true to myself as well as true to him.

I am not my hair. I am lovable enough without it.

2. Ice cubes and their transience.

3. Identifying with cheesy song lyrics and feeling comforted and heartened, not ashamed.

4. The earnestness of the first handful of leaves to turn yellow.

5. People who sing while bicycling down a busy street.

I was pleasantly surprised. I look good as a brunette– maybe even a little Zooey Deschanel-esque ’cause it brings out my blue eyes. After I trimmed it up to a short, edgier style,  it looked  really quite cute. Especially with headbands or headscarves. Overall, a good choice.

My hair right now is a bit thin, thanks to the trich. I’m sick of not being able to look cute because of worrying about covering bald spots. Having a wig will make my life a lot easier in that respect. Also, it will ensure that my hands stay out of my hair while I’m wearing it, hopefully giving it a chance to grow in to a reasonable length.

I’m a bit concerned about whether or not I should tell people I wear a wig. C, I am sure, will notice and I’ll have to tell her. Some friends at school might, but I won’t be seeing them for so long anyways that they might forget the questionable fine-ness of my hair by then. I can’t swim in it or sleep in it. My roommates will have to know.

But honestly, should I care about that? Trich isn’t something shameful– it’s annoying, tedious, inexplicable, but it’s ultimately only as socially crippling as I choose to make it. If someone asks, I might as well tell them.

In the short term, I plan to go out shopping or running with it on, just to get used to wearing it in public, before the big reveal to my friends. And this development will also mean I need to talk to my parents about my trichotillomania which is a conversation that, as much as I dread it, will probably be healthy for all involved.

Brown hair suits me. I might dye my natural hair that color when it grows back sufficiently!