"I am NOT my hair..."

What's our obsession with this thing called hair anyway? Men shave it off on purpose and it always grows back, but let a woman start to lose hers and she sometimes has to pray that it returns in all its splendor.

Such small strands, soooo much drama! Hair, or the lack thereof, can ruin relationships, wreck self esteem, create panic, and clog a drain. Or....it can make you a star (a la Farrah Fawcett and Jennifer Aniston), and send the opposite sex in a tailspin with just one toss of the head. But you know what...one day it can all disappear, just...like...that *snap.* You can lose it due to illness, stress, or a bad hair cut...heck, you could have had a bad perm. Whatever the reason, there comes a time when you realize that your attachment to hair is truly not WHO you are.

So what's a girl to do then? How does one get past the stigma of knowing that her hair loss is not caused by any of these seemingly acceptable experiences. What happens when someone with a healthy head of hair methodically pulls strand, after strand, after strand...sometimes ignoring the pain in the fingertips because they're in a trance. What happens when they start to loathe the very action, knowing all the while that they will hate their reflection when they snap out of it? What happens when they have to answer to their still small voice, which they purposefully ignored just to get that teeny tiny moment of release...of satisfaction?

As we journey through this blog, hopefully the answers will come clearly, succinctly, proficiently. For this has been a long and painful journey, through the darkness, to a positive realization. It's like coming through the fog by following the light ahead, but not being quite able to see where you're headed - you only know that you're heading in the right direction, at the right time, in the right place. "It's been a long, long time coming, but I know my change gon' come..." 061609

What do you mean you pull your hair???

I've got this secret...one that makes me feel as though I'm living two lives. To the rest of the world I'm so well put together but once I close the door behind me, the struggle begins. Such is the life of a person with Trichotillomania - Trich for short. Trich is an impulse control disorder or form of self-injury characterized by the repeated urge to pull out [bodily hair - from the scalp, lashes and other areas], sometimes resulting in noticeable bald patches (Source: Wikipedia).

Why do I do this? If I knew that answer I'd have a full head of hair right now. See, it started as a result of wearing braids too tight, then stress, then it morphed into a strange way of responding to my stress. Today I'm hiding my inner self behind wigs -- cute though they are--- afraid to reveal the real me for fear of rejection.

Don't get me wrong....this is not a pity party...but a way to explain this dreaded action that I would not wish on my worst enemy. There's no patch, no pill, no step program for this vice...all you get is "find something else to do with your hands," or "wear gloves," or "why don't you just stop???" That's my favorite...if it was that easy would so many people struggle with Trich every day? I'm praying for a cure, or at the very least to one day wake up and find that the urge to pull is gone for good! That would be divine.

In the meantime, I have to continue loving myself, knowing that this is not a barrier to finding love. In fact, it's opened my eyes to how important SELF love is before one can share in a loving relationship. This is my journey...this is part of my spiritual path...this is my story...my hair story...and so as I close this inaugural chapter, I pray that by writing I will slowly shed the last shackles of trich that keep me pulling, keep me hiding, keep me from truly, fully being ME. 061609