Trichotillomania

I’ve always been a picker. I pulled my own hair out when I was little, even though my Mother told me not to and it made my Nana sick.

Even though it felt shameful and humiliating

I ripped it out strand by strand and revelled in the feeling it brought.

I would ball it up and wrap it in toilet paper and hide it away

My mother always found it – We would always fight

Because she didn’t know that it was an illness – and neither did I.

Eventually I stopped, and then I met you.

I took you back time and time again. Even when my Mother told me not to and it made my Nana sick.

Even though it felt shameful and humiliating

I revelled in the feeling you gave me, good or bad

I would hide the messages and park my car where no one could see

My mother always found out – We would always fight

But there was no illness to blame here… Just you

I have given myself so many scars reopening old wounds and creating new ones. Picking at them so much that they eventually became scars.

It was trichotillomania that made me pull my hair out, but anyone who’s experienced it knows that it is still a mystery, they’ve just given it a name. It doesn’t make me feel any better, I still don’t know what went on in my brain. It wasn’t self-harm, at least not in that kind of way.

But nothing good came of it. I wore headbands to school to hide my bald spots

I filled in my hairline when I filled in my eyebrows for years.

But there is no illness I have heard of with any fancy name to explain why I ever allowed what you have done.

No illness to explain why I endured it.

I don’t think I will ever understand what compelled me to do that.

To let you cheat on me, manipulate me, abuse me

I don’t think I will ever understand why I had to reopen that wound over and over

Just to feel something – It wasn’t love.

I have this one scar on the back of my ankle from when I went skating in skates a size too small. I didn’t realize that I was hurting myself when I did; but then it was an ow. And when it began to heal, I picked at it and picked at it and picked at it. Now it’s still there – A scar.

There is no big question or epiphany here

I was just sitting here picking a scab and wondering why I always do that

And it made me think of you.