I Have a Secret (Part I)

Yep, you read that right.  I have a secret.  What is it?  Well, I'm going to blog about it, and then it won't be a secret anymore. 

I'm addicted to pulling my hair out.  I have been since I was 9 years old.  Very few people know this about me.  I want you to understand that I have been doing this to myself for 26 years.  More and more lately, I find myself relating to those that I know with an alcohol or drug addiction.  It's like a light bulb went off and I said "Ah ha! I understand now!" 

This may be a multiple post, we'll see how this goes.  I'll start from the begining.

My parents divorced when I was 8.  My mom, brother and I moved from a city in Iowa to my mom's hometown in Wisconsin in the middle of my 2nd grade year.  I remember asking to go to the bathroom a lot, just so I could cry and no one could see me.  I had been "popular" in my old school, and now I was picked on and not as accepted.  It was about a year later that I started pulling my hair.  I don't remember the first pull.  To be honest, I couldn't pin point being concious about doing it at all.  The first memory I have of pulling my hair is in my classroom in 3rd grade.  We were taking some sort of test and I was pulling the hair on the top of my head out and throwing it on the floor.  I wouldn't say it was pulling as much as it was ripping.  It didn't have purpose or meaning, I just needed to rip it out.  Looking back, I imagine it was like punching a punching bag when you're stressed out.  Punch it!  Sweat!  Pain!  Except mine was, rip it! Throw it!  Pain!

By the end of 3rd grade, I had a small, half dollar size bald spot on the back of my head.  In the summer, I wore hats and scarves to cover it.  All the while my parents fretted about what was wrong.  I couldn't tell them.  They made an appointment for a dermatologist.  I remember that appointment.  By the time I went, the bald spot was the whole top of my head.  I was worried about what was wrong with me. I really didn't realize that I had pulled all of that hair out myself.  In my immature brain, I really didn't have words for, nor understand what I was going through.  I just know that I knew I pulled "some" hair, I just didn't think I could possibly have pulled it all.

So, the doctor comes in and looks at my head.  He's poking and examining.  Then, he must have asked my mom if he could consult other doctors.  Soon, I literally had 4-5 doctors in the room, all looking at my head.  Touching it, poking it, pinching it.  They asked if they could take some hairs for samples, so they did.  We waited as they left the room to look at the hair under a microscope.  When they came back, they said their were signs of some of the hair being broken off, and some that naturally fell out.  He asked me if I pulled my hair.  I shook my head no, very vigerously.  "Well," he said, "it could be that it's irritated so you're rubbing it on your pillow at night or scratching it and it's breaking off."  Dumb, dumb, dumb!  I wish, to this day, I had shook my head "yes."  They didn't know much about what I had then.  They diagnosed me with Alopecia Areata and sent me home with some pamphlets.

My dad became a research buff and subscribed to a newletter for Alopecia patients.  I went to group therapy sessions, where, at 10 years old, I was the youngest.  I was now wearing a wig to cover my baldness.  I eventually became completely bald.  I started to believe that I had the same thing all the other people in my group had.  "I wasn't pulling my hair!  My skin was irritated and I was itching it!  The doctor told me and doctors are never wrong...right?"  I remember one young lady that I wanted to be like that was in my group.  Her name was Patty, and I'll never forget her.  She was a college student at the time and she didn't wear a wig, a scarf or a hat!  And she was completely bald!  I wished I had her confidence.  I remember thinking she was so beautiful.  She had this shiny head, and big, beautiful eyes.  She drew in her eye brows because she didn't have any of those either, but she was gorgeous.  A lot of us asked her how she did it.  How did she walk out her door and face the world with no hair?  I don't remember her exact words, but it was something like, "I know who I am and I believe I'm beautiful.  God made me this way, and I have no need to hide it.  If others want to gawk and stare, let them.  If they want to judge, let them.  I know who I am and if they don't want to know me, then I don't need their opinions."  But she wasn't rude about it.  She was very graceful.  I wanted to be her more than anything.