Been a Long Time…
Well, it’s been a long time since I posted anything, which I guess is a good thing. I don’t have quite the need to talk about pulling so much. It’s been about 10 weeks since I committed to stopping this and I’ve managed to go with only pulling those two hairs. Otherwise, I guess I’m good. I have been chewing my hair again, which is a definite set back, but I’m going to focus on the positives right now and be glad I’ve made it this long without getting into a pulling frenzy. I frequently uncover my “area” in the mirror (which is something I would never do before out of terror) and can see how it’s growing in. Albeit, it’s grey as a mule. On the plus side, my hair is growing back, which was a serious concern of mine, though it’s taking some time and is not as full as it could be in the areas I’ve pulled from over the past few years regularly. It’s still thin enough that there’s scalp showing, but I’m thankful for what I have now, and I feel like any progress is good progress. I definitely don’t lay awake at night worrying about my bald patch like I did, because I’ve regained some control and that’s what’s important. These things take time and I’m learning to be gentle with myself even if I did screw my hair up… I’m starting to believe it’s fixable at least, which is an immense comfort. I won’t lie and say I’m not tempted all the time though, because I am. I touch that place where the hair is growing back, and feel how coarse and kinky those hairs are, and it’s all I can do not to pull them, but I’ve managed to hold strong. I just want so much to be able to get that sexy hair cut that, combined with the progress I’ve made, it’s enough to keep me from following through with the deed.
I think it’s going to be OK. I really do. And if anybody reads this and wants some hope, it’s here honey… It really is.
A Bad Day
I came so close to pulling yesterday. So close. I was having one of the worst days of my career so far (and I’ve had a few bad ones in my time). A student filed a complaint against me. This sent me into a total panic when I found out.
She plagiarized on a paper, and when I let her know that I had discovered this and would be requiring her to rewrite the paper or face getting a zero for the assignment (albeit in a strongly worded email), she maintained that I was completely mistaken, was targeting her personally, and was unprofessional for threatening her with a failing grade for something she says she didn’t do. She also said she would not be returning to my class and would be filing a formal complaint with my boss.
This has never happened to me before and when I read her email I went into a total tailspin. I went to a colleague’s office and started bawling my eyes out, barely able to tell her what was happening. She comforted me, telling me this sort of thing happens all the time to even the best teachers, and advised me to go speak to my boss. Which I did.
By the time I got to his office, the student had already called the main office to ask for a complaint form against me and the secretary had alerted my boss of this. All he knew was that she wanted to file a complaint but not what her complaint would be. He asked me to tell him what I thought was going on and I told him about the plagiarism and our email correspondance. He also comforted me by telling me that this sort of thing happened all the time, even to him, and that she was probably just lashing out because she knows she made a stupid mistake. He then told me to email him everything I had that could help my case.
I then had to go directly to teach a class (thank goodness she didn’t show up) and pretend like everything was fine. As soon as that finished, I had to go searching through all of my files (luckily everything for the class is done online–assignments, grading, correspondance, everything) to find anything that could be used to show that I was not targeting her personally. This was the time when I almost started pulling. I was reading through everything, second guessing what I had said and done all semester, touching my hair and finding those perfect hairs to pull. I thought to myself, “If I just pulled this one perfect, kinky hair, I would feel so much better” but then yank my hands away, angry with myself and thinking, “No! If you pull one, you’ll pull more!” Two minutes later and I would then catch myself touching it again, and going into that trance where I would start thinking about what a relief it would be would be all over again.
Finally, I said to myself, “You are not going to let that little bitch ruin all of your hard work! You are not going to start all over again because of this lying, cheating, pathetic sack of shit who makes up for her lack of intelligence by bullying her way to a passing grade. She is not going to get the better of you, because you are better than that and better than her and always will be. Fuck her!”
And so I made it. I made it through the day without pulling, and I found ample evidence that she really did cheat and sent it to my boss. Will I be reprimanded for being a little too harsh in my email letting her know I caught her red handed? Yeah, maybe. But, boy oh boy, would I like to be a fly on the wall and see the meeting that she has with my boss when he shows her the proof of her plagiarizing and tells her she ain’t got a leg to stand on. I’d pay money to see that.
Going Away
I’m leaving town for a week and I hope this helps me to keep going strong. I really need a vacation. I’ve been struggling not to pull tonight even though I’m so excited about leaving. If I make the whole week that will be an entire mnth pull free. Fingers crossed…
It’s official
Two whole weeks pull-free. Probably the longest I’ve gone without any pulling since college. Even though it’s only been a couple of days on the NAC, it does seem to be having some effect. I don’t feel the need to pull or even touch my hair for that matter. I was responding to a message on the yahoo group and shared that I eat the roots of the hair I pull out and immediately felt disgusted with the very idea of doing something like that. As I write it now, it seems like a bizarre thing to do– not an enjoyable one.
The one downside is that I’ve turned the focus on my hair to focusing on controlling my eating and some body dismorphic issues that have plagued me in the past are seeming to resurface. It doesn’t matter so much not to be able to touch and chew and pull my hair if I can feel the sharpness of my hip bones…
Well, one thing at a time I guess.
Two Weeks
Tomorrow, if I can make it all day, I will be two weeks pull free! I havent chewed my hair either (except that one time). I decided to take my life into my hands and I’m doing it. I bought some N-A-C and Biotin (one to help with urges and the other to help my hair regrow). I dyed all my grey away and trimmed all the dead stuff off and now I look smoking hot. I actually like the way my hair looks today and I want to keep feeling that way.
I’m really doing it and it feels so great!
Not dealing
As much as I hate to be that person who blames their issues on their parents, I couldn’t help but be struck by something I read about hair pulling and how it helps us deal with our emotions. I was taught from early on not to cry or show that I was upset. I had the kind of father who saw crying and display of emotions as weakness (though the irony is that he himself is very sensitive and we often have to mask our distaste for his actions because of this). My poor brothers felt the brunt of this much more I know, but even as a little girl, I felt that that crying over things was the weak and pointless way to react because I had been taught to think this and still do. I remember vividly my father repeatedly telling us to “suck it up” whenever we were hurt to the point that we wanted to cry or humilating us in front of the rest of the family if one of the brutal and heartless criticisms he made made us cry at the dinner table. I actually remember feeling so proud of myself when I hurt myself very badly as a 10 year old and proclaimed to him that even though it hurt me so badly, I wouldn’t cry. He praised my strength. Now I find it difficult to cry even if I am very sad.
The last time I can remember crying was when my dog died, which still haunts me to this day. She was my best friend and I think of her every day. I lost her through very ugly and painful circumstances. Probably worse than anyone could imagine. His solution was to try and force a new dog on me, which I refused. He tried to guilt me into it by saying this dog would be put to sleep if I didn’t take it. I have no idea if it ever was.
Is it weak to cry? Is it wrong to get emotional? I feel like crying right now honestly. I miss my dog and I miss my hair.
A stupid question
Well, I asked a very stupid question that I had convinced myself I wanted to know the answer to. But deep down I really just wanted someone to comfort me. I asked in the online support group if anyone’s hair had grown back after years of pulling and one woman said yes, but most said no, or if it did it was weak. Trich.org told me to consult a dermatologist. I don’t know if I can do that. I still want to believe that I’m like that one woman whose hair came back and that I can truly beat this thing. I don’t think I can handle a doctor telling me I’m doomed forever to live with this reverse mohawk I’ve pulled. God, it just makes me feel so disgusted with myself. If I knew that I had done this to myself and that the damage was irreparable… I don’t know…I really don’t know what I would do…
As it stands…
I’m trying hard lately to think positive but that, admittedly, is really hard considering my job. I obviously cannot divulge where I work, but I will say this much: I’m a teacher. Don’t get me wrong, I’m really proud of myself and what I do, but it wreaks havoc on me in terms of my pulling. When I’m up in front of my class, I usually feel pretty confident that I’m doing a good job. It’s outside of class that makes me sick with anxiety.
I guess the hardest part about it all is that I can’t not take it personally when a student is failing or doing a poor job. I know that’s irrational and I’m not doing myself or them any favors by feeling this way about it, but it’s a feeling I cannot escape. The trouble is, my feelings of worth and success are derived from what they do (or do not do in many cases).
It’s impossible not to feel this way if my success as a teacher is measured by their success as students. I’m also pretty much being asked to do the impossible in most cases. The expectations cannot change because they’re not just my expectations, they’re simply what a student must do to be doing things correctly. The level of thinking required of them is not some arbitrary demand from me, it’s what’s necessary to be able to write clearly and expressively. So, a great deal of my time (countless hours) is spent reading and deciphering their work and then trying to give them feedback that will help them to do better the next time. I know I must do this to help them and to be a good teacher, and I don’t mind doing it when they actually have the good sense to take my advice. The thing that makes me crazy is telling them explicitly what is expected and what they must do and outlining this in exhaustive detail and them turning around and ignoring it. In many cases, not even reading it I’m sure. I can stand up in class and tell them that they must start doing something, something totally within their control, or give them all the ideas they can use to write their essays, and they will turn around and do the opposite. It is totally bewildering. I mean, how could someone not be insulted by that?
Sometimes, I get so frustrated I just want to unleash on them and tell them what assholes their being when they do this and that they deserve to fail. I feel like telling them that they shouldn’t expect any kind of success in life because they’re lazy, self centered and short sighted. I feel like telling them that it’s no damn wonder that our country is circling the drain and that we’re being surpassed by many other countries in every way, that these countries have a social system that is set up to have no time and no place for people who sit on their asses and wait for success to be handed to them. Such people are left in the dust. I feel like asking them, what are you even doing here? Why are you wasting my time? I could have more time to spend on taking care of myself and getting much needed rest if I wasn’t churning out personalized advice for a bunch of people who arn’t going to take it. I would have a lot less grey hair and no dark circles under my eyes if those who weren’t serious would just leave already. And yet, beneath all that anger and frustration, I feel like a failure because I couldn’t motivate them to work harder and give their best.
That, and I could never do that because it’s so hard to tell who won’t and who can’t. I’m battling twelve years of criminally neglectful public education. An “education” that left most of my students with a terrible attitude and/or chip on their shoulder about learning. They see me and the work I require of them as just one more grudging burden to add onto the pile of burdens that is their lives. When I am critical of their work (albeit constructively) they see this as a punishment for even trying in the first place. This is compounded by the fact that our education system has convinced them that trying should equal succeeding. They can’t see that the path to success is paved with criticism from those who know or that they must struggle to improve or what they can do now is not good enough yet but that with hard work and self-examination, it can be. They also can’t see how what I teach could have any bearing on their real life or their success. Words arn’t real: you can’t eat them and they don’t pay your electric bill, so who cares? I may explain to them until I’m blue in the face, but they’ll never make the connection that even if they never write another word in their lives, the exercise of becoming a better, more accurate writer translates to just about everything else they could do. They get defensive when I criticize the shallowness of their ideas, that they haven’t organized their thoughts in a coherent way and that they have unacceptable grammar and spelling. But isn’t thinking logically and more profoundly tied to success? To happiness? Isn’t being accurate in what we do and paying attention to detail, polishing a final product until it’s something to be proud of a part of being a successful person no matter what we do in life? Are my demands any different than what the real world demands? I guess so if they’ve gotten this far thinking the way they do. I just can’t understand how so many of them can show up for an education that they know they need and yet not know they don’t have all the answers and that they’re not perfect. That or they’re just not used to someone daring to tell them they’re not. So many of them have gotten by with the minimum effort and because they’re not completely illiterate, they’re doing OK in the eyes of the state. Before they showed up in my class, they felt fine. I have to be the one to tell them the ugly truth that they have a lot of work to do if they hope to be decent writers or decent people for that matter.
The other point of stress is that so many do want to get better, but are so behind where they should be that it would take a miracle to get them to where they should be by the end of the semester. With lots of close one-on-one help from me, they could probably make it happen, but with so many students and so many classes, it’s just not a possibility as much as I may be willing. So, these students struggle and struggle and I have to keep critiquing and critiquing and I feel so bad. I spend countless hours trying to communicate what they should do in the comments I write them, but without hands on guidance, it makes little difference (especially since many of them can barely read). I hate that I can’t help them enough but I’m only one person and their are so many of them.
Every stack of grading that comes in sinks my heart a little deeper– the positive rewards of those who do improve and are benefitting from my help and instruction are so outweighed by those who don’t that getting up to go to work sometimes is a grinding struggle. I hate being the bad guy and I hate being dissapointed and I hate feeling like I’m shouting myself hoarse for nothing.
The only relief I can get when I sit alone in my office and tear people’s hard work apart is to pull while I do it. The worse they do, the more I pull. It’s so hard to feel like an afterthought when my whole life revolves around them. I just want to yell at them: “I am an actual person. I matter. This is my job and I take it seriously. I give up so much for you and all I ask in return is that you give your best effort and meet me in the middle. I don’t have to work this hard or be this caring or do as much as I do for you, but I couldn’t live with myself any other way. Please don’t take my efforts and my concern for you for granted. Don’t make me feel like I’m wasting the best years of my young life on people who don’t give a shit.”
But, I guess I’m just feeling sorry for myself because I’m sick and I’m tired and I have to stay in so I can work early in the morning so other people can have a better life. Boohoo, poor me. I go through this same feeling of self pity and hopelessness every semester. By the end I’ll see the fruits of my labor and it won’t seem like a waste of my time. It’s just hard to see that where I’m standing now I guess. Every semester I vow not to get worked up over the inevitable and not to take this all so personally, but I always do. Maybe if I could pursue outside hobbies that are relaxing and satisfying, I wouldn’t get so tightly wrapped up in my work, but there never seems to be enough time or energy to go around.
I have to believe I won’t always feel this way though. Eventually, I’ll have to make peace with what I cannot control or go completely nuts. Hopefully, I will…
Putting off work…
I’ve got a mountain of grading I’m putting off and I still feel pretty gross from the cold I caught. I caught myself chewing on my hair a couple times at work today, not even realizing it, and then scolding myself over it. That habit seems like it’s going to be an even harder one to break. I can’t even let my hair down to put it back up more neatly without wanting to chew on it a bit first. I keep touching the end of my pony tail and feeling the dry ends, wishing I could hear that crunching sound between my teeth. So gross… I know it will mess up my teeth and is ravaging my hair (hence the dry ends) but it’s so, so satisfying. More so than pulling in some ways. It’s all part of the same behavior though: the stimulation, the comfort, the self-focused obsession…
I keep thinking about the day I will walk into a hair salon for the first time in years and get a haircut. All of the chewed up, damaged dryness will be removed and out of my life and I can have soft beautiful hair that I can run my fingers through and enjoy for once. Now I have to hide it from myself any way I can so that I have time to heal. God, I hope it grows back.
Though that’s going to be a tough thing to deal with too. I have such a huge spot that covers so much, that if it does grow back it will give me a mullet. It’ll poke through and stand up all over the place. It will be grey too. The urge to pull anything sticking out and making me look stupid will be so hard to resist and I’m not sure how I’ll be able to style it so that it’s not noticible.
Ugh. Well, I guess I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. Hopefully I will come to it. I’d be lucky to reach that point. Though if I make it through today and tomorrow, I’ll be a week pull free. I’ll have to do something to celebrate.
