Written 06/10/09

On Saturday I bought a new wig. There was nothing in particular wrong with the old one. But the old one was getting progressively more frizzed. From a distance, all was well, probably. But I knew it was frizzed, even if no-one else did. And that knowledge bothered me. It was all my own fault, of course. Me and my bohemian ways. Falling asleep in my wig. Indeed, falling asleep in my clothes. Falling asleep in my shoes. Me and my insomniacal (slightly less glamorous slightly most truthful) ways. So. My rather lovely ex-boyfriend offered to lend me the money for a new one. So I felt prettier. (Of course, I should have refused. But I didn't want to. So I didn't. If he wants to make me happy it would be hardly logical for me to refuse to be made happy, now, would it?) So off I went to the wig shop. And loitered at a bus stop pretending I was doing something to do with buses - looking across the road trying to work out if there was anything I liked the look of. Because it would be embarrassing to walk in, try on lots of things I didn't like, and walk out again. I don't even like doing that with clothes. Then I lost my nerve and fled into a Tesco Express. And bought some sparkle-ing mineral water. And sat outside the library and drank said mineral water - trying to calm down - and listening to an intrigue-ing conversation someone was having on their mobile telephone. Then I made a dash for the shop. The sheer volition of my rather fast manner of walking carrying me in. I wandered round, trying to remain calm. (Yes - I have done this before. But it is such an important thing to choose, really, isn't it? What if I were to make the wrong choice? It has been known... Mostly, it has to be said, when I was younger and less experienced at choose-ing the things.) First I tried on a human hair wig. A strange experience. It was terribly, terribly soft. I felt almost a reverence touching it. Like stroke-ing the hair of a complete stranger. Very very odd. It looked beautiful on me. It was, however, £110. More than half of my money - more than half of ALL my money. I could have bought it. I probably should have bought it. I've paid more for wigs before. But somehow I couldn't bear the thought of now being able to do ANYTHING for two whole weeks. Until, that is, the government paid me another £100 for being ... for being a Trichotillomaniac and for not having yet failed the medical test they want to give me. The thought of which terrifies me. Anyway. I didn't buy the beautiful and expensive wig. And, as I silently made the decision not to, I felt like crying. Which would have been very embarrassing indeed. I hate embarrassment. It is pointless and ... do I balk at saying vulgar? - probably not. The next one I tried, less expensive, was very very dark and rather too much in an aesthetic sense. It made me look like some niche-market bondage pin-up. Which is all very well if one is a niche-market bondage pin-up... "...but then again incidentally if you're so inclined..." ('QUEEN) The third I liked. The third the woman behind the counter liked. The third I bought. The third I am happy with. It has that new-wig-scent I have grown to love. New new new! And the glossy-ness. No doubt the glossy-ness will last only as long as I do nothing strenuous in it. A few Pilates classes, a few walks along a windswept beach, a few bohemian-fallings-asleep in everything I am wearing - and - disaster! Until then I am very very pleased. This one, I declared this evening, as I swept into my mother's sitting-room, wearing borrowed/stolen jeans and borrowed/stolen pink socks, makes me look like someone who used to be an actress. A little cynical. A little old. But - I was beautiful ONCE, dharlink! *looks forward to growing old disgrace-fully in a gin-soaked fashion* So how am I doing with the not-pulling-my-hair-out thing? Not very well. I have moved round to the back of my neck, where it is currently most painful. Perhaps it is most painful because it has been most left-alone. The point is, this distracts me, in my more overwrought moments, from digging my nails into my skin, hitting myself round the face (round the face? does that make sense?) and flinging myself onto soft furnishings sobbing violently. And exclaiming 'I hate my life!' And laughing at my own ridiculousness. And further exclaiming (for this almost always happens at night when I can't sleep and am utterly exhausted) 'I can't sleep! If only I could sleep! I'm trying so hard to sleep! OH why can't I sleep!' Etc. Occasionally accompanied by a little scream of anger. I have decided, since the above behavior is most unacceptable, that I will fine myself, next month, if I have not to some very substantial extent stopped doing the above. I will fine myself the cost of a human hair wig. So that the punishment may fit the crime. I would much rather do other things with £110. But if I really can't control myself by sheer will-power (& CBT) and all that - I will just have to punish myself. It sounds absurd. Of course Trichotillomaniacs should not be punished for the illness they have. I'm really quite ashamed of having written that. But that's how I feel in relation to myself. The rather childish hope that, if I'm a good girl, everything will be alright. *actually realizes that a tear is running down her face - an unusual show of emotion about a subject I am so used to - at least outside of the aforementioned fits of hysterics (which are just as much to do with not being able to sleep, I think, as about Trichotillomania - though of course when I am feeling tired I therefore feel rubbish therefore I also feel worse about the Trichotillomania). The horrible thing is, to elicit pity (and in the depths of a fit of self-pitying hysteria that is exactly what I want to do - though I think it thoroughly ridiculous in retrospect) one HAS to be aesthetically pleasing. That is how I have always thought about it, anyway. To elicit pity is a kind of seduction. To cry prettily is an art. (One I do not always practice... ) This my ex-boyfriend (who is present at many of these self-pity-fests) knows. And thus I am mocked. It is horrible to be terribly sincere about something and yet to express it in a form that provokes distrust and disdain and mockery. And leaves me feeling like a silly little girl who can't get what she wants - i.e. pity/comfort/some-sort-of-

reassure-ance-that-everything-is-going-to-be-alright - even if it isn't. *SHAME* Which is itself a self-indulgence - OK everything is a self-indulgence - I give up trying not to be self-indulgent. I have bought a purple flocked notebook for the CBT homework. My last homework *smirks - are smirks becoming...?* was to write a list of pros and cons for pulling my hair out and not pulling my hair out. It sounds pretty simple. Pulling hair out = pain, aesthetic disaster, and public-ally inflicted shame. Not Pulling Hair Out = hair, less pain, and less public-ally-displayed strangeness. I'm not going to tell you what I wrote. This is not Carrie Gooding Reveals All for Trash Magazine (that sounds vaguely pornographic). What I will tell you is that I am terribly curious to see what my therapist makes of it all. The picture I took to go with this makes me look so ridiculously fragile, somehow. That's not how I see myself. I see myself as being terribly terribly resilient - egotistical, moi? That girl in the picture looks younger than me. Paler than me. More bruised. Less adamantine. I can't decide whether to wrap her up in a blanket and like her a mug of hot chocolate or smash her across the face and smear her pretty lipstick. Odd that I should think myself pretty in a photo meant to represent an affliction. Masochism? A heightened intensity of actually looking at the way I look (rather than, as I generally do, trying to see myself in a dimmed sort of a way, as though through flattering lighting at an American interview). So. Young. But notice that the top of my head is hidden. In fact, most of my head is hidden. I've mostly only shown you my face. And it's my face that's undamaged. So some bravery that was.