A Couple of Days of Nothingness

Yesterday I wrote little if anything. Today will be the same. Tomorrow may be the same too. Sorry about that. I will have a lot to tell you about, Dear Blog, in a couple of days - until then, things to do, people to see.

Where Was I?

Yesterday (All My Troubles Seemed So Far Away) I was busy. Locked in battle with the last dregs of my university work. Being, actually, rather good. 3 out of 4 stars - that's 3/4 of my day without succumbing to Trichotillomania. I see that as a breakthrough. I have done better before - but not for a long while, so I am proud of myself. Hurrah for me! (Not, of course, that I could ever be anything other than proud of myself, being, as I am, tremendously concieted.)

Today, however, has been a different matter already. I was suddenly overcome by the feeling that I had done my work and been good and that it was time to indulge myself. When ice-cream (commanded but denied) did not materialise, I sank into a highly enjoyable snuggling into the blue cushion of self-pity. The world was wronging me, I told myself. I had worked damn hard and the world didn't give a damn. (This despite the world's protestations of quite the opposite.) I had only asked for ice-cream. Fine then. I would be naughty. And I was. For all the good it did me.

Two Stars and Counting...

There are two stars-stickers on my purple piece of paper. What this means is that, for two blocks of 6 hours, I have refrained from pulling my hair out. Well done me. Unfortunately, as I have been under a lot of pressure (academic pressure, not the air kind...)recently, I have also stripped the hair from one entire side of my head. It hurts even when I do nothing to it. The scalp - poor suffering scalp - has been most severely mushed. When one pulls one's hair out, one often pulls little pods of almost-clear-white scalp out as well - these are the hair roots. And the scalp really could do with them or it tends to collapse just a little.

I am going to be being social (being social like 'Living Social'?) soon. This delights but slightly worries me, as I have a wig I'm not used to, the behaviour of which may be unpredictable. I do not want to repeat certain scenarios I have lived through - such as remove-ing the fallen-off, stepped-on thing from the high-heel of some's high-heel in a club... I must get to know it before its debut. Just to make sure.

Also, becuase I have had a lot to do, calling the number the NHS people gave me hasbeen pushed aside by other matters (such as my Degree). Call within 5 days, the letter tells me, ominously. The 5 days have passed. What now, I wonder? Damn the letters of the NHS to the pathologically anxious. Fools. Damned fools. Those lastcouple of words sum up my emotional state at the moment. An emotional state in which almost everyone is a damned fool. This is becuase I have to much essay-writing ahead of me and too little available time ahead of me. This too will pass.

Seeing Stars

Seeing Stars

Yes, the system of the stars in working. The purple paper on the door of my wardrobe has no stars on it yet - but it will have very soon... This afternoon I only pulled out one hair! One! And that almost-by-mistake as I as playing with my hair (what there is of it) as one does... The sheet of stickers is stuck to the door of my wardrobe as well. The more stars on the purple paper the more hair on my head - and the correlation between the two will be visable when I stand in front of the door of my wardrobe - on which is my mirror.

What I See When I Look In The Mirror

When I see at the moment when I look in the mirror (like the Guardian column...) is a damaged scalp. There was blood - my nails are sharp things and what feels so so good at the time really really hurts for a long while afterwards. They dig in - they pierce the skin - they become painted pale red with my blood... And then it heals and then it happens all over again. Hopefully the sticker chart will help with that. But I can't help but feel there will always be something. A hand dragged roughly across a rough wall as I walk beside it. Shards of burning peppercorns crunched and embedded ever so slighly in the flesh. But nothing so VISIBLE. The visible expressions of the darker side of the personality are, how shall one say, a difficult thing, like being paraded around a supermarket in suspenders or being pushed into a swimming-pool in drag. It is out of place and society doesn't like it.

I Wish

I do wish the NHS would get on with actually giving me CBT rather than sending me vague letters...

A Hole in The Head

Yesterday, in a fit of wig-discontent, I bought a new one. Shorter this time so there will be no need to hack it. The old one, the very old one, the one I had worn for about half a year, was looking tired. I had pulled too much of its hair out. So, now - I look like a chestnut version of Myra Hindley. This does not bother me in the least. My darling ex-boyfriend avers that I look like the Queen in her younger days. I am rather pleased with the overall effect with my black sequined hairband nuzzle-ing over my chestnut waves - even if I do say so myself.

I also pusuaded my mother to buy some pretty pretty star stickers - in order to record any days during which I a good girl.

That evening I pulled my hair out - of course I did, I have an awful lot of university work to do and my love-life/love-death is a delighful and undelightful farce. Moliere could have done a lot with it. These things/non-things conspire to increase the generally panic-stricken nature of my personality. So there is now a displeasing gap in the natural, scarce, dark-gold-coloured hair on one side of my head. Oh dear oh dear.

Today? I only woke a few hours ago. But I have been good. I think it is perhaps a matter of enviroment. When I live with my ex-boyfriends - let's just say, much as I like him, his enviroment is notideal for me. Here at my mother's it is quiet. I have my own room. I have peace and solitude and the importance of those cannot be overestimated.

Just A Thought

I want to let my hair down - but I don't have any. LOL (BITTERLOL).

How Am I?

I sit on a tortured fake-leather-crinkled-sofa-of-beauty and I breathe in and out and in and out with vast rapidity. Becuase I am hyperventilating. I do that sometimes after midnight, like a strange and unpleasnt sort of mint (the hyperventilating, not me...). And the deconstruction of my very self is comforting. The tearing sound of the suction of the tentacle-like end of a hair suckering out of my scalp. It is all very much in keeping with my rather flesh-related dreams of late - a cigarette peeling back its brown paper to reveal flesh-beneath-skin, muscle and red and the glistening nature of the uncovered. And then the pain, first a periphery-issue, becomes a punishment for my lack of control, and cartwheels into ever increasing circles of crossness at myself and self-inflicted pain beyond the bounds of the pleasant. From just above my forehead, the hairs like little golden threads with sharp edges, cutting through my scalp as I pull. And the alarming thing is that this image appeals to me. In a way quite unlike the way I would react to the idea of, say, stubbing my toe. Which would be horrible. There is something very different about a dull pain such as that and the sharp pain of pulling my hair out - something I occassionally attempt to convince myself that I can control. The fact is, though, that I cannot control it. That even thinking about it makes my heart thud and thump and scream in a heartlike fashion - becuase I am seemingly helplessly a victim to my own hands, which now like the hypocrites they are type this about their own treachery. The point they might make if they had brains is this: the brain and not the hands dictate the hands. But what part of my brain can possibly dictate one thing while another part exclaims (silently) 'no no no no'? This reminds me of the Nietzschean idea of warring wills (yes, I know Nietzsche did not think of it first - but I know it from him). At the moment the wrong will is winning: The Will to Self-Destruction. What needs to win is The Will To Power (Over Myself). I think perhaps that was what Nietzsche was suggesting anyway: self-control. And why I have been so attracted to his philosophy. The philosophy of The Strong-Minded and The Brave. Becuase I feel that I am Weak-Minded and Cowardly, and thus need to redress the balance. Not a very delightful self-analysis, but I always was absurdly hard on myself (this achieving nothing except occassionaly fits of tears as I give way beneath the pressure of my own self-consciousness). And this is how I feel tonight. Overwhelmed and alone. This despite the fact that I am actually in the same room as another person. This other person is not a trichotillomaniac and exclaims, helplessly, 'What can I do?' when I exclaim about my hyperventilation and suchlike. All very well-meaning and unhelpful. I know I know - the only person who can help me is me. But sometimes I rather to wish that I could simply collapse in tears and wait for someone else, someone stronger and more sensible than I am, to save me. Who doesn't feel like that sometimes. The point is - when finding oneself in these situations, one must must must find the rescources somewhere to become one's own parent, friend, lover, etc etc. One simply must. Or one goes under. Which wouldn't do at all.