Angry

I've been struggling with Trichotillomania since I can remember. Now I have therapy and medicines to help me quitting. I'm having a very hard time with that and to lift some of the weight of my shoulders, I decided to write my story down, for one part to make it more real. (I'm no longer trying, I'm really quitting now)
Tonight I felt really angry and couldn't sleep before I had written down everything that angered me. It can be heavy to read, but I'm ok.

I’m tired of people saying or thinking Trichotillomania is not as bad as… because it’s not life threatening. Don’t diminish my problem, I’m fighting every day, probably for the rest of my life to keep my head above water. I don’t want people to pity me, but let me, for myself only, have the biggest victory when I conquer the biggest enemy ever to be fought. Why talk down on it, saying others are worse off and have to fight even harder, especially when they have no clue what they’re talking about. Trichotillomania is life threatening in a lot of ways. If I wouldn’t fight every day it would mean I would pull out my hair without stopping, with pain everywhere in my body of uncomfortable positions, cramp in my fingers, not capable of eating because there are still hairs left to be pulled, without being able to go to bed before every single hair on my body would be gone. And that would be impossible and a more than a 24 hour job, because the next day there will be new hair, enough for a more than 24 hour day. And there had been and still are such days, a lot of them, demanding my life, not being able to do anything besides that. Can you still say you’re living if Thrichotillomania is living it for you 24/7? For years I’ve not been able to look anyone in the eye because I had to look down on my hands if maybe a hair was there. And then there’s people telling you it’s not that bad.

I’m angry at Doctor Phill, who had no idea what he was talking about when he had a special about Thrichotillomania., saying reading a book or watching tv is a very good thing to do, having two hands free to pull while sitting on the couch, the tv not forcing you to do anything more than keeping your butt on the couch and keep on pulling, knowing you can sit there forever. It would be a different story if the tv was to explode if you didn’t move for every five minutes and made a cup of tea once in a while, play the piano or do a little dance. Well done there Phill. Maybe you should reduce your show to the things you actually know something about.

I’m angry at my hair coming back every day, I’m angry of being afraid it won’t some day because it’s too damaged.

I’m angry at the Radbout University that rejected me because I was “too complex” when they were doing research about ways to help overcoming Thrichotillomania. How get a good vision of the “disease” if you exclude all the people with problems on the site, problems I think are inseparable from the Thrichotillomania. No, I must have Borderline, not TTM, because I’m very emotional too. Well, if most of the scientist think TTM is (partly) caused due to a shortage of serotonin in the brains, a neurotransmitter that for one regulates emotions, then how can you see those two as separate “conditions?” No wonder the information about TTM on the web never seems to cover it, information probably based on researches where people with “bigger” problems are left out.

I’m angry of having to choose between no medicines and fighting even harder against the compulsion or taking medicines and having to fight against the medicines on top of it, trying not to lose my ups of endless happiness, my unforced spontaneity, things of which I always thought were one of the key words of my personality and proud of it. Now I have to force spontaneity if that’s even possible, I have to make myself happy, work for it, instead of just being it all of a sudden, something that apparently is normal to most people.

I’m angry of people looking down on people with psychological problems, seeing them as weak. How weak are you, having to fight every day, but still managing to live on? Being strong is doing everything you can within your abilities given.

I’m angry of having to apologize because my “problem” is mental and considered “a choice” instead of physical. If you collapse on the street due to physical conditions, there’s no one to expect an apology. I feel sometimes an apology is expected when my emotions get the best of me. If there is a shortage of serotonin in my brain which makes me incapable of regulating my emotions, then why should I apologize for that? I hardly ever show anger, because I’m afraid I will hurt someone, instead sometimes I have to scream or cry like a newborn baby and apologize for it afterwards, which I do a lot of the times because I want to. Just don’t expect it or get angry when I don’t, because I feel I did nothing wrong.

Now, freed from anger, back to bed.