Hair Stress

“Rapunzel Rapunzel let down your hair!” he called but she did not hear him for she was lost in her own mind. She raked her fingers through her hair letting strands of her hair drop from her fingers to the floor beside her. No tears shed from her eyes ’cause she knew that it would do no good to make things better. She was stuck in this tower locked away from a life that she dreamt of having.

You reading that thinking, “is she retelling fairytales now?”  No I’ll leave that to authors who already have. I’m basically making it relatable to how my life has been lately and was in the past. I have 4 mental health disorders which when I get overly stressed then I tend to get this issue that is known as trichotillomania. When I do it, it has always been consciously knowing I’m doing it and yet difficult to stop. I don’t literally pull at my hair though in case you thinking that. I constantly move my fingers into it like a comb or brush would where it’ll catch strand or strands of hair which I’ll drop into a little waste basket nearby then continue to do it. However when I first did this back when I was in my early 20s still living with my mom, I’d be sitting on my mom’s recliner and drop the strands of hair onto the carpeted floor. My mom used to get upset about seeing the little clump of hair there. It does eventually stop and go dormant until next time high level of stress, tension, anxiety, etc happens. I definitely don’t enjoy doing it.

The occurrence of this bout of trichotillomania is all due to the extreme amount of inspections by apartment building management for a whole month with no set dates when they would do the stuff. It was supposedly due to the fact that there is a tenant union now here so they had to be more thorough with inspection. I contacted the place I thought was running the tenant union and literally said to them that I want to have my name removed from the list. I don’t appreciate being any part of something that causes me high levels of stress that it triggers the trichotillomania that been dormant for a long while now. When I still not have a home aide then it very tense to have to try to keep up with all chores daily if staff here in building going to come whenever they please. I’ve also been more alone social wise the past few months in real life and online due to constant abandonment by “friends”. A little fact: being an older woman it not good to get bad off with the pulling of hair since hair thins and gets brittle as we get older due to perimenopause and menopause so I don’t want to become bald. I mean wigs are pretty nice but I just would freak myself out looking in the mirror with no hair. By the way, I not meaning to say it bad thing if that happens with those who also suffer with this mental issue. Please know the things I say in these blog posts are my own personal feelings of me.

•For more info on trichotillomania:  Learning About Trichotillomania •For more info on aging hair: Guide to Aging Hair Visit Kitty Deviance site

Pandemic Chaotic Life

As mentioned in the “Living Broken Doll” blog post, I do deal with mental health issues so the onslaught of the beginning of Covid brought on an increase to it all which I didn’t think was possible. The closing of places like the therapy clinic I go to for lockdowns happened fairly quickly as it all started here in New York state. I didn’t have therapy for like a month as they tried to figure out how they were going to do all this while patients couldn’t physically come in. I always used to wish to be able to have doctor appointments at home to make things so much less stressful and panicky but it’s not what it’s cracked up to be. The fact of having your doctor or therapist having you on speakerphone is so difficult for the sheer matter that it hard for me to fully hear them. They do it on web visits too instead of use earphone or headphones micphones. Alas it’s the way you do it while there is cases out there.

I redeveloped agoraphobia during the first few months of the pandemic. Between the fear of getting it every time I left my apartment to check mail and such to the isolation I was feeling on a daily basis. I still struggling with be so fearful of leaving my apartment building. The not knowing and the now masks mandates gone. It’s just so hard for me when I have asthma despite being triple vaccinated to feel safe. Covid being a deadly respiratory virus just makes it dangerous for me. Although you’d think I would’ve felt calmer after I saw this Youtuber I follow that has asthma worse than me who got Covid and survived but nope I still afraid. Phobias are a whole new level of mental disorders.

I recently broke down in tears to a care manager I have saying that I couldn’t take feeling this way anymore. The isolation and agoraphobia the past 2 years hard just taken it’s toll on me. I’ve had my psychological medications messed up like 3 times during the whole pandemic and have gone through withdrawals which aren’t a nice feeling at all. I only take 2 psychological medications in case anyone thinks I on a ton of them. One for mood and another for depression/panic. So my care manager said he’d try to help me anyway he can. I wait to see that happen since care managers in my experience aren’t really there for helping me totally.

I’ll update on this as things get better and I overcome the agoraphobia. I hate that it resurfaced. It took me like 20 years to get it dormant. Thankies for reading. Blessed be.

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