Anyhow, we went through the whole rigamarole. Talked to the insurance. Talked to police. Had it towed to a place. Had it towed to another place. Had it checked out, then towed to another place for Reasons, I guess.
Long story short, the cost of fixing the damages exceeds the value of the car. It’s totaled.
Even longer story short, this is possibly the best thing that could have happened.
Look, we’re cheap frugal people. We try to live below our means. He doesn’t take out loans or buy new cars because the way that car valuation works is bad and silly. I don’t take out loans or buy any cars because my eyes are mostly decorative at this point. We make it work.
This is how he was able to haggle a really good price on his last car. Couple that with trading in the car that got poisoned in Mississippi, and the total that he’d paid is actually significantly less than its value. Like, it would cost more to replace the car at its current book value than he originally paid for it. And, depending on how the law shakes out, we might still be able to trade in or sell the totaled car (for parts, but still).
“But Jec,” you may be saying, “You guys’re still out a car, and that sucks.” And yes, you are correct. It is less than optimally convenient.
However, after the Mabon celebration (where we accidentally gatecrashed a youth group, my Handsome Assistant almost got hypothermia, and we ended up sleeping in the trunk), we came to the conclusion that it might not be a completely terrible idea to look at other models of car once this one bit the dust. I suggested a wagon, because we could use the extra cargo space. He wanted a hybrid or EV. We kind of shrugged it off for the time being, because his current car was working fine and we weren’t in any rush.
Now, not only do we have a reason to look at cars that better fit our needs, but we also have some extra dosh to do it with.
I don’t know how we ended up benefitting from what is, objectively, a really sucky situation, but I’m happy. ᕕ ( ᐛ )ᕗ
Hello! I had a minor surgery yesterday. (No worries, my awesome Handsome Assistant is taking excellent care of me, I have fantastic lentil soup from one of my favorite spots, and I’m recovering well.) So, in lieu of a longer blog post, here is a recipe for very tasty vegan double chocolate cookies. They’re rich, they’re fudgy, and the maple syrup gives the flavor a bit of added depth.
Ingredients
Dry:
1 3/4 cups einkorn flour (or, if you prefer, 1 1/4 cup white einkorn, and 1/2 cup whole grain einkorn)
1/4 cup cocoa or cacao powder
2 tablespoons ground flax seed
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup dairy-free chocolate chips (I like the 72% cacao ones from Trader Joe’s)
This recipe works best as written, but you can use regular wheat flour instead of einkorn. If you do so, you may wish to increase the wet ingredients a little as einkorn flour tends to require less moisture than regular flour. You can also compensate by combining the 2 tablespoons of ground flaxseed with 4 tablespoons of water, allowing it to sit and thicken, then mixing it with the other wet ingredients. I don’t know how well this recipe plays with oat, almond, or gluten free flour blends, but, as long as the consistency isn’t too dry or goopy, you should be okay.
Wet:
1/2 cup avocado oil (not extra virgin — extra virgin has a stronger flavor)
1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon maple syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla
Directions
Preheat your oven to 350°F (176°C).
Sift flour into a large mixing bowl.
Add remaining dry ingredients and whisk together until well combined.
Combine wet ingredients in a separate bowl. They won’t cream the way butter and sugar do, but that’s okay! Mix them together as best as you can using a whisk or fork.
Pour the wet ingredients into the dry. Mix together either by hand or using a mixer.
Drop by rounded spoonfuls onto a cookie sheet. (Depending on how large you make your spoonfuls, you should end up with 15-18 cookies).
One of the nice things about having other Pagans around is that it makes the High Days a lot more fun. On my own, Imbolc is mostly divination and spring cleaning (or, in this year’s case, divination, deep cleaning, and rearranging my entire house). Traditionally, it’d involve pilgrimages to sacred wells, asking for healing, and leaving offerings and clooties.
This past Saturday, my Handsome Assistant and I met with a local group that we’re a part of for a hike around a lake at Patuxent Research Refuge. It was a nice, flat loop, mostly on a gravel or mulch trail, so it wasn’t too challenging. It left a lot of mental and breathing space for conversation, catching up with friends we hadn’t seen in a while, and contemplation. (One group member who’d moved away was back for a visit, and it was really nice to have the chance to talk to them again!)
We covered about a mile and a half before pausing for tree branch divination. Admittedly, as much as I enjoy divination, this was something I hadn’t tried before. The group split up to find places to sit — fortunately, it seemed like every tree near the path has spread out a welcoming pillow of moss at its roots. From there, we thought of the questions we wanted answered, or the problems we needed guidance on. After relaxing our gazes and letting them rest on the bare, outstretched tree branches above us, shapes began to emerge.
The experience was very different for each of us. My Handsome Assistant experienced it almost like a story, with images coming and going in an evolving plot that gave him a hopeful look into his questions. I had a little more trouble — I just wanted to know whether I’d achieve the goals I set for myself this spring. The trouble is, divination methods like this aren’t often conducive to “yes” or “no” answers. What would the trees even do? Give me a check mark for “yes” and an X for “no?” Spell out “Yup” in their branches? It was a little frustrating.
Finally, I kind of gave up. If the trees had something to say to me, I wasn’t going to constrain them to a “yes” or “no.” As soon as I did, my eyes came to rest on a spot that was only visible from the angle I was looking from. The branches of multiple trees came together to form a pentagon, and their twigs radiated outward into an almost perfect spiderweb shape. In the second when it all came together, it made perfect sense — I’d only be successful if I could keep from sabotaging myself. Catastrophizing is a snare. Worrying over inconsequential details is a web I build to trap myself. Even the expectations I had around this divination yielded only frustration, not answers.
I also found a really neat little clump of moss.
After the divination, we all walked silently to the lake. On the shore, we meditated on what we wanted to be cleansed and healed of, made an offering of water gathered from different sacred sites, and dipped strips of cotton cloth into the water of the lake. One would traditionally tie a clootie to a tree near the sacred spring itself, as a type of sympathetic magic (as the clootie breaks down, so too would the issue to be cleansed/healed). In this case, we all brought ours back with us to be tied to our own fences or trees, composted, or burnt and scattered. I’m planning to tie mine to the branches of the little redbud tree in the front yard, myself.
Things haven’t really “greened up” yet, but there’s a beauty in that. You could see the tiny sprouts and buds of things just starting to awaken from dormancy. The green needles of pine trees and spongy carpets of emerald moss were bright splashes against all of the shades of silver, gold, brown, and gray leaves. The sunlight was thin and silvery, shining through an even blanket of clouds. Even though it’s late in the cold season, some bright, jewel-like fruits still lingered — like yellow horsenettle and ruby red holly berries. The seedheads of dried mountain mint stuck up here and there, ashen gray, fluffy, and smelling strongly of mint, oregano, and bergamot. A few trees showed signs of beavers, and we even passed near the entry way to a beaver lodge.
(I’m guessing conifer wood didn’t agree with this beaver.)
I’d hoped to see some mushrooms since it’s been so damp and warm, but it’s still a bit too early for that. There was plenty of bracket fungus on fallen tree trunks, clinging to the bark like oysters to a stone. One tree even had really interesting lichen on its bark, forming shapes like rivers.
By the time we were finished, three hours and several miles had passed. Now, I’m back feeling a little bit lighter, a little reassured. Here’s hoping that Imbolc has treated you well, too!
Yes, it technically started at sundown yesterday, but it still applies.
According to traditional weather divination, we could be looking at a long, cold winter yet. Today’s a bit rainy, but yesterday was sunny and mild. A mild Imbolc means the Cailleach has made the weather pleasant so she can go out and collect enough firewood to last for the rest of the season. If winter were going to end early, she wouldn’t bother, and it’d be miserable outside.
Mild, sunny Imbolc? The Cailleach’s out gathering firewood for a long, cold winter. Photo by Lum3n on Pexels.com
There are a lot of ways to celebrate Imbolc, but I’ve gotten into a nice groove of making it my spring cleaning day. It’s a time that makes me excited for the season ahead — I want a fresh house, a filled fridge and pantry, and some promising divination, you know?
I have a large Brigid candle that I lit last night, snuffed before bed, and lit again this morning. We’re cleaning and decluttering. There’s a loaf of fresh baked einkorn bread, a pot of soup, a pie, and a batch of cookies.
Most importantly, I’ve decided to rearrange my entire house so it stops making sense.
I was raised (well… “raised” seems a bit generous, but follow me here) to accept convention. When something seemed questionable or, frankly, stupid, I was told that that’s how it was done. “That’s the style.” “The other way would be wrong.” “That’s silly.” I feel that this has been instrumental in making me the spiteful pain in the ass that I am today.
My house is, like many other homes from the 1940s in this area, built in a Cape Cod style. It’s meant to be very efficient when it comes to keeping the hot sun out during summer and cold drafts away during winter, so it doesn’t have large windows. Fortunately, it faces the southeast, so we do still get plenty of light. The living room, where we spend most of our time, has a little eastward facing window. In other words, we end up missing out on the best light most of the day.
My studio, on the other hand, is a bit bigger than I need it to be. It also has a lovely west-facing window that lets in the most gorgeous sunlight in the late afternoon. The late afternoon that I usually spend in the living room.
“Self,” I says to myself, “Does it make more sense to keep my living room where it is just because that’s where living rooms usually go, or to move things around according to how we actually use these rooms?”
And this is why my living room is going into the bedroom-turned-studio, my studio is going into what used to be the living room, and we’re dedicating half of the living room-turned-studio-space to be a quasi-dining room. Yes, it’s confusing. It’s also a lot of work. I think it’s going to be very worth it, though.
As the land gets brighter and warmer, I want to (quite literally) bring more light into my life. Imbolc, for me, has always been about clearing, renewal, and preparation. I can think of no better thing than making room for more light and brightness here.
Brigid, Goddess of inspiration, fire, and healing, may you bring your brightness, warmth, and clarity to the rest of this year.
Last time, I mentioned struggling with imposter syndrome. Yesterday, my Handsome Assistant and I braved the cold (it is bonkers freezing right now, especially considering that it’s going to be like 60° F next weekend) and went to the opening of the art show.
The venue itself was beautiful (it’s history, not so much) and its tall ceilings, many windows, and twists and turns were very conducive to hosting a large art show without everything feeling too cluttered or busy. Sadly, I didn’t really get any pictures of the interior or the show itself (it would’ve been difficult to do without getting some of the possibly-unconsenting public in the shots) but you can see all of the entries here. Interestingly, the majority of them were portraits of people — there were fewer animals than I expected, though I did find one other lovely painting of a corvid.
The volunteers and other artists were all very nice, too. Everyone I spoke to was kind and helpful. We even ran into one of my Handsome Assistant’s friends, whose child had won an award for their work in the juried student exhibit.
While it was a nice outing overall (the artwork was beautiful and moving, the venue was gorgeous, and the rolling hills of the grounds were streaked with kids on brightly colored sleds), it was also pretty mentally exhausting. There’s a COVID surge, so being indoors in a group was a bit tense. I also felt a very acute sense of imposter syndrome. An inner critic kept telling me that I didn’t really belong there, that my work was only chosen to humor me, so I wouldn’t get discouraged and withdraw my membership. Anxiety turned what should have been a relaxing, inspiring day into a bit of an internal mess.
But still, we did the thing! As cold as it was, and as much as my various social anxieties kept urging me to pull out, we went and did it. All that remains now is to figure out how to make it easier on myself in the future and be more confident in my art. It’s something that’s much easier said than done.
As I write this, JJ is playing with the snow I tracked in on my boots, while I am listening to pan flutes and drinking a smoothie to try to combat a killer bout of agita.
One of my paintings was accepted for a juried show starting later this month (it is this guy). This morning, my Handsome Assistant gave me a ride to drop it off at the gallery… By which I mean he drove me there and he went in to drop it off, while I sat in the car and tried not to throw up.
I’ve been through this before. I’ve entered shows, had my work accepted, and gone through the whole process, but, somehow, it still never seems to fail to launch me into a tiny existential crisis. I end up expending a ton of mental and physical energy to compare myself to other people, compare my work to other artists’, and make a carefully curated mental list of all of the reasons I don’t deserve to be there.
I know a lot of people have imposter syndrome and are probably doing the same thing. However, I am sure that they pale in comparison to my level of utter charlatanry.
But even that is a kind of talent, I guess. Maybe I don’t deserve to be where I am. Unfortunately, there are no shows for chicanery. There are no legitimate places where a skilled imposter can showcase their ability to fake a level of competence. Until there’s a place for the most impostery of imposters, maybe this is where I belong after all.
From the looks of things, the thief had brought a bat (probably to break a window, if need be). They ended up not using it, opting instead to rip the handle off the door and toss the bat onto the floor. From there, they tore off the ignition cover and used a USB cable to steal the car. It pretty much follows the exploits pointed out on TikTok beat for beat.
The good news is, the car wasn’t severely damaged. Believe it or not, it’s still drivable — as long as you don’t mind having to open the door without a handle and start it up with a USB cable. The bad news is that this kind of theft is so common that it can take a long time to get replacement parts, so the car’s going to be out of commission for a while.
My Handsome Assistant had just gotten the car detailed literally days before this happened, so it was really disheartening to see how grungy it is. There was half a bag of Cheerios on the floor. Empty soda cans. A dirty hoodie. Also, an unopened bag of Takis.
For now, we’ve got a rental via the insurance company. As frustrating and upsetting as this experience has been, in retrospect it’s also really funny. They tried on the sunglasses, and still never found the tracking tile in the case, for crap’s sake. They took the car for a joy ride, smoked a bunch of weed, and apparently ate half a bag of dry Cheerios! There is a comically tiny Little League bat! I can’t not find this hilarious!
He left everything at the tow lot.
The Takis went uneaten. They weren’t opened or suspicious or anything, but it was the principle of the thing.
Okay. I admit. I can get a little lazy when it comes to warding things. I didn’t do anything to protect the car. I’m not even sure I could’ve made that much of a difference, considering my Handsome Assistant apparently owns what could be considered “the most stealable car in America.” Now, there are aftermarket updates to make cars more secure, but we only buy used cars and were unaware that this particular model came with the equivalent of a flashing neon sign that says HI!!! STEAL ME! :)))).
I’ll be honest. I don’t like cars. I never have. I love road trips, but if it was possible to do them entirely by train, I would. There are multiple reasons for this:
My first significant experience was my mother’s Oldsmobile Firenza that used to stall out at every intersection, once got the interior rained on so bad that it smelled like vomit for a decade, and used to make me dizzy and carsick the second I sat in it. Even when it wasn’t moving.
My second was wanting to eat/play with icicles like the big kids could. The only one my tiny little five-year-old hands could reach was a kind of lumpy, grayish one growing on the muffler of my grandma’s car. I snapped it off, licked it, and became violently ill for three days.
My third was the time I thought a car accident had turned my dad into a zombie.
My fourth most significant experience with motor vehicles was being run over by one.
My fifth was dating someone who managed to wreck multiple cars over the course of a two-and-a-half-year relationship.
Cars and I have always had a wary, distant, reluctant alliance, at best. It has never really worried me, though. If anything, it seems appropriate. I’m too blind to drive, and I’m strongly against the idea of car-centric societies. It makes sense that cars’d have it out for me.
I don’t know what picture to post with this. Here’s Pye, being a massive arcing chungus in my Handsome Assistant’s office.
Anyway, all of this is to say that I was gently woken up early Wednesday morning by my Handsome Assistant going, “Hey, Jeccas? Do you remember if I… did anything weird with my car yesterday?”
“Buh?” I replied.
(Because I have been mind-poisoned by the internet, I did not initially think “did anything weird” meant “parked it somewhere unusual.” My imagination went somewhere far worse, but that’s neither here nor there.)
Anyway, it turns out someone’d stole it. If there’s a thing I dislike more than cars themselves, it is having to have basically any contact with police ever. Now a car was making me do that thing. Even if all we wanted was for insurance to cover the loss, we needed a police report. Butts.
Here he is snorkeling.
The whole process pretty much turned my Handsome Assistant into Liam Neeson from Taken. He took his motorcycle out for a ride, half to calm down and half to see if he could find the car himself.
“They say that most stolen cars are found in the same area,” he pointed out.
He was only gone for a minute or two before he came back.
“You know, I just remembered something…”
My Handsome Assistant is both handsome and helpful. He’s very smart, good at his job, and a caring, attentive, equitable contributor to our relationship. He is, however, extremely forgetful. Between that and my own memory deficiencies, it’s amazing we haven’t burned the house down making pancakes yet.
Take his sunglasses. When he started working for his current employer, he had to make a few wardrobe upgrades. Not just suits and ties, but smaller things — a watch. Nicer shoes. Sunglasses. He started with a pair of Ray-Bans, which he constantly lost. Once, they were found in the attic by Pye, who firmly insisted on pointing out these weird, boring objects that very obviously did not belong in his play space. Now, he’s also got a less-fancy-but-paradoxically-much-more-expensive pair of prescription sunglasses.
To avoid losing them, he invested in some trackers. As long as they’re nearby, or at least near other trackers, he can see their location on his phone.
Since he only really uses his sunglasses for driving, he keeps them in his car.
The car that got stolen.
Here is Pye posing for Michelangelo.
Within minutes, he had found an entire location history tracking the car’s journey to an adjacent county. On the highway. Every house it had parked in front of.
After a few more minutes, he was triangulating locations and planning a sneaky drive past some of the places where the car had been.
“Please tell me you’re not going to try to steal it back.”
“No, no,” he assured me, “That’d be a bad idea. Besides, then I’d be driving around in a car that’s reported stolen, which would cause problems.”
He didn’t find the car itself, but he came back with a map of all of the places it could’ve conceivably been hidden overnight. A cluster of bushes. A covered driveway. Under a bridge over a small creek bed.
Here he is with a whale.
Anyhow, the car was found yesterday morning. We also still have the (very fancy) rental that the insurance company provided for 50 days, so that’s neat. It’ll be a few days (the police still haven’t processed the original report) before he can fill out the paperwork to get it back, and we don’t know what kind of condition it’s in, but it’s found.
The tracking tag tracked the car all the way to the tow lot. Thieving jerk never even noticed the sunglasses.
So, I use Spotify a bunch. I tried YouTube Music and wasn’t super into it, and I used to be into Pandora, until I wasn’t. As a result, Spotify likes to send me alerts about nearby events featuring artists that I follow. I have a very generous definition of “nearby,” however.
Anyhow, Elvenking is one of my favorite folk metal bands. I don’t think they have a single CD that I feel like I need to skip any tracks on. Every one’s a banger. Unfortunately, like many of my other favorite bands, they’re not from the US and so opportunities to see them are a bit thin on the ground. From what I gather, the last time they were anywhere in the US was sixteenyears ago.
Imagine my surprise and delight when I discovered that they’d be playing in Pittsburgh, a mere three and a half hours away! (Like I said. Very generous definition of “nearby.”) Since I have no idea when I’d have the chance to see them again, I was stoked as hell.
And… then I realized that they were one of the opening bands for Alestorm.
Don’t get me wrong, I did enjoy Alestorm. I’m not above pirate metal and their songs are genuinely fun. What went on behind the songs wasn’t. While Chris Bowes issued an apology, the article I linked points out a few things that seemed… hinky. Apologizing after the fact, because you got caught, also isn’t the same as shutting down disgusting (and, honestly, creepy) behavior in the moment. It’s also goofy as hell to try to pass that kind of thing off as a joke, also after the fact. I’ve laughed at jokes in poor taste before. Hell, I’ve told jokes in poor taste before. But what the hell, man. This wasn’t humor, this was a bunch of middle-aged dudes being gross, racist weirdoes. Would the fans they were talking about think it was funny?
This isn’t to suggest that I think that Chris Bowes or the other members of Alestorm and Gloryhammer should publicly flog themselves. If other people are satisfied with the apology, or unbothered by the behavior that warranted it, that’s up to them. It did sour my enjoyment of music I once liked — way too much to be able to go, “eh, screw it,” hold my nose, and buy the tickets.
So now I’m left wondering what else to do. I have no reason to believe Elvenking endorses racism or misogyny. I don’t know if the members of Elvenking even know about what happened, or how much power they have in this situation. I don’t want to pay to see Alestorm, but I want to support Elvenking and show that there’s interest in them coming back to the US on their own.
As things are now, I’m going to give this show a pass, as much as it sucks to do. Bands make more money through merch anyway, so at least there are more efficient ways to support them than going to shows.
If we have our deck redone and the pergola up in time, maybe the Handsome Assistant and I’ll have a listening party when Elvenking’s next album drops. We’ve got the space and plenty of homemade mead. We’ll see.
I’m still feeling pretty salty at the moment, though.
If you’ve followed me on Instagram, you probably know that I’ve had a shaved head for years at this point. A few months back, I decided to experiment with letting some of my hair regrow. This was mainly a test to see how much of my particular case of trichotillomania is an ingrained habit, versus a deeper issue. Half of my head is currently almost shoulder-length, while the other half is still shaved.
Recently, this all got me thinking — out of all of the things I’ve tried to beat this, which ones actually seemed to help? Trichotillomania is commonly regarded as a kind of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Believe it or not, pulling out the “right” hairs (usually ones that are of a different texture than the others) can give a dopamine rush, while failing to do so can cause feelings of anxiety and an intense compulsion to find and pull the offending hair. It’s not the kind of thing you can sort out just by switching shampoos.
With that said, here are the things I tried… and how well they measured up against my apparent desire to destroy my own head:
1. Tea tree shampoos and conditioners
These feel nice. They’re supposed to help with itching and give the scalp a cooled, refreshed feeling. This is all very temporary, however. A couple of hours after a wash and condition, the desire to pull is back.
2/10
2. Fidget toys and objects that mimic hair pulling
These might work for some, but they didn’t really do it for me. The problem here is that the feeling of needing to pluck my hair doesn’t really feel like it originates in my hands, so keeping them busy doesn’t get rid of the tickle in my scalp or the feeling that there’s a weird hair I need to get rid of.
A lot of the objects geared toward people with trichotillomania also aren’t refillable. You could end up going through multiple vinyl plucking toys per week, and what do you do with all of them afterward?
Fidget objects that mimic hair pulling or skin picking are also somewhat controversial. For some people, they can help redirect the behavior to an object. For others, they may just reinforce the undesirable picking/plucking.
1/10
3. Smoothing hair products
Ugh, no.
My thought was that, since the desire to pluck starts as a subtle tickling sensation on my scalp, which progresses to me finding a hair that’s grown in with an odd texture, smoothing products would help. This was not the case. In fact, they either didn’t make any difference at all, or made my hair feel oilier and itchier. No. No, thank you.
0/10
4. Essential oils
Like the tea tree oil shampoos and conditioners, these helped for brief periods. The oils I used were chiefly rosemary and cedar, both credited with helping to regrow hair and improve hair and scalp health in general. They smelled nice. They felt nice. They made my scalp feel better, but they didn’t last very long.
4/10
5. Head massagers
These things look a bit like metal spiders with a wooden handle. You hold the handle and use the spidery bit to massage your scalp. They feel nice, they help temporarily increase blood flow to that area, but they don’t really get rid of the urge to pull.
These are often either witch hazel based, or castor oil based. You find castor oil in formulas to moisturize the scalp and promote hair growth and witch hazel in ones for scalp health. Like other topical treatments mentioned here, these serums seemed to fall into one of two camps. They either 1) felt soothing for a couple of minutes, or 2) just made me feel stickier/greasier and itchier. The cooling sensation of some non-oil-based serums did seem to make a difference, but they needed to be reapplied frequently. The oil-based serums did seem to help regrow hair, but they were also a lot heavier. but weren’t soothing.
5/10
7. Gloves
Like a parent trying to keep a kid with chicken pox from scratching, I tried sticking gloves on my hands. “Maybe,” I thought, “if I just make my hands worse at pulling my hair, I’ll eventually stop.”
The trouble is that the things that it harder to pull at my hair also made it harder to do absolutely everything else. There was zero incentive to keep gloves on, and very easy to forget them somewhere after cooking, washing up, etc. While this solution might work for kids, or people who don’t need to perform a lot of hands-on tasks, it didn’t for me.
3/10
8. Self-hypnosis
People have used self-hypnosis to help with all kinds of addictions and bad habits in the past, so why not this? I mean, I have a vivid memory of being a tiny child, sitting on the couch while my mother watched a self-hypnosis video to quit smoking. (It didn’t work and I felt like I was in a Twilight Zone episode, but I still figured this was worth a shot.)
It didn’t work, and I felt like I was in a Twilight Zone episode. Other people have used self-hypnosis with success, but it definitely fell short for me here.
1/10
9. Anxiety medication
OCD is connected to anxiety, so anxiety medication is sometimes used to help relieve the negative feelings connected to the obsessive-compulsive behavior. Unfortunately, trichotillomania is notoriously difficult to medicate. While anxiety medication did help tremendously when it came to controlling my panic disorder, it didn’t really do much for the hair pulling.
3/10
10. Cognitive behavioral therapy
I’ve written before about how CBT was less than helpful for me. In this case, it failed at lessening my trichotillomania because it relies on reasoning. You can’t reason yourself out of something you didn’t reason yourself into.
While it might help some people deal with feelings of anxiety and shame surrounding the behavior or the effect that it has on their appearance, it didn’t seem to touch the root cause of trichotillomania itself.
What if the weird hairs and tickly feeling of needing to pull were the symptoms of some kind of weird deficiency? What if I just wasn’t growing healthy hair, and my scalp was irritated because of it? What if I just straight-up ran out of other things to try?
So, I tested out multiple brands of “hair vitamin.” These are multivitamin and mineral supplements that focus primarily on hair and skin health. If you aren’t experiencing a deficiency in any of the vitamins and minerals in them, however, they’re primarily a fast way to give yourself nausea and neon yellow urine. They did not, unfortunately, help suppress the urge to pick at my hair.
1/10
11. Shaving it off and letting it grow back
It takes a while to break a habit. I figured that, if I couldn’t suppress the desire to pull, I could get rid of my hair. Without weird hairs to pull out and reinforce the behavior (and addiction dynamic), maybe my brain could sort itself out.
However, keeping my hair short and unpluckable did give my scalp a chance to recover, and that’s important.
5/10
12. Shaving it off, but strategically
Since shaving it completely and letting it grow back didn’t work the way I wanted to, I hit upon another potential solution: What if I just shaved the areas that I plucked the most? I wouldn’t have to commit to a full buzzcut if I didn’t want to, but I still wouldn’t be able to pull at the areas that I used the most.
Lo and behold, this finally seemed to work. Right now, I’ve got hair down to my shoulder on one side, and a full shave on the other. I make it work.
This might not be a great option for people who chiefly pluck from the crowns of their heads, but can definitely be a useful tool for those who pluck from the sides or bottom. For me, it’s been working very well.
9/10
Trichotillomania sucks, to be blunt. It’s hard to treat and can be a source of deep shame (particularly for women from cultures who highly value hair). It’s also not good for you, since it can damage your scalp and eventually cause your hair to stop growing back. There are a lot of options out there to help with the symptoms, but almost no effective permanent solutions. This is what worked and didn’t work for me, but you may find that your results are different. The important thing to remember here is that your hair doesn’t determine your worth as a person — whatever helps you live without anxiety, shame, and physical pain is worth pursuing, even if it isn’t a perfect solution to trichotillomania.
Marble Crow 