This post is now eight days late.  I meant to write it last week, but if you read Friday’s post, you’ll know that the world has been conspiring against me.  It’s still conspiring, but I am ignoring it.  For the moment.

The reason there was a calendar date for this post?  Well – drum roll please – , it has now been nine months (and eight days) since the great Pog Shave off.  If you happen to be one of my lovely new followers (and there seem to be a fair few of you recently – thank you so much for signing up to my ramblings) you might be unaware of this.  The detail is all here, but to cut a long story short, I had a weird ‘thing’ called trichotillomania, where for 23 years I pulled my own hair out, even though I didn’t want to.  I did say it was weird.  I had managed to get myself to a stage where shaving it all off and getting a wig seemed like the only option.  So I did.  In April, Bradley (my wig) went into retirement and I started to let my hair grow.  And I…

Have.  Not.  Pulled.  Out.  ONE.  Hair.  Since.  :o)

I know there are people who read this blog who have the same ‘thing’, so just for a minute, I’m going to be sensible.

To start with, it wasn’t difficult (I had a completely shaved head – I had no option).  Then when it started growing back I got that itchy feeling under my scalp a lot.  The excitement of having hair was enough to ignore it though or I just slapped my head to stop the itching.  (I advise against doing that bit in public.)

When it was a fair bit longer and the grey ones grew back – and FAR more than I had before – I was desperate to pull them out.  The solution to that particular issue was to dye my hair.  Thank you Sisters 1 and 2 for all your dying expertise (I can’t do it on my own – it’s disastrous enough with two of us.)  One day we may even read the instructions.

But it’s the last few months that have been really tricky.  I can feel the naughty (curly) ones when I run my hands through my hair – if I’m stressed or just lost in thought – and they drive me mad.  I have to give myself a really good talking to so make sure I leave them just where they are, naughty or not.  It’s a bit like giving up smoking and carrying a packet of cigarettes around with you.  The habit is still there, they are still there and it takes serious will power not to give in.  I know, I gave up and even without that packet of cigarettes, I started again two years later.  Idiot.

And I have damaged my hair.  As well as the grey ones that are so plentiful I could be mistaken for a badger in my natural state, it’s not grown back evenly.  I have a thin patch right on the top, but I’m hoping that it only seems so obvious to me because I know it’s there (like that spot that always seems bigger to the spotee than someone looking at them).

So would I suggest this to anyone else?  If you were feeling how I felt in December last year, anything is worth a try.  It’s not as easy as it sounds though.  I took up crochet and now do that obsessively, and yoga, which I do badly.  But both are good distractions and work for me.  Hopefully I’ll be able to do a post at the end of the year and say that I’ve managed twelve months and never have to mention it again.

Until then, thank you to all the lovely people who know me personally and compliment me on my hair.  It does make me smiley :o)

from this…

…to this