Trichotillomania

None of my fears materialized.
I didn’t trip and fall. The clothes came off, though none too gracefully, and, thankfully, no one began a chant of “Put it back on! Put it back on!”
Now all I feel is strangely clammy, but clear as a bell and glad to have the audition behind me instead of ahead.

I keep expecting to feel dirty and embarrassed, but so far I don’t. I guess I might feel that way if I had to dance because I had no other choice, if I had to strip to pay the bills. If you ask me, dancing seems a lot less degrading and obnoxious than waiting tables, telephone sales, or cleaning houses turned out to be. Young, poor women, single mothers in particular, are vulnerable and easily targeted by all sorts of distasteful, demeaning jobs. But they earn a lot more being demeaned as a stripper.
So much has changed, all at once it seemed. I finally wrapped up my degree to start my first real job in a new city. I moved into an apartment temporarily while my family stayed behind to finish out the school year and sell our home of fifteen years.
In hindsight, I recognize the obvious symptoms of a mid-life crisis. I hated my new life. I was miserable, lonely and severely depressed. Out of stress, I had begun to pick compulsively at my left eyebrow until it was almost bald. Every morning, I cried in the shower before leaving for work. It wasn’t long before I was crying during work. I couldn’t concentrate and couldn’t get anything done. As is the popular response to deep, consistent feelings of hopelessness these days, I headed to my neighborhood pharmacy for anti-depressants.
I started with 10 milligrams a day, then 20, and then 40. I stopped picking my eyebrow and cut way down on the obsessing, but I still cried an awful lot. I couldn’t seem to help it, though I did try. The pills didn’t alleviate my depression, but they did cause dry mouth, excessive sleepiness, and made me physically incapable of achieving an orgasm.
When even masturbation had nothing to offer me, I found myself with too much time to think. What is it that I am looking for? I have my health. I have a husband and kids that I love. I put myself through school from junior college to a Ph.D., and landed an incredible job. While my friends struggled with marriage, divorce, money, illness, fertility, I seemed to have it all covered, and yet there wasn’t a dosage high enough to get me through the day. By the time my family joined me up North, I thought I’d feel better, but instead, I got so much worse. Soon enough, we had moved our whole lives. The kids were in school and we put a down payment on a new house. I was committing myself to something that felt wrong from the beginning, but I know me. Once I had completely committed, I never would have backed off. I’d have to see it through, whatever it took.
At every stage in my life I would think, once I get to the next stage, then I can finally be myself. Once I finish my dissertation, once I have Dr. in front of my name, once I get a good job…then I can stop having to prove myself and focus on today.
But that is not what happened. With my new life, came greater responsibilities and bigger bills and more stress and politics simply to maintain them. Whenever I arrived at what I thought was a destination, there were intense personalities and stumbling blocks to negotiate, and so much more pressure to ensure that I did. Stripping would be a potentially irrecoverable deviation from the plan.
I’d always watch when strippers came on TV and think “I could do that,” but why would I want to? I can’t ask any of my friends for advice; I already know what they will say. Stripping is degrading. My parents will be mortified. People will find out, and it will ruin my career. My friends will not understand and I’ll have to find a way to hide it from my kids. Among other considerations, my husband will worry about my personal safety.

The thoughts trickled into what had become my lonely, listless, subconscious mind: the dancing, the costumes, the glamour, the excited fear of going through with it – the fear of not going through with it. Whatever the reason, I felt inspired and was excited for the first time in a very long while. Tired and bored with the obsessively repetitive, sullen, self-deprecating thoughts in my mind, I had a new plan.

I’d revisit my body.