Dream Journal 6/9/16 | Hashtag

I was sitting at my desk, scrolling through Twitter, when I saw the trending hashtag: #Get********to50k. I censored the name, because it is a real person on Twitter, who I have had very public issues with in the past. I thought it was strange, and clicked on the hashtag to see what it was all about. There were thousands and thousands of tweets showing support of something, but it wasn’t clear what their cause was. One tweet read something like: “#Get********to50k because we’re tired of not being listened to.” A couple of the other tweets made it seem like it had something to do with the Warcraft community, but they were all vague enough to give no real answers as to what the hashtag was about.

I went to this person’s Twitter profile, who actually has me blocked in real life, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary, until I noticed that their follower count was just over 49,000 people. Their tweets were all about equality and justice, but once again, still very vague as to what the cause was. I got upset about it for some reason, and left my computer.

I called Kyle while he was at work, and told him that there was a bad storm happening outside, even though I could clearly see that there wasn’t, and he was confused, and hung up the phone because I wasn’t making any sense, and he knew I was lying.

The last thing I remember was making two salads for Liam and I, and working really hard on them, and he kept throwing all the vegetables on the floor, and it made me start crying.

Then I woke up.

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Daily Prompt 5/23/2016 | Vivid Dreamer

In response to The Daily Post’s Daily Prompt 5/23/2016 | Dream

I’ve always been a vivid dreamer, sometimes even a lucid dreamer. For as long as I can remember, I’ve dreamed in black and white, and in color. In sound, and in silence. I’m fortunate enough to be able to recall most of my dreams in vivid detail. My subconscious has remembered hundreds of faces from passing glances in my past, and they have all wound up in my dreams. I’ve never taken my dreams for granted, and even wrote a novel based on a series of dreams I had about a world overthrown by androids. My mind is a beautiful, crazy place.

I jot down my dreams when I wake up, and type them out in my Dream Journal when I am able, so that I can share them with my friends here online. Feel free to look through them. Some are sad, some are funny, and others frightening. Some are complete works of fiction, and some are long lost memories.

Do you ever dream about wonderfully bizarre things?

Jan

Trichotillomania and Baby Eyelash Envy

Hello, friends. I want to share something with you that I don’t talk much about. It’s not a secret, per se, but just not something I generally talk about. I have trichotillomania. For those of you who don’t know what that long, bizarre word means, here is an even longer definition:

“Trichotillomania (trik-o-til-o-MAY-nee-uh) is a disorder that involves recurrent, irresistible urges to pull out hair from your scalp, eyebrows or other areas of your body, despite trying to stop.

Hair pulling from the scalp often leaves patchy bald spots, which causes significant distress and can interfere with social or work functioning. People with trichotillomania may go to great lengths to disguise the loss of hair.

For some people, trichotillomania may be mild and generally manageable. For others, the compulsive urge to pull hair is overwhelming. Some treatment options have helped many people reduce their hair pulling or stop entirely.” ~ Mayo Clinic

This affliction is actually fairly common, and there are so many different degrees of severity. I honestly don’t know how long I’ve had trichotillomania, but I remember becoming aware of it around the 8th grade. My symptoms are not nearly as severe as some people that I know (I went to school with a girl who had to wear beanies to hide small bald patches from her pulling her hair out), which I am thankful for, and they pop up randomly, usually when I am stressed, anxious, or upset, but sometimes I do it out of boredom, and don’t even notice it. I pull my facial hair, specifically, my eyebrows and eyelashes. When I was younger, I had long, thick, black eyelashes. If you’ve seen pictures of my son, picture those beautiful eyeballs of his, on my face, with blue irises.

Look at him! He’s perfect. He got those eyes from his mama.

Circa 2008 or so.

These days, both my eyelashes and eyebrows are coarse and unappealing. My eyelashes are still long, but there are noticeable (to me) gaps between them, making them look clumpy. It makes wearing mascara difficult, because I then drive myself crazy trying to separate the clumps, and end up with black fingers. I also can’t wear eyeliner well on my upper eyelids because of the thick gaps in my eyelashes, and how thick the skin is at the root. I am actually incredibly embarrassed about these things. I’ve also, on more than one occasion, pulled my eyelashes out so violently, that it caused my eyelid to become swollen and red. Try explaining that to someone who doesn’t understand mental disorders.

Most days, when I’m home alone with the baby, makeup free, I am okay with it. I don’t mind the gaps in my lashes, or the coarseness of my eyebrows… until someone mentions my son’s lashes. My mother and grandmother, specifically, are able to get under my skin about this. It isn’t their fault, as neither of them know about my struggles with trichotillomania, and likely haven’t noticed the difference in my face, as I haven’t seen either of them in years, but it still gets to me. I sometimes find myself feeling jealous of my one-year old son, because he has these beautiful lashes, and I will probably never have that again. Coincidentally, my trichotillomania worsened after my son was born, but has gotten a bit better.

“He has your eyes! You always had such gorgeous lashes!”
“Look at those LASHES! Just like his mommy!”
“You had the prettiest eyelashes when you were younger, too!”

Past tense now, of course.

It can take several weeks to several months for eyelashes to grow back, though there are little tricks to get them to grow faster and thicker. Of course, the rate at which they grow back means nothing if you continue to pull others out in the meantime. It’s a vicious cycle. I’m also a compulsive skin picker (hurray, adult acne!), but that’s a whooole other problem. Just add that to the list of weird things that add to my many reasons that I suffer from such severe self-esteem issues.

Does anyone else suffer from trichotillomania? Were you aware that there was even a term for it? How has it affected your life?

Thanks for reading, friends.

Jan

Dream Journal 1/22/16

Present day.

I was walking around Walmart with Liam, when Kyle came running through the front doors. He came up to me, angry, and told me that his mother and step-father had just had a baby. I was stunned, as they are 49 and… 50 something, respectively, and we didn’t know that she was pregnant.

He wasn’t upset that they had a baby in secret, however… he was upset at the name. They named the baby, who was a boy, Stevenson Robertson Rutledge. And he was furious about the name(s). I tried to tell him that it wasn’t that bad, and that he could go by a nickname if he wanted, but he was too angry to listen. He kept saying that he would get bullied.

And then I woke up to a crying baby at 2:30 in the morning.

————————–

Present day.

Kyle and I had bought a new truck, but it wasn’t new. It looked quite futuristic, and was shiny and cool looking, but it was apparently 30 years old, and riddled with problems. Just a few days after we bought it, it stopped working entirely, and we went back to the dealership to talk to the owner.

The owner was a 90-year old woman, who was dressed in a matronly, blue dress, and pearls around her neck. The outside of the shop looked like a large dealership, with a massive garage attached, but the inside looked like an old, Victorian home, and was decorated with dusty, antique furniture. Every surface in the waiting area was covered with doilies.

We were waiting by the doors, avoiding sitting on any of the musty furniture, and watching the elderly woman talk shop with another customer, who seemed quite unsatisfied. The woman’s language was quite… explicit, and her demeanor certainly did not match her conservative, maternal appearance.

They were arguing loudly, swearing at each other…

And then I woke up.