OCD, Trichotillomania and Poetry
Unsinkable Storytelling Author: Chloe Henkle
When I was 16, I was pulled out of public school and switched to an online university high school, because my severe OCD made it too difficult for me to function in “real” school. BUT, since being pulled from public school, I managed to graduate high school early, publish 3 books, and begin ERP treatment for my OCD. OCD isn’t what most people think it is: it’s not a minor quirk or inconvenience. It’s not a love for organization (it can cause compulsive organization, but there’s nothing enjoyable about it). It causes weird, stigmatized, stressful intrusive thoughts, obsessions, and compulsions.To put it shortly: it sucks. So yes, OCD is a LOT harder than most people think it is. But at the same time: no matter how hard OCD tries to convince you otherwise, it’s not impossible to live through and heal from, either. ❤️
Shaving my head for the first time is one of the scariest— then most liberating— things I’ve ever done. I have trichotillomania, a disorder that causes a person to compulsively pull out their own hair. It became so severe that I was pulling my hair constantly, leaving piles of it all around the house… and I was about 50% bald as a result. So eventually, I decided to shave my head to keep myself from pulling. For most of my life, my hair had been all the way down my back. For as long as I could remember, it had never been shorter than my shoulders. I was so scared, my hands were shaking the whole time I shaved. There was hair everywhere. And when I finally finished and turned to look at myself, I felt… amazing. I felt so vulnerable without an inch of hair to hide behind, but at the same time, I felt so FREE from my hair, which had consumed so much of my life until then.
