I experienced a new first yesterday at the mall. I stopped by the Clinique counter to see about a new color scheme for my eyes. She did a quick application for me and then asked if I used mascara. I said that I do, but only when I have all my eye lashes. She replied with “Yeah, you have a void. Are you a picker?” I told her yes, that it was a disorder that I have. She asked if it was like OCD and some of the regular questions. But then she proceeded to tell me how her son compulsively rubs his fingers together to the point of having really big callouses and rubs holes in his clothes as well.
Ok, no biggie right? Except for then she proceeds to tell me that the best thing to do for disorders like this is just accept that you have them and live with the behavior, because the consequences of it can’t really be bad enough to need to try and “fix it.” I told her that when you have a behavior that can suck up literally hours of your day because you are so engrossed in it, it becomes a problem. I told her that because women in our society place a very big importance on hair and hair-dos, that when you don’t have any hair it is extremely stigmatizing. I told her of the psychological scars from being teased and taunted through all of middle school (which she tata’ed and said couldn’t be bad enough to still bother me now).
I was trying to remain calm and educate her rather than going off on her. But what nerve! If she doesn’t have the disorder herself, then she doesn’t get to judge whether or not I’m handling it the right way. I don’t care if her son has something similar. That doesn’t make her an expert in Trich. She said that if my family were more accepting of my disorder that it probably wouldn’t be a big deal to me. Um, my family has always been super supportive of me, so that obviously blows her theory out of the water.
Anyway, it was a practice in restraint for me. It’s the first time that I’ve spoken about the disorder to a stranger unless I was in the wig shop or the hair dresser’s chair. I guess I need to remember from now on to not go in for a makeup consultation unless I have all of my eye lashes. Geesh.
