Ready? I am.....

I remember the night it started.
My parents got into a huge fight and my mom packed up our stuff and off we went to my Aunt Bev's house for the night. Pretty traumatic for an 8 year old I would say. I remember laying in the dark in Monique's bed talking about the end of my world as I knew it. I don't remember touching my head once. I got out of bed and walked into the kitchen and when Monique up behind me she said, "What is that?" "What's what?" "That there on the back of your head! You have a huge bald spot!" "Huh? What, omg MOM!!! My hair is falling out!!" My mom looked at it, freaked out a bit and sent me back to bed. I never would have known that this was the first night of a downward spiral and many years of therapy to come.
I remember sitting in class one day and a boy yelled out, "Why is Tina pulling her hair out and eating it Mrs. Creale?" Wtf was he talking about I wasn't even touching my head! I looked down at my desk and saw hair everywhere!! Omg what happened! Where did all this hair come from? I cried. During recess the teacher took me aside and asked if everything was okay at home. Of course it was, we were back home with my dad and everything was better. My teacher called my mom that night to tell her what had happened. I got the snot kicked outta me that night for doing something I didn't even know I was doing. A few days later my teacher showed my mom an article shehad found in a magazine. It was about an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder called Trichotillomania. It meant hair pulling. It was a psychological disorder that required therapy and medication and very early intervention. Mom mom didn't believe that I had that. She thought it was just a bad habit that I could stop myself. I couldn't.
She tried her hardest to "break" me of this habit. Made me sleep in gloves, hit me if she caught me pulling, made me sleep with beanies on, hit me again if I took it off. I got hit  alot during the early days of my Trich. I'm pretty sure that made it worse. No, I am positive it did. She took me to a doctor once and the doc told her that it was her and my dads fault that I was doing this. She cussed him out, then beat the crap out of me for telling the doctor that she was beating the crap outta me.  I went throught the rest of elementary school being forced to wear hats and bandanas to school. Kids are cruel, not because they are born that way but because they don't understand, so I was made to cry everyday. I was always mistaken for a boy. No one wanted to play with me because they thought I was contagious. Pretty sad when you look back on it. I remember once my mom popped into my 4th grade class to make sure I was wearing my bandana. I wasn't. She let me have it right there in front of everyone!
Ok so I am going to have to leave it here for now.......