Trichotillomania: Allegory

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Trichotillomania

By James Harris

Jordan woke up in a room he wasn’t familiar with.

            He lay on a bed, the blanket covering half of his body, his arms at his side, his hands warm and wet, hidden from the cotton fabric. His chest heaved rapidly, anxiousness consuming him immediately. Pain, sharp and constant, pulsed from his extremities.

            The top half of his body, naked, popped strips of gooseflesh. Parts he could see raised in a rash, his dark olive colored skin itched with a ferocity he was all too familiar with.

            He dared not move. As soon as he moved, as soon as he revealed what mysteries dwelled under the covers, his anxiety would spike. Whatever was happening to him would become real.

            He closed his eyes and opened them again. The bright bulb that hung in the middle of the room crackled with electricity. A soft buzz hummed. He turned his head, a soft twitch in his neck made him wince. On the wall to his right, a metal door with no handle. Shreds of steel shone through the fading dark green color of the paint. Next to the door, a waste basket, white, small, an Ikea receipt sticking out from its manual lid.

            Five, maybe six feet? Jordan wasn’t sure, but the exit was close. Or rather, the entrance. There was no exit from here. Not unless the door rocked open like a Western swinging door and he doubted that was the case.

            He turned his head so that he was looking at the wall closest to him. The bed was pushed up against the wall, the wooden posts decorated with deep scratches- nails most likely the source.

The wall itself was bare, slight dents where his forehead was, cracked slightly, forming a web in a tight circle. Near his chin, a strand of his beard stuck to the egg-white paint. He breathed hard through his nose, his version of a laugh, and shook his head marginally. His damn hair.

            He went to grab at it but stopped himself. The cotton blanket rubbing against his hand brought an immense discomfort. Like when a loose nail tugs at the sheets.

            “What the Hell?” he muttered, keeping his voice low.

            He put his hand back down and took a deep breath. There was nothing more in the world that he wanted to do than to take his fingers and comb them through his beard. He’d dig his nails into the coarse hair and pull, straining when the hair follicle finally lodged itself from his pores. It was his coping mechanism. It was what he had done since he was a child. Whether it be when he was in trouble, or when he was watching a scary movie, Jordan would grab at his hair, the hair on his scalp until he grew older and developed pubic and facial hair. He’d pull, unsatisfied until he finally tore some strands out, revealing the clear bulbous follicle and the end of each hair. Therapy, his parent’s threats, and even social isolation never helped to make him stop. It was just something he did, something he’d always do.

            But he stopped himself in that moment because it hurt. Because if he moved his hands, that tugging sensation would return, and he very much didn’t want that to happen. It wasn’t just his hands that hurt. He realized most of his body was in pain, including his face.

            “Alright, alright,” he spoke gently. He placed his head back to its original position and glared up at the ceiling. The bulb hung in the middle; it was hard to look at, it was one of those new LED ones that were really plastic and not glass. No bugs dwelled in the corners of the room, but light molding sprouted in the edges between the walls and the ceiling.

            Jordan closed his eyes. “What is going on?” His nostrils began to itch, and then began to sting.

            Nonetheless, he breathed through his nose like his therapist taught him to do in a stressful situation. It was supposed to be his alternative to hair pulling.

A metallic odor filled the room. He hated the smell, it was a familiar smell, the smell that comes with sitting in a waiting room, knowing you’re about to have your mouth yanked open and prodded.  The other smell he took in was one he didn’t want to acknowledge because he knew it was his own. He smelled blood.

            He opened his eyes and looked down at his body. The top seemed fine, but the bottom half, especially his hands, still hurt. The wall in front of him had a large mirror, like the ones in police interrogation rooms. He knew what that meant.

            There was someone on the other side of it, watching him, maybe recording him. He wasn’t alone.

            “Shit, shit, shit,” he banged his head on the pillow beneath him. “Hello?” he yelled, forcing himself to sit up. Immediately his hands felt as if they were on fire. “Hello? Is anyone there?”

            From where he was sitting, he saw in the mirror why his face was in such pain. Brown, thick needles protruded from his left and right nostrils. The very same needles stuck out of his chin and his cheeks. “No, no,” he pulled his hands from the covers, pushing through the pain, and brought them up to his face. “Fuck,” he yelled. In the back of his hands, he found a dozen more of the brown needles sticking out of him, stiches and dried blood surrounded them. “What the fuck is this?” Tears ran down his eyes. Pain vibrated through his body.

            He touched one of the sticks on his right hand and yelled. It wasn’t needles stitched to him, but toothpicks, dozens of toothpicks in his hands and in his nose, like perfectly rounded splinters. “What the fuck is going on?” he sobbed.

            “You know what makes you feel better,” a robotic voice said through what sounded like an intercom.

            Jordan moved his hands away from his face and saw that next to the mirror was a small speaker, no larger than the size of a tennis ball. “Hello? What- what’s going on here? Can you help me?”

            He was dreaming, he must have been. Having some fucked up nightmare and soon he’d wake up and he’d be sweating in his bed and he’d laugh about this. Laugh about this and then go back to bed.

            But the pain. Why was the pain so palpable, so gruesome?

            “Jordan, Jordan, it’s okay,” the voice said.

            “No,” Jordan cried, “let me out of here. Please. Please. I won’t say anything, I don’t even know where I am or what’s going on. Please, help me. I need to go to the hospital.”

            “Jordan, you’ve agreed to this,” the voice sounded annoyed.

            “What the fuck are you talking about? No, I didn’t, I didn’t sign up for anything like this. Who are you? What’s happening?”

            The robot voice sighed, “You know I can’t answer that, Jordan.”

            Jordan brought his hands up to his face again and bit his lower lip. “What do you want from me?”

            The robot voice didn’t answer back.

            “What’s going on?” he whispered, placing his head on the webbed part of the wall. “Why is this happening?”

            He sat there for what he thought was an hour, maybe two. There was no way to tell; there was no clock in the room. Occasionally he examined his hands. It wasn’t until he felt a sting in his groin that he got the strength to grab ahold of the blanket and lift it up.

            The first thing he noticed was that he was naked. Why that was the first thing that came up, he had no idea. He blinked multiple times, his brain trying to figure out what was going on, what the horror in front of him meant and if it was even real at all.

            All along his pelvis, stitched just like the toothpicks in his hands, dozens of the wooden spears stuck out of his skin.

            “No,” he whimpered and delicately let the blanket back down. He knew then that the toothpicks were probably in his feet too. As time passed, more and more pain became apparent.

            “Are you ready, Jordan?” the voice rang.

            Jordan flinched. “Please, please let me go.”

            “I can’t do that until you finish, Jordan.”

            He sat up, his hands burning, his groin pulsating, the blood hot to the touch. “What do I need to do?”

            “The toothpicks,” was all the voice said.

            Jordan clutched the blanket and thrust it to the right, letting it spill onto the floor. His whole body exposed, he saw that it wasn’t just his groin and feet with the toothpicks, but the entirety of his legs were riddled with sticks of wood.

            “Why?” he whimpered again, tears ran down his cheeks freely.

            “You know why.”

            Jordan nodded. It was coming back to him now. He had agreed to this. Not directly, but he had agreed to something like this.

            “Okay,” he took a deep breath. “Where do I start?”

            “Where it feels right to do so.”

            He took another deep breath, this one staggered and shaky. “My chin.”

            “Okay, good.”

            Jordan hesitantly reached up to his chin and felt the impulse he was all too familiar with. He wanted to pull at his beard, he wanted to grab ahold of hairs and rip them out. In fact, he’d never wanted to as badly as he did in that moment.

            Except there wasn’t any hair there, he understood that. He understood that just fine.

            The first toothpick he came in contact with was deep inside his chin. A nub the size of a fountain pin head poked him with a soft point. He glanced at the mirror and then the speaker. No voice came out of it now.

            He pinched the nub, much like he pinched the hairs on his chin, and tested how firm it was stitched to his skin. The flesh of his chin stretched when he pulled.

            “So, just like a regular hair?” he said aloud.

            “That is correct.”

            Jordan nodded.

            He tried to pull it softly, the pain almost unbearable, but also recognizable. The toothpick didn’t let go.

            “The idea is to simulate your hair, Jordan. Is that how you pull your hair?” the voice in the speaker asked in a condescended tone, but also with the air of concern.

            “No,” Jordan cried. “No, it’s not. Okay, okay, I get it. Please, let me out. I’m done. I’m good now.”

            “I can’t do that, Jordan,” the voice cleared its throat. Jordan heard a rustling of paper. “No, I can’t, I’m sorry.”

            “Do I have to do all of them?’

            More rustling of paper from the speaker. “Yes.”

            “There are hundreds,” Jordan cried, spreading his arms over his mid-section as if pointing it out would help his case.

            “There are ninety, per your request, Jordan.”

            “I didn’t request that,” he began to sob.

            “I suppose not directly,” but then the voice stopped, unwilling to further explain.

            Jordan took a hold of the toothpick he tested before and pinched it tightly, as if it was a curly, red hair on his chin. “Fuck, fuck,” he whined.

            Then, in a fashion mirroring the way he pulled his hair, he jerked the wood from his chin. There was a slight ripping sound, and the pain was nowhere near the pain that came with ripping out hair. He screamed, dropping the toothpick onto his stomach. Blood immediately leaked from the enormous pore in his skin. He glared at the spear on his stomach and saw three coppery strings laced around it. Small patches of his flesh stuck to it as well. He gasped.

            “It will not bleed for long, I promise,” the voice said sweetly. “You are safe. We’ve taken to precautions to make sure your physical health will not be affected today.”

            Jordan ignored him and continued to scream. “I’m done. That’s it. I won’t do it again.”

            “Won’t do what again, Jordan?”

            He clenched his fists, but that hurt too much. “I won’t pull my hair again.”

            “That’s great, Jordan. We’re making serious progress here,” the voice said, genuine.

            Jordan smiled. “Yes, yes. Now please, Dr. Evans. Please let me out.”

            “Oh, Jordan,” Dr. Evans sighed. “You know I can’t do that.”

            “What?” Jordan cried. “Why the Hell not?”

            “Well,” Dr. Evans cleared his throat again. “It says here that you are not permitted to be let go until one hundred percent of the toothpicks are out. Now usually I’d be lenient, but you were the one who wrote the treatment plan, Jordan. At least you were the one who wanted it this way. You said it’d be the only way you would learn to stop. You’d be done with hair pulling for the rest of your life after this, you remember saying that, Jordan?”

            “I didn’t know it would be hundreds though,” Jordan pleaded.

            He stared at the speaker, but no sound came out.

            “Hello?” he called. “Hello? You can’t do this, Dr. Evans. You need to let me out this instant. I swear, I’ll stop. I’ll stop it all.”

            “Eighty-nine to go, Jordan,” Dr. Evans said.

            Jordan slammed his fists against the bed and cried with pain.

            He looked down at his groin and counted the toothpicks out. Fifteen.

            The urge to pull every single one out was great in him and revulsive to him all at the same time. But he noticed that the urge was lessened from seconds ago when he retrieved the one from his chin.

            He started with the toothpick nearest his belly-button.

END