Thursday, October 11, 2012

that moment i pretended i knew what was going on in politics.

oh my goodness. i need to blog.

today i shaved for the first time since getting out of the hospital. and i was like, MAN, I FEEL LIKE A WOMAN shania twain style in the shower and then i was like, jeez, my life is sad, this is why i have a blog. i need to blog.

my last post was so dramatic. and depressing.

i need to blog about fun things.

here's what i came up with.

1. walk-outs! we got seven new gamma phi babies and jacob and i took stupid pictures and he resembled sully from monster's inc.
2. all of the awkward places i've been having seizures. like the choir concert.
3. the presidential debate.

i've decided to go with number three.

OH NO, A POLITICAL BLOG, RUN AWAY AHHHHHH

you can run away. buuuut i feel like if i've blogged about religion, being hospitalized, my vagina on numerous occasions, and my mental illness, i've earned the right to blog about politics.

um. i should make a disclaimer.

i, emily hollenberg, know absolutely nothing about politics. i do not want to get into any stimulating discussions. i do not like it when people comment on stuff and are like, "actually, if you look at the facts about blah blah in obamacare you will realize blah blah blah about taxes."

i don't know about politics. i'm simply sharing my opinion and how the debate was pretty much the funniest thing i've ever seen on television. i'm not going to be politically correct. also, we can have different political stances and still be friends. don't shove your beliefs down my throat and i won't shove mine down yours.

right. THE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE.

in eleventh grade in my US history class we had to keep debate journals. i went back and reread them and i realized that i care more about how politicians act on stage rather than what they're saying. i totally did that last week during the debate.

and of course, i live tweeted. because live tweeting is what i do. and surprisingly, i didn't lose any followers.

OH. i should probably post my political stance.

it is officially HUFFLEPUFFS FOR OBAMA.

because i'm in hufflepuff. and i like obama. i think. i made a sign and hung it in my room, so it's decently legit.

so it's debate time. i have my door open. i have my laptop on my lap and i'm ready to live tweet the hell out of this thing.

my first thought: romney and obama are ridiculously photogenic. like, why can't i be that photogenic? even when my hair looks good i still look terrible in pictures.

WET T-SHIRT CONTEST
wow. i just labeled that "wet t-shirt contest." i'm going to hell.

soooo. i think the rest of this blog is going to be my tweets. because i feel like it'll just be easier for you and for me if i'm just like, HERE, LOOK AT MY TWEETS DURING THE DEBATE.

first tweet. OH SNAP, PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE BECAUSE OBAMA IS AWESOME AND I JUST WANT TO LAUGH AT MITT ROMNEY. there's my political stance, oops, bye.

then i spent some time wondering who the moderator was because i don't pay attention to things like that. i'm way more focused on the fact that whenever one of the candidates is like, "let me tell you why your plan is bullshit" they're like, "LOOK DOWN AND SMILE, LOOK DOWN AND SMILE. IT'LL BE OKAY, JUST LOOK DOWN AND SMILE AT MY SHINY SHOES THAT SOMEOBDY PICKED OUT FOR ME."

so. my first jab at romney.

"oh romney. you're pulling the sob stories and not actually talking about what you're going to do. and did anybody notice that you just dissed china?"

i don't even remember how he dissed china. but he totally did.

even though i'm a pretty hardcore obama fan, of course obama isn't perfect. i got to jab at him too.

obama: education is super important, guys! i want to pay teachers more and i want to hire more math and science teachers!
me: bro. english teachers. we're a thing.

now we're at the point where i'm not entirely sure what's going on because i don't know how the hell medicaid and medicare work. so i'm trying to figure out who the moderator is. when i found out, this happened.

"THE MODERATOR'S NAME IS JIM. JIM. JIM. MY MAN. LET'S DATE."

because i've always wanted to date an old PBS dude in a tie. like mr. rogers.

sooooo then the bullshit starts to fly.

romney: i don't want to cut taxes on the rich.
me: um.
obama: um.
jim: um.
america: um.

obama: i was looking at numbers--
me: candidates understand numbers?! i thought they made that stuff up.

jim: let's talk about taxes.
romney: lol no.
jim: let's focus back on taxes.
romney: lol no.
obama: smile and nod. smile and nod.

it was a little after this that i made my most important discovery of all political history.

republicans blink more than democrats.

i'm so serious. in my eleventh grade journal, i seriously spent a page discussing how much john mccain blinks. like, my seventeen year old self was obsessed with how much that man blinked. and now i'm sitting on my bed live tweeting and i'm like, damn, romney is blinking so much. REPUBLICANS MUST BLINK MORE THAN DEMOCRATS.

it makes perfect sense. right? right.

then things start to get fun. jacob comes over.

jacob doesn't like politics. he doesn't want to vote. he doesn't like obama or romney. and he actually knows about politics and laws and legislation and i'm over here like, i just want to vote for obama because he likes education and is okay with gay marriage. 

the first thing that jacob says to me when he walks in is this: "romney's being an ass. but he's being an ass pretty stupidly. does he think that's good?"

about ten minutes later romney is like, "hang on jim, i want the last word." and jim is like, "no bro, obama gets the last word and you can go first next time" and romney is like, "DUDE, NO, I WANT THE LAST WORD" and i'm like, "romney. LISTEN TO JIM. HE'S A COOL DUDE."

so this was my favorite part of the debate.

romney: i love coal.
my tweet: i'm sitting here with the largest windfarm in michigan five miles away and romney is like, OH HEY, I LOVE COAL.

i put that as a facebook status. it got a lot of likes.

then suddenly it's all medicare and healthcare and things i don't know about and romney is like, "it's my job to interrupt jim because i can do what i want" and obama is like, "i am soooo on the oration struggle bus" and i'm like, "obama, i feel you bro, i had a speech impediment in elementary school."

and then two beautiful things happened.

romney: expensive things hurt families.
jacob: SO DOES LOSING YOUR JOB TO A CORPORATE PIG.
me: i have lost my ability to can.

jim: now let's move onto--
romney: lol no.
jacob: I'M MITT ROMNEY AND I'M AN ASSHOLE AND I INTERRUPT THE MODERATOR BECAUSE I'M MITT ROMNEY.
me: where's kanye when you need him?

a facebook app told me that kanye west would interrupt my wedding. i think i'm okay with that.

i feel like this wouldn't be a political debate blog post if i didn't say at least something about big bird. i actually missed the big bird comment, i was laughing too hard at jacob muttering hateful things under his breath about obama's tax plan that i will never hope to understand.

but seriously, you can't just be like, "hey bro, i know you work for PBS and you're moderating this thing, but i want to cut public programming. like PBS."

there is one thing that i DO know, and that cutting funding and getting rid of PBS will make about a tenth of a percent difference in the national defecit.

if we want to fix the national defecit, we need to stop spending money on a pointless war. i don't care if you agree with me or not. i believe that our war is pointless and is wasting money. 

back to funnier points of the debate.

romney: my first day as president, i'm going to repeal obamacare.
obama: you gonna have a busy first day there, bro, repealing all of my shit.

the debate showed me a few things.

1. republicans blink more than democrats.
2. romney interrupts people more than kanye west.
3. my boyfriend is very knowledgeable about politics.
4. i know nothing about politics.
5. twitter is the best place to be when watching a debate.
6. moderator jim needs a hug. and a large glass of bourbon after what all went down.

after the debate was over, i was flipping channels, and i kid you not, jacob says to me, "i wonder what's on PBS? burning effigies of romney?"

now i leave you with some political stuff that i put on tumblr, where if you are a republican, you are pretty much crucified.


even if we're republican, i feel like we all were.

right. i think we've all figured out my political stance.

i'm not saying that obama has all the answers. because he doesn't. but i am saying that i'm not going to vote for a man that won't let me get married if i were in love with a woman. and he thinks that airplane windows need to be able to be rolled down.

he's obviously never seen goldmember. he should watch more james bond.

also, one of my tweets got on some weird website. you can find it here.

seriously, i was just sitting on twitter and this guy was like, hey emilyyxh, i used your tweet in this article about the debate and i was like, man, i hope you know that none of my tweets are politically correct and  don't carry any political weight.

i am uneducated about politics and i'm going to vote! you should vote too!

and probably be more educated than me. that would be smart of you.

LET'S GO VOTE, KIDS! FOR ROMNEY OR OBAMA! 

and if neither of them work for you, tumblr is starting a "strange women in ponds distributing swords 2012" campaign. 

now if you'll excuse me, i'm going to turn on the vice presidential debate and have absolutely no idea what's going on.

Thursday, October 4, 2012

i am not my mental illness.

today i'm going to blog about mental health. no amusing tweets from the debate last night, no excited pictures of my sorority getting new members and me wearing a giant parrot necklace and superman tights.

that'll come later.

this is a serious post about mental health.

this week is trichotillomania awareness week.

i've hinted numerous times that i have a mental illness. i've snidely called it "my rare and interesting mental illness" because it is rare, and it is, in fact, interesting.

my name is emily and i have trichotillomania.

me: phew. glad i got that off my chest.
you: DA FUQ IS TRICHOTILLOMANIA. I CAN'T EVEN PRONOUNCE THAT.

i'll spare you. we call it trich. because i've had this for seven years and i can barely say it.

it's trick-oh-teel-oh-mania, by the way. if you're really trying.

so. trich. this cool public health website says that "trichotillomania is hair loss from repeated urges to pull or twist hair until it breaks off. Patients are unable to stop this behavior. it is an impulse control disorder and its causes are not clearly understood."

thanks, public health website, for enlightening us.

sooooooooooo basically what it says is this: my name is emily and i compulsively pull out my own hair.

EUW. GROSS. WEIRD. SCARY. AHHH. RUN AWAY.

welcome to my life.

trich affects approximately three million americans. that's three million people out there compulsively pulling out their own hair. and they have no idea why. that's the biggest question.

why?

i started to pull out my eyebrows when i was in eighth grade. i was fourteen. around thanksgiving i just absentmindedly started to yank out my eyebrow hairs during class, especially french. my mom got me tweezers for christmas with hopes that i was just trying to sculpt them on my own, but that didn't turn out well. i put the tweezers in a drawer and never got them out again. i am still afraid of them.

by the time i finished eighth grade i didn't have eyebrows.

this doesn't seem like a big deal. until you don't have eyebrows and people stare at you and ask you about it. then you just want to die inside. then it's a big deal.

in ninth grade i got my hair cut and the stylist commented on my lack of eyebrows. i told her that i shaved them off for swimming.

right before my fifteenth birthday my mom thought that my bangs were too long and she cut them herself. she cut them too short. i spent the last week of eighth grade making up whatever stories i could for the people that asked me where my eyebrows were.

it takes a lot of effort to hide missing hair places. honestly. swimming is always a problem. sweaty bangs curl up and make your lack of eyebrows visible. getting your hair cut is torture.

and then there's always the question: what if someone sees me pulling out my hair in class? what will they think?

the ultimate question: AM I CRAZY?

my mom used to yell at me whenever i pulled out my hair. she'd tell me to "just stop."

if there's one thing i've learned about the stigma against mental illness, it's that "just stop" is one of the worst things you can ever say to someone.

we did not choose to have a mental illness. we do not enjoy the effects of mental illness.

and no, we cannot "just stop" having a mental illness.

people with trich cannot "just stop" pulling out their hair. trich is an impulse control disorder, and the more you pull, the more impulsive it becomes, making it a cycle of damage.

whenever i want to pull my hair, the part where i want to pull from gets itchy, a kind of tingly scalp itchiness. i can rub that spot all i want, i can scratch it, but nothing will make that feeling go away until i rip that hair out. to someone with trich, there is nothing more satisfying than feeling a hair detach from your head, feeling the root lift up and out, and knowing that you got that hair out of there.

there is nothing more important than pulling out your own hair.

it's hard to concentrate on anything else but the feeling of needing to pull. all you can think about is ripping out hair. it is literally the only thing you can concentrate on. it is that impulsive.

there are people out there with trich that have it a lot worse than i do. i pull from my eyebrows, the back of my head, and the top right side of my head, where i normally wear bows. there are people with trich that pull out their hair to such a degree that they are bald and have to wear wigs. there are people out there who spend an hour in the morning arranging hair carefully around a bald spot. hair is a constant worry. hair is a constant necessity.

hair is such an integral part of how we see ourselves. we all have different hairstyles. we dye our hair, we braid it, we put it up, we curl it, we straighten it, we leave it down, we put bows in it. hair is so important with how we see ourselves.

you cannot feel like a whole and happy person when you know that you destroy your own natural beauty by ripping out your hair compulsively.

my hair is one of the few things that i truly love about my appearance. i am very proud of my hair and how i maintain it. sometimes it gets to the point where i become obsessive about my hair. i have to do it every single day. i can't simply shower and leave the house without doing my hair. i always need it to look nice and presentable.

i feel like i do this because i know that the alternative is to pull all of it out and be left with nothing.

not many people know about trich. i didn't find out what trich was until i was sixteen. for two years i thought i was crazy, pulling out my own hair. when i found out what it was, i didn't know what to do. i spent a week in a furious debate with myself, wondering who i could turn to to talk about it.

to this day, i have not met anyone personally with trich.

trich is a silent disorder. people that have trich are not open about it. we don't want to be seen as crazy. i don't march around shouting "I PULL OUT MY OWN HAIR." that's not normal. it's a slow and silent disorder. we don't want anyone to know our secret struggles. we don't want anyone to know that we wear wigs.

we don't want anyone to know that we struggle with self-esteem because our hair will never be long and beautiful as long as we struggle with this disorder.

because trich is relatively unknown and the exact cause of it is unknown, there's not much funding for research. in the mental health community, we're kind of that disorder over the corner sitting quietly like, "hey guys, i'm over here affecting three percent of the population, but you can get to me when you find out exactly what causes schizophrenia."

i have silently had trichotillomania for seven years. i will have trichotillomania for the rest of my life.

i am not going to be silent anymore.

i have this illness. but i am not my illness. trich does not define me.

my name is emily and i have trichotillomania.

my family is incredibly supportive. i see a therapist and we work on ways to keep my hands busy so i don't absentmindedly pull out my hair. i keep a log of when and where i pull and what i'm thinking about when i do.

today is october fourth, 2012, and i have not pulled my hair out in seventy-five days.

for the first time in seven years, i have full eyebrows. i have no bald spots.

seventy-five days. 

i have a paper chain on my bookshelf that marks my recovery. for every day that i don't pull, i put on a paper link in the color of my choice. for every day that i pull, i put on a white link.

my chain has no white links.

trich is something that i will struggle with for the rest of my life. but i know that if i can go seventy-five days without pulling that i can do anything.

i am not my mental illness.

i have trichotillomania. but it does not have me.

seventy-five days pull free.

trichotillomania awareness week is wrapping up. tomorrow we're wearing blue. so support trichotillomania and wear blue if you want. :)