It’s been a little over a year now since I started openly sharing and speaking to others (and starting this blog!) about my lifelong battle with a disorder called Trichotillomania– a condition on the OCD spectrum that involves uncontrollable impulses to pull out my hair. This thing has been with me since I was a child. It has ebbed and flowed throughout the years and my journey with it has often been overwhelming, heartbreaking, embarrassing, confusing, infuriating, and full of shame and secrecy… just to name a few.
About a year ago, I shared a post on this new blog about a breakthrough I had made in my healing process. (You can read about that pivotal moment here) After nearly two decades of trying to deal with this disorder- including trying everything from therapy, to medication, hypnosis, physical restraints, punishment (in my younger years), to cognitive behavioral treatment, and beyond- I surrendered this thing that has been a torment for years over to Jesus. I prayed about it.
It seems like a simplistic approach, yes?
Well, it was and it wasn’t.
See, I’m all for miracles. I’m all for that “pray about it and God will do the rest” stuff. And miracles of healing do happen! The Bible is riddled with instances of them (like straight-up resurrection power, come on!), and I’ve heard tales of them from my leaders and mentors and family in Christ. But I had spent quite awhile praying for my miracle, and that didn’t seem to be the way God was telling me He was going to write my healing story. So I had resigned myself to the idea that “if it wasn’t by straight up miracle, then it just wasn’t happening”. Why pray at all? This was something I clearly needed to do alone, by sheer willpower.
To make a long story short (Or if you want the long version, refer again to the link above from one year ago), I realized that this way of thinking- this way of approaching my healing journey and my perspective on the character of God- was to speak literal death over my dreams and prayers. I was praying for healing, but turning around and then limiting not just God’s power- but my own! Because as a daughter of Christ, I have His power working in me as well. I can command demons to leave. I can speak miracles into existence. I can conjure up faith and self-control with the utterance of my words. I can resurrect dead dreams and dead hope. I can bring the dry bones of those places inside me that chose to give up long ago, back to life. (And you can, too).
And so for the past year, that’s what I’ve been doing.
Pause here for a minute: I am the last person to be telling you that all you might need in your own healing journey is some good old-fashioned, on-your-knees prayer, and everything will be alright.
This surrender and power-recognition was only step 1 of my journey. The rest of my journey has involved a lot of steps of seriously hard work on my own part.
It’s involved working through some bitter and real “heart healing” first. Steps like talking to therapists and trusted friends and faith leaders about the forgiveness I needed to work on from things in my childhood. It involved a lot of trauma-processing for the situations that caused this condition to worsen over the years. It involved resurfacing and exposing a lot of really painful memories about family that I still love, but have to set healthy boundaries with.
The next steps also involved putting some “earthly”, practical things into place, like getting my husband and friends involved in my journey in realistic ways that would help me recognize and be cognizant of my progress.
Then there were steps like choosing to be consistent despite feelings. Or steps that led me 10 feet backwards, but dusting myself off and choosing not to stay there. Steps like refusing self-shame and choosing grace.
So today, I’m here to share where those steps have taken me in just one year. If you know me, you know my biggest “pull spots” are my eyelashes and brows. I have grown accustomed to filling them in with makeup, painstakingly, every single day for a lot of years. The literal bane of my existence. Can you imagine waking up uber late for work but still having to draw your whole face on, artistically and realistically, before rushing out the door? Guys, it’s the worst. Also, I’ve been late for this very reason, because going out without my “face on” and thus having to explain to every person I come in contact with what they’re seeing for the first time? That’s not really an option. (Also trust me, old photos remind me that those brows have gone through some tremendously questionable shape phases… I’m often appalled at my past self for letting me go out in public that way.)
Anyways, here are some really, really vulnerable photos of my eyes that I never thought I would be posting on the internet.
I mean, never.
But I’m surrendering them over to you, friend. And to all those who need a dose of courage and faith and testimony today.
One year ago when I started this healing journey. Eyebrow and lash-line makeup.
You can see how my lash line is basically just one black makeup line, especially when I close my eyes.
Today (literally). Eyebrow makeup and mascara!
This is big for me.
I mean… big. Guys, the last time you will find a photo of me with my own lashes on my eyelids, I was probably 8 or 9 years old. Through all of my years of being a woman- going on dates, getting ready for prom, even trying to feel beautiful on my stinkin’ wedding day– I did not have real lashes to put mascara on!
And let’s face it- eyelashes and mascara are a quintessential “woman” thing, right? (Turn on your TV for five minutes and tell me if you don’t see one single makeup advertisement spoofing you images of what it means to be a “beautiful woman”. AKA: wearing the best mascara or eye makeup… I’ll wait.) For years, this was just one really small, simple thing that reminded me of my disorder. Reminded me of what I could not overcome. Reminded me (as I told myself in shame) that I was not beautiful without brows or lashes.
A few real notes just to give you a glimpse into the reality of this disorder: I have no brows right now. Like, none. One of my practical steps was to choose to focus on one area of pulling at a time, because going “cold turkey” has never ever worked for anyone. So full disclosure, I still allow myself to pull my brows these days, but not my lashes.
My lashes, without mascara, are also discolored from years of root damage and eyelid swelling- yet another reality of this disorder. They have lost color and are almost a translucent shade of blonde/gray. One day in the future when I’m ready, I will look into microblading and lash tinting/lifting procedures. But I’m not quite ready for that step yet.
So today, I put on mascara- even if my lash-line is not “full” yet- and reflect on where I was a year ago. I feel sad for the girl that sat in the corners and backed away from close contact so that people would not ask her about her eyebrows or eyelashes. I pity the girl that told herself she was unworthy because she did not look like other girls and could not get ready in the same way with her friends or bridesmaids on the big day. I cry for the girl that spent so many years in shame and secrecy and cover-ups and hiding.
But I’m not her anymore. And if you’re needing to move on from that same secret place that sounds all too familiar to you, I’m here to let you know it can be done.
So yes, prayer. And surrender. And spiritual warfare. And a whole lot of Jesus. But also a whole lot of down-to-Earth practicality. Because isn’t that how God makes us work sometimes? He has the power all along to snap his fingers like Thanos and make this Trich disappear from my life. But after a year of this intense healing journey (and two decades of exploring and failing with it prior), I look back today and think to myself that I wouldn’t give up the work and the lessons and the faith that this hard walk has brought me.
God’s way is always better. He taught me about who He is as a loving father. He taught me about who I am as his strong-willed, stubborn, but still fully capable and worthy daughter. Those are things that can’t be taught with the snapping of fingers.
Sudden and instantaneous, finger-snappin’, Bible-thumpin miracles are great things. Truly.
But so are slow miracles of healing, over long and tedious and painful years, with subtler lessons and growth along the way, leading you to maybe a different destination than your instant-prayer would have taken you.
That can be great too.
Keep working on your slow miracle, friend.
xoxo
-Kendyll
trichsterlife.wordpress.com 