If I'm ever in a position to be a creator of any type of story (tv show, movie, writing, comic) I would have a main character with Trichotillomania. Evelyn in Mother Tree has it. Melody in Fixing Time has it. I just...really want more representation. I don't even have it that bad! I don't have bald spots anymore but I'm missing eyebrows and lately my scalp has been hurting in a way that BEGS me too pul so I stand up, look at the floor, and see a cluster of hair. It's gross, it's unsettling and I want it to stop.

Krillin's Strife

A/N: This is me coping. This is me pushing my own, personal mental disorder onto a character that I admire because of how low I just got. My trichotillomania is something that I don't believe I'll ever be rid of. I've long since accepted my lack of eyebrows and eyelashes as part of my life and while I'm excited to see them growing again, I expect them to be gone soon. However, this loss of my hair on my head, that spot where my hair parts and a huge chunk of it grows from, is sore again. Sore like it was in middle school. I thought I was past this long ago, but I've just had to face the harsh reality that I'm not. Krillin is a character that knows his limits and has accepted his shortcomings but he doesn't let that control him. He knows he'll never be a strong enough fighter to keep up, yet he stays when needed anyways. This is me trying to channel that energy into myself to help me to accept that I will always have relapses where the bald spot will return, but I can't give up. This probably means nothing to everyone. I don't believe Krillin has Trich, I just need to pretend he does for my own sake. ~!~ The first couple of days were easily the hardest. He supposed it partially came from not suspecting 18 to be so harsh about it right from the get-go. Anytime he so much as wanted to scratch at his head she slapped his hand and boy, she wasn't kidding when she told him she wouldn't hold back. No sir-y. Even if he told her he was just scratching, she would tell him to let it itch forever until it went away. It was torture. But somehow, he knew it was torture that he needed. Nothing else in his life ever worked but then again all he did before this was simply avoid the issue entirely. You can't have a problem with pulling your hair out if you don't have any hair at all, right? When the question of "why" came up after he was forced to fess up about his little...issue... he was speechless. He didn't have an answer but it was lucky that his wife wasn't the type to care much. She didn't push him for an answer like he expected, even though inside he was ready to blame being forced to shave as a child, and he appreciated that. The reason he never told anyone the truth before was because, well for one they never asked, and for two, he couldn't explain himself. He pulled his hair out and he didn't know why. Something was driving him to do it and even now, thinking about it, he can feel it stinging. Feel the itch. Feel the individual tiny hairs piercing his scalp to start to grow into what it was always meant to be. It hurt a lot to ignore that call to scratch at his skin until the roots of those few individual hairs were gone. 18 had caught him a few times in the bathroom, starring at the mirror and pulling the oddities off his head. She wasn't very gentle about it. She didn't yell, or scream, or cry, she just glared, grabbed his hand, smacked it as hard as she could and then looked at him with disappointment in her eyes. He never thought that that would be what he needed but after a month of that, he could see it working. He looked like a normal person. A non-martial artist and it made him ecstatic. Thanks to his background, he was able to get in all kinds of crazy poses in front of the mirror while holding a smaller one to check his full head. No bald spots were in sight and he couldn't be happier! The night of this revelation and the pride 18 showed him left Krillin with so much joy that he went a little crazy spoiling his dear wife. Of course, she spoiled him back so they were even. On one of their visits to Chichi, Gohan and the new baby Goten, Chichi asked why it was that Krillin felt he needed to grow his hair out. She mentioned something about him looking younger and more serious with it shaved and he just laughed in response. There was still no need to come clean. His problem was solved, it would never come back. 18 was the perfect driving force to end it. Or so he thought. A few days passed and the bald spot became visible. 18 started yelling at him in the quiet and monotone way that she did and Krillin was face to face with the reality that this was just another enemy he could never let his guard down around. He could never be rid of this urge, this need, this gross instinct. No matter the cause and no matter the reasons for acting on them, it was with him for life. That night, he shaved his head again. Once more he was the victim of his wife's temper. He knew this would happen. How could he not? It was quitting. He was quitting. He gave up. He accepted that there was no way to defeat this so there was no reason to keep fighting. It wasn't until 18 became pregnant that Krillin tried again. So many weeks and months, so much time had passed of there being a dark cloud in his home. Roshi couldn't feel it, of course. He might be a perverted leech but he still had standards and still respected the privacy of the married couple in the house. It didn't help matters, though. With Krillin being forced to tell his old master SOMETHING, Roshi unknowingly acted as an enabler. Krillin had an excuse to lean on and so long as he could run back to "martial artists shave their heads and I won't quit training" he could continue to live with himself. He could continue to live knowing he quit trying to have hair once again. It was hard with his wife cause she knew him too well to let him get away with it easy. If he said he did it to train, she would test him herself and make sure he was improving. But then the pregnancy happened. As much as 18 assured him she was fine, Krillin could not in good conscious let his wife use so much of her energy on him because of him. Because of his weakness. Not when she carried their first child with her. He sucked it up and pushed through one last time. His head was still a magnet for his hand, the bald-spots were still temptations to quit, but he never did. So much time passed and by the time Marron was born, 18 was able to cut Krillin's hair for him in a way that made all the hairs an equal length. There were no signs of pulling. No signs of missing hair and to this day, no signs of his daughter having to fight his battle. He still had his fair share of moments of weakness. The sting on his scalp would never truly go away and the instinct to remove what felt so wrong was still strong but he fought it. He fought it like every other challenge he faced and in those times where he was not in control of himself, his wife was there to thread her fingers in his own and to keep him from going backwards. Through all of this, his wife will be there and he soon realized that that was all he needed all along. ~!~ So, yeah, I'm not an author. Just a very upset trichotillomania victim forcing her problems on a favorite character. Feel free to ignore.