Why I Comb My Hair

About twenty seconds ago, I just remembered something ---

About two and a half years ago, I was reading up on ways to increase your self-esteem--I have always felt that I suffer from extremely (dangerously, almost impossibly) low self-esteem - My Mum said that I didn't always used to be like this--"It was when you started school that you became all quiet, and shy," - before then, I was a loudmouthed little kid who loved to be the centre of attention - but something changed when I started going to school, I got quieter and more reserved - the proximity of my shyness and my reservation only increased as time went on--and I had only just realised that a lot of my social and emotional problems may come down to an extremely low self-esteem. So I was searching around for various different suggestions, theories and ways to increase your own self-esteem and self-confidence. And one (I think it was a website) suggested that a good self-esteem builds from little things, little routines - and there was the suggestion to maintain a regular grooming routine. So I started carrying around a comb (I can't remember where I got it from) and eventually I bought more (spares in case I lost them), I started plucking little hairs from my skin, shaving more closely, maintaining body hair in other areas (ha! My previous attempts/endeavours at this had been just out of curiosity, not because I felt it had a direct correlation to how I felt about myself), and I started doing pushups, pullups, other exercises, jogging up and down my garden almost every day (at this time, I was also interested in joining the Marine Corps.... why would they take a pathetic weedy bag of bones like me?) Eventually, these things became routine - still, to this day I carry a comb around with me everywhere I go, and when I forget it or misplace it, I feel incomplete -- perhaps this is why I feel so unsafe without something as insignificant as a comb; because I started using combs to try and increase my self-esteem, so when I am without one I feel like I am returning to the person (the little loner) I was before I started doing it. Really, the compulsive combing only happened once I'd had my hair cut, prior to this my hair was a state (to the point where I am actually ashamed, I ACTUALLY FEEL SHAME when I see old pictures of me). I started wearing old spice and other deodorants, washing my face more regularly with more specific facewashes (instead of soaps... tragic mistake to make, don't EVER wash your face with soap) and tried constantly to get rid of the bags under my eyes... because I remember a time, being at the football and noticing in the corner of my eye, a group of guys (slightly older, but not by much, and mentally much younger) laughing at me and my brother. All I heard was one of them say, "They both have them," and so I searched endlessly for a physical characteristic that we both had, not the same haircut, not the same facial hair, not the same facial expression --- that was it, what it was, was the bags under our eyes. So for the next (about) two years, I tried everything - I used cold teabags, warm teabags, drunk an unhealthy amount of water, put spoons in the freezer and then under my eyes, tried to get a regular amount of sleep (not too little, not too much), used three pillows instead of two to try and drain the blood from under my eyes. Balance out my water, because bags can also be caused by water displacement, tried to eat appropriately. All because a few guys at a football game were laughing at us. I'm sure they made fun of me again, once. But I can't remember enough details of that story to try and go into it now. This was all because of that. Because when my self-esteem takes a battering, it actually (LITERALLY) takes years to recover from. I've always been like that, I guess. I've never liked being made fun of. It doesn't hurt, it's just embarrassing.

So that's where that came from, yeah....