Confessions of a Dirty Girl (Who Also Likes Control)

Hi there lovelies,

I haven’t had a shower in just under a week now and the time that has elapsed since my hair was last in contact with shampoo and conditioner is rapidly approaching the 3-week mark. Or at, they are my best guesses. I don’t actually keep track.

It’s nothing new, the hair-washing thing. I hate washing my hair. I hate it with a passion. I think it stems from when I was in the depthsof anorexia and hair washing was too tiring for words and whenever I did muster the energy to do the hair-washing thing, my hair just came out in clumps. And I mean clumps. Like actual handfuls of hair so big I used to have to stop the shower twice to unblock the drain because of all my hair. I hated that. The feel of hair between my fingers, getting caught around my nails, tangled in my flannel. I hated the deadness of it, having to scoop out the dead mess with my fingers out it in the bin, I hated the way it littered my bathroom, little dead reminders of what to expect when I washed my hair.

So, I didn’t. I stopped washing it because I hated it. I still hate it. Even though my hair doesn’t fall out anymore and even though washing it does make it look better, I just don’t want to do it. My hair doesn’t get oily much. It’s pretty easy to take care of and it just does it’s stuff. I can’t be bothered.

The showering thing, now that’s a little different. It’s not the longest I’ve gone without washing. I’ve gone weeks before, but I did go in the pool or sea – I like the water. Is this the longest I’ve gone without washing? Maybe. I don’t know. But I can’t be bothered with that either. Who consciously keeps track of how long it’s been since they last washed? Actually, my mother probably does. Maybe that’s why I don’t.

I come from a clean household. Not ridiculously clean (there is always a healthy amount of dust lying around on all our ornaments) but relatively clean. The importance of personal hygiene is stressed in our family. Growing up, it was always the expectation that we shower every night or at least wash. The pool was an acceptable substitute. Hair washing was recommended for every 2-4 days, depending. Then as I got a little older, my mum got me a cleanser and moisturiser and  ‘suggested’ I had better use it. Actually, I lie. She’s not really this evil clean person who dictates my skin care regime. But she was very disappointed when I didn’t start using it straight away and kept on at me to use it, so it was easier for everyone for me to just start using it regularly. And I don’t really mind it. It does keep my face from getting too dry. But I don’t use it often enough. Apparently, I should be cleansing and moisturising morning and night and that it not happening – once a day is fine!

But back to the showering thing. I just can’t be bothered. It’s that funny time between summer and winter where it’s not hot enough for me to warrant a before bed swim and definitely not cold enough that a hot shower sounds appealing. It’s that weird, halfway point.

And that’s where I am. A halfway point. I’m not really clean, but I’m not really dirty yet. I still apply deodorant (mostly) and so I don’t smell (I think) and I don’t feel dirty, but I know I’m not clean. And at a halfway point, one has to make a choice, to either continue down the path that they are already on, or to change they course in the hope for something better. And I know it’s sounds petty and over dramatic, to get this worked up over something as simple as a shower, but I don’t think it’s just about the shower anymore. If I shower now, and wash my hair, I’m bowing down to my mother, who has been trying to get me to do that for about the last week (or six days, if we are going by my sketchy belief that I last showered a week ago). But, if I don’t shower now, I’ll just get hounded more and more, which is supremely irritating.

And…… I think we’ve reached it. The thing that most of my issues come down to. Control.

Thinking objectively, control (in regards to a person) conjures up thoughts like white, minimalistic, clean, orderly and prepared. Not someone who avoids washing their hair like the plague and has a habit of leaving their stuff everywhere. And so, because of these (and many other reasons) I would have laughed at the idea of me being a bit of a control freak until 2 years ago, when my life really took a turn for the worse.

When ‘life’ and ‘the future’ loom up on you like a big dark cloud of scary blankness and year 11 has you racing to hold onto the fragments of what is left of your previous ‘before exams’ life, having control of my life was way not happening. I felt like I was being swept along (decide this, sign that, sit this test, talk about this career path, go to this pep talk) with nothing beneath my feet but the scribbled remains of too many notes. It was during this time that I realised how much I needed that control. Well, not consciously. I didn’t link these actions to my desire to feel in control till much later, but subconsciously, I realised I needed something to control. And I found it. I could control my eating and I could control my exercise. If I felt in control of my eating, I felt like I had more control over my life.

The problem is, if you’re only in control of one small area of your life, you get obsessed with that very quickly. Soon, the eating disorder set in and I was too far-gone to even recognise that it began as an issue of control. My mother insisted it was an accident, that it was because I just was too busy and I forgot to eat. I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t want to think about it. There I was, happy, or at least feeling safe, in my lovely little controlled world that was killing me slowly and secretly making me miserable and people wanted me to stop it. They wanted me to give up my control on the one tiny section of my life that I thought I was doing right.

But I began to turn things around. I stopped thinking of my anorexia as a good thing and started thinking of recovery as a good thing. The problem with that was, I then needed a different way to feel in control. To feel like I did while I was in the middle of my eating disorder. Because, recovery is tough shit. I’m not going to go into details of that now because I’m not comfortable talking about that yet. It’s too soon and still feels too raw.

But, suffice to say, I’m trying to satisfy my need for control in healthy ways. Or at least healthier ways. I’m not sure whether going on a shower strike is the most healthy way to deal with my need for control, but it’s way healthier than starving myself to death. :) I’m taking small steps here (once again, there is a reason my blog is called One Step At A Time).

This was a long post, and maybe not one of my more interesting ones, but it was important to me and if you’re still here, thanks for sticking with me. :)