OCD Action

well ive never done a forum on anything in my life so dont know if this will work or if it actually gets read??
my whole life ive been the brave, bublley, smiley one. im a twin and my other sister and brother are very close to me aswell so ive always stood out as the cheerful person, untill recently it was impossible to get me down. infact a year and a half a go i cried for the first time out of sadness (like ive cried when i hurt myself but thats it, yeah i was seriously lucky) when my grandmother died who i was really close to, i didnt really think loosing someone could be so hard, but she practically lived with us, it had been a real shock and she was like a second mum. but that wasnt when i started having problems, i never went to see her dead body and i didnt go to the cremation, after a couple of saaad days putting it out of my mind seemed the perfect thing to do, there were so many othe happy things in my life (my family, my friends, my boyfriend, i also get like really good grades with no work) then i slowly lost interest in school and found myself getting worse grades (they werent that bad but i have a twin so were always compared) then my boyfriend (id never told my parents about him) well he started cheating on me and i started dumping him and getting back with him and blahhh viscous cycle, but still i tried not to think about it, i found when i was upset i would be sick a couple of times and barely eat for a few days but i would be fine. eventually i ended up cheating on him (we were actually split up at the time) and that did the trick, i still didnt cry but i found that i couldnt be sick, i ended up pulling a fair amount of hair out, but not enough that anyone noticed and it started growing back quickly. i put boyfriends and my grandma completely away from my mind again. when i was younger i used to pretend in my head that i was in a tv show and i was called summer because even in winter i still acted like summer and danced around happy etc... i found myself returning to this same fantasy. then one day, and im not sure why, i was in bed and i couldnt sleep and i just thought about everything. i thought so hard i was so exhausted and ill the next day i had to take the day off school where i just stayed in bed thinking. i have never cried so hard in my life (well at the time id never) but i didnt think anything of it, my mates claimed theyd cried before for no real reason so i figured it was cool. but i cried occasionally after this and developed a habit of thinking about things, slowly i began to realise i was pulling out my own hair. at first i pretended it was just because i was bored or it wasnt real, but my family noticed the hair around the house that i missed when cleaning it up, and slosly they noticed the thin patches. i still denied any real problem to them and myself, instead i just got better at hiding it with hair styles and finding good hiding places. eventually i realised there was a problem and asked my mum to make me a series of appointments (i have never felt such a strong sense of achievement) however after my diagnosis i developed really bad self pity, loads of people feel like this but they can starve themselves (something with more positive results then hairloss) or cut themselves (atleast they gain control in some way) but i just felt the hair loss was making me less attractive and less in control, if i couldnt control my own actions what could i control. i got back with my boyrfriend after a while and explained my problem to him, then i became to worried of getting close to someone who knew, my whole life became hiding it. i tried to change, but i found i physically cannot make myself throw up, omething that had always helped me overcome problems. i even tried to cut myself. i took a kitchen knife into the bathroom and made a series of slices on my arm while looking away and immediately felt so much relief, but wierdly no pain. when i looked at my arm i realised id taken a blunt knife and hadnt even broken skin. the relief then changed to disgust and self hatred, i couldnt even do any of these things right, what did that say about me? i can now go a day or two without pulling but everything in life comes back to it, whether i kift up my pillow and find a hair ball, or everyday when i style my hair and am almost brought to tears, to someone even complimenting my hair. i promised my self 2010 would be a pull free year, it would be my new years resolution im nearly 16 its about time i started doing something constructive. thena couple of days before new year my great uncle (neasrly all my family live in america and hes the closest relative, we call him uncle and he is our very last tie to our belovedgrandmother) went into a coma, they started turning off the macheines on new years eve and he died on the 2nd january. the funeral is tomorow only i cannot go because i have a gcse exam at the same time. one of the first thing i did on new years day was pull tons and tons of hair, and it gives me no relief, i can barely sleep, i can barely eat right now, only 2 or 3 of my mates know and i cant really talk about it with anyone, i know theres so many people who have it a hell of a lot worse, but i just cant loose this self pity and i cant seem to move on from, its now become the exuse i give to myself for everything. even though no one will read this i feel wierdly better just writing it down, ive never put the whole story together like this for myself or for anyone, i dont feel as pathetic as i thought i would, i finally feel asthough ive taken a step toward getting better by myself.
lizzie xx