I CANNOT believe I finally found a place where this “problem” of mine is actually talked about. I’ve been reading through the posts and wanting to weep. Yes yes yes…
To begin–like many here, around the age of 11 I started to develop hair in places other girls didn’t. I also got my period at that age and was fully mature physically. While I liked the attention, there was a horrible secret happening- my back side, my thighs, my arms, my breasts, my stomach, my toes, chin and upper lip, were growing thick black hair. This was not peach fuzz. This was man-style hair. And waaay too much of it. My family, in their typical fashion of denying the reality of anything that didn’t fit the norm, said I was making a big fuss and didn’t offer me the resources to manage it. I was actually stealing razors from other girls at school, and shaving took so long that I couldn’t keep up with it (and it felt horrible growing in). Most often, I simply went into hiding mode:
No shorts, no bathing suits, t-shits on occassion. The problem was, and still is, that I’m attractive and have always been in good shape and so it’s like I have a “good” self and a “bad” self. The bad self I try to manage by shaving/waxing/hiding the hair, but it always returns. I am the human chia-pet/ freak of nature. I feel deeply flawed and dirty, and when people try to reassure me, I know it’s because they love me, not becasue the hair is actually ok–it looks awful, and the times I’ve gone au natural are simply gross, I look like a cross dresser or half-male/half female.
Besides the self-esteem issue, there is the physical condition itself-- my skin is hyper-sensitive, the hairs are coarse and dark and grow out like little porcupine quils, only there’s a million of them. If I grow it out, the hair breaks off when it gets long then is prickly in other ways and it feels intolerable no matter what I do–leave it alone or try to remove it. By some quirk of nature, I have incredibly densely packed hair follicules. Three hairs look like they’re coming out of one pore, only they’re not, they’re just so close together, so I have about 3 to 4 times the amount on an average person. Looks good on my head, until my hair grows too long and then I get headaches because there’s too much of it there too, so I end up keeping my hair short, which my family is always saying is a shame and I should grow it long because I look so beautiful with long curls…
I have tried everything but laser and nothing has worked for very long. I pluck my face daily, and my nipples. I shave my stomach, all of my legs (there is no interruption of hair from pubis to ankles–it’s one long carpet of potential shag) I don’t have the resources to have laser treatments but at the same time, I don’t want to keep living with this. Feels like I’m battling a beast and when other people see it, they stare. I’ve had potential boyfriends reject me on the grounds hair grosses them out. The idea of a brazilian wax is laughable. I’d need a Soviet Bloc wax…
In the summer, my groin area is constantly overheated because of the density of hair and trapped moisture. The hair gets in the way of sex, too, but shaving it and having that kind of stubble is beyond even my hearty capacity for self-inflicted pain, so I am now abstaining from dating and having any kind of sexual contact because the hair has just ruined too much and I’m tired of trying.
I’ve had hormonal tests done in my 20s (I’m 38 now) and back then there was nothing amiss. No ovarian tumors or polyps. It appears nature has simply given me, like a few select others, this hairy fate. I wish I could accept it but I can’t. I’d like to change it but I don’t have the money. I’d at least like to stop obsessing over the female body–I scrutinize every woman to see if she has it or not, and so far, 99.9 % of women I’ve seen this life don’t have this, hence making me horribly jealous, feeling inadequate and overall, wanting to hide and only come out on those days when I’ve spent three hours in the tub running various pieces of steel over my limbs.
So, how does the hair make me feel… like a freak, to be sure. The one man who really liked it had a serious hair fetish and it was like he’d found the motherload. It was gross, to be objectified that way. I just bought another epilator, since the stubble from shaving has just gotten too uncomfortable. I’ts nice to know there are others here like me. I still feel like crap… but is a warm fuzzy way. a bit…