My name is Jesse, and I started pulling when I was in third grade. It all started because of a dare where one of my friends dared me to pull some out in exchange for two pink Starbursts, which she never gave me. I couldn't stop. I would hide in those little kid tents between cabinets and shove the hair underneath them, acting like it wasn't me. When I came home from school and sat down to do my homework, my dad, sister, step mom, and step sister walked up and burst out laughing. I had a bald spot on the top of my head. For a while, we were able to hide it with ponytails, and then pigtails. I started wearing scarves once it was too bad to hide. By fourth grade I was completely bald, and picked my scalp so much I bled constantly. I was bullied mercilessly, people pulled off my scarf and called me a freak, a monster, just because I didn't have hair. I lashed out because I was scared, I bullied other people to try and make them stop and to make myself feel like I was worth something. It only made things worse. In sixth grade I started wearing wigs. They were cheap and poorly made, but they were a lot better than the scarves. I could actually go places without being terrified that someone would yank it off. One time, though, on the tire swing, they pushed me and my friends too high and my head hit the bar, knocking the wig off. Only my two friends saw, and they never mentioned it. I was wearing wigs until freshman year. I had enough hair to pull it off, and things were going well until the stress kicked in. I pulled my part line constantly, and kept changing it until I had rows of bare skin all over my head. I started wearing hats, and the school allowed it, but that didn't stop people from pulling it off. I never got mad, only terrified. I would freeze up and my sister would scream at them and take it back, she even had to put them back on for me because I was scared to move. It was actually kind of pathetic. I'm now going into my junior year of high school and I just got a haircut. I shaved the left side of my head and the lady styled the curls I have, doing it so that the one spot I have left on my head doesn't show, and I won't have to wear a hat. This means so much to me. I've been working so hard for this, for so long, and now that it's finally happening I can't believe it. I can finally seem somewhat normal to people, nobody will look at me like I'm a freak or some sort of monster, no one will make comments about thin spots, or laugh at me. It's been so long, and I wanted to share that I can finally say I'm not going to need a hat again. I can confidently say that. I won't need a scarf, a wig, a hat, an alibi, nothing. It's finally over.