Asahi Azumane
Warning/trigger: Talks about trichotillomania in detail
There's a reason why Asahi Azumane keeps his hair so long, it's not just a fashion statement on his part or because he just likes it long. There's a reason why he rarely lets it down too. Asahi has a secret, and yes it might not be huge, but it's his. it's not the type of secret that gives you butterflies, instead it's the secret that weighs heavy in your stomach like a rock steadily getting heavier and heavier till you collapse. Asahi couldn't tell you the day that it happened, when he started, or what year it was, but he remembers the grade. Asahi remembers his parent's faces and his teachers, the doctors and the psychiatrist. Fourth grade of primary school, Asahi remembers that much.
It starts with just tugging at the hair on his scalp when he's upset or nervous, and then quickly moves into something else. It goes from tugging his hair to hair littering his clothes, and homework and his desk at school and the floor. It's only when the bald spots start to form that his parents notice, that they pay attention, but by that time his eyelashes are half gone. Fourth grade is the start of doctor visits and therapist and the haunting word Trichotilomania that he could barely pronounce and tasted like burnt food coming out when he spoke.
At that age all Asahi wants is to be normal, he'd look in the mirror and tug at strands and watch fingers prob at bald spots and pull at eyelashes. He would watch and look carefully selecting the one that's out of place. Doing homework or reading or watching his favorite shows on tv his fingers would seek out that one strand of hair that's wrong, that doesn't match and will pull ever so gently till it's gone and he can breathe a sigh of relief. On test days he would have his pencil in one hand and the other hand would run through his hair tugging in frustration until at the end he would look down to find hair on his desk and around his chair settled on the floor like dead grass.
They made the trips about twice a month until the start of seventh grade. Asahi's body unwillingly sinking into the couch pressed between his parents for 30 minutes, and then all alone with the therapist for some amount of time he can't remember at this age. He remembers that they had started their visits with a woman and that they had ended with a man. In the end it didn't really matter who it was that he was seeing because he would sit there with his hands pressed between his knees or rolling his homework folder he had brought with him to the waiting room. He didn't want to be there, he didn't want to talk, and he didn't know why he did it, he didn't have the answers they wanted. He didn't even have answers from himself.
All Asahi knew at that time was that pulling one of those strands was good, that it made him better, and yet he would spend minutes at a time standing in front of the bathroom mirror prodding his hair for bald spots. Would look in the mirror and detest what he was doing, what he had done.
His parent's say it's self harm, but Asahi knows it's not counted that way, he's read the documents, he knows that he doesn't do it on purpose. He's read about the cycles, how trichotillomania can come back again and again and again. He learned that for some it never actually leaves but he doesn't learn that until later until he's been years into his shame and can talk about it. He knows it's part of the group called Body Focused Repetitive Disorders and that it effects two percent of the population but that a lot of people think that it's a lot higher then that. It's article after article in high school devouring them so as to know more.
The second year of high school was hard for Asahi he remembers coming home from practice and looking down at his clothes to find strands of loose hair. He knows the horror of a relapse, knows that he can't escape from trichotillomania. It was back just as simple as that the fear and stress of not doing his job as their Ace causing trembling fingers to ravage his scalp like invaders. It's the real reason he leaves the team, he doesn't want a horrible relapse, a repeat of his first experience, so he leaves but it doesn't fix anything.
Asahi keeps his hair long to remind himself he can overcome it. That he has hair and eyelashes. That he can be strong, even with Trichotillomania. He's iffy about sharing the information about Trichotillomania with his teammates, his friends because for years it's been a shameful secret something he hates, something he still hates but now in more of a frustrated way.
Asahi tells Suga about it first. Figures that if he starts to relapse again that Suga can pull him out of it, can pull his attention else where. Noya finds out next completely by accident. They're practicing together and Asahi is feeling horrible and his fingers start to twist into his hair reaching and searching and slowly starting to decimate and Noya has no idea what is going on. Doesn't realize it until Asahi is on his fifth piece of hair and then he's running over and pulling at Asahi's hands asking if he wants to stop for the night because he's hungry and starts to rattle on as they lock up and leave the gym and walk home. It doesn't take Noya long to connect the dots.
It wasn't much longer after that the rest of the third and second years found out and it was with reassuring touches and pats on the back. Asahi got promises that they would look out for him. That they would help him in any way they can. It's the start of what Noya and Tanaka call Project Waterbottle which is basically the team giving him things to hold or fiddle with. It's his teammates linking hands and arms, and distracting fingers and Asahi. It's care for a teammate and it quells his trichotillomania on the good days and on the bad they try their best.
It's the incoming of first years and little Yamaguchi pulling Asahi aside and telling him he knows how he feels. About the inability to stop sometimes and that while his isn't Trichotillomania it's still a body focused repetitive disorder and pulls his shirt up to show him the scabs along the top of his shoulders and back. It's the two of them watching for mess ups and relapses and Asahi gently and quietly telling Suga to watch Yamaguchi's hands because he needs a support system to even if they'll be gone in a year.
Trichotillomania might be one of the worst things in his life, but he is overcoming it. Asahi is taking a stand and with his friend beside him he feels fearless. Trichotillomania might be a forever thing, but so is a team and the friends you make out of it.
(So yeah Trichotillomania is a real thing. I would know, this was actually started last semester when I had a really bad 'relapse' due to a class and it spiraled from there. Luckily I've been doing better and haven't pulled for almost two weeks and in honor of that I thought that I'd finish this wip and post it here. Here on tumbler where I actually saw people like myself struggling with trich and trying to help others through it as well, you guys are really inspiring and helped me a lot last semester because before then I didn't think it could be something that I could talk about or share with out feeling really dumb. Now I have a support system at school which is so important because I'm away at school and I'm talking to people and trying to spread awareness on my campus one person at a time. I know that a lot of people, more then doctors think, suffer from trich and that it's hard to find characters and others that suffer from it that are depicted with Trichotillomania with out it being viewed as something slapp stick or 'funny' -looking at you the internship movie- so yeah. Anyways it started out in a hard place and ended in a better one. To my fellow trichsters keep going, you nerds are so strong and beautiful and deserve so much more. And I wouldn't put this down whole paragraph down here but honestly this writing doodle is more for myself then anyone else but I'm putting this here because I'm tagging it in the Trichotillomania tag and want other trichsters to know why it's tagged and that it's not just some random person pulling it out of a hat and using it as a writting tool because I know people in the trich community have had this problem before. Also this was posted to my tumblr side blog so if you see it there it's me.