Sadly due to my PCOS, among other homophone imbalances, my body is in a state of disarray. For those of you who do not know what PCOS is, it stands for Polycystic ovary syndrome. It is a hormonal disorder common among women of reproductive age. Women with PCOS may have infrequent or prolonged menstrual periods or excess male hormone (androgen) levels. Hormonal symptoms include acne, and facial hair. The ovaries may develop numerous small collections of fluid (follicles) and fail to regularly release eggs. But there's more to it than that in my medical case. The main reason I have a beard, is because I inherited it through my late grandmother Margret Rigney. My mother, Barbara Rigney did not develop one at all, but I did. It's small but if allowed to fester, can become painfully noticeable, and thick in appearance. We all know as women, we don't grow beards, it is for the men. So understand I am not in support of women who want beards through steroids, or through other means to get facial hair to grow on their faces.
Beards belong on men not women, but due to the curse of sin (you'll see me reference this my posts a lot) a beard that abnormally grows on a woman's face is very much a thing that never should have happened. I didn't ask for this illness, it choose me, but I take proper care with all my illness, maintaining each one. The beard is the one flaw in my female body that is most noticeable, and very annoying. Shaving time in the morning is always a dread. I don't understand how the men do this. I can shave it in the morning, clean down to the skin, to the point of razor burns, and the blasted thing is growing back before dawn of the the next day. Me and razors have gotten to know each other well over the years once puberty hit, for it was around the peek of my puberty I was told by a male friend,
"Whoa. Are you competing with us?"
I asked him,
"What are you talking about?" (I hadn't realized the itching on my chin was the facial hair growing in.)
He replied,
"You got a goatee growing down there. Odd, since you're a girl."
Ever since this incident, I paid closer attention to what was happening to my body, but this was in high school, and I had yet to be diagnosed with PCOS. As the years past, it became more, and more thick in appearance, and I invested in to male aftershave to help ease the burning, and bumps. I use these products to this day. It doesn't have anything to do with associating myself to a man, it has everything to do with the fact that women products can't aid me in this way, and therefore, I use what I have to use in order to get by.
The hair itches me sometimes in the beginning stages of it's growth. Sometimes the beard takes weeks, sometimes it takes months. It just depends on what it wants to do.
I admit that I do get weary of shaving it every day, so on the days I decide not to, it isn't a day or two later I get stubble, and these annoying zit bumps. When I'm super lazy, and just don't care, and won't leave the house due to my handicaps I totally let it grow out. I mean, it's just me. But honestly, even if I had to leave the house, I stopped caring what people's perspective of me was a long time ago. They don't know me, they don't have my medical history, and current conditions. They can either choose to ask, and understand, or form theories in their heads, and go about their way. I most defiantly let it grow out when I'm unable to sleep, stay up on countless nights trying to get work done in the office, operate the AW website, my website, as well as oversee quality control of all social media posts, on top of writing the novels, and drawing the artwork for the novels, and my own websites. It's never the issue of do I enjoy letting this beard grow. I do not take pleasure in it, I hate it. I just can't drive myself crazy, and fret over it or worry myself sick thinking what uneducated people might think, much less say to me. The way I see it. It's my house/office, and I should be me, and comfortable. It is part of me, not by choice, but still very much part of my make up that is Artzenin Eklektos. I don't mind embracing all my flaws, and my goatee is one of them. I just hope people have a better understanding as to why I allowed Gadolinium in my Milieu series to have a similar condition.
The last thing I want people to think is,
"Wow Artzenin. You have such a sick, twisted imagination. Why did you make that story line up for Gadolinium anyway?"
News flash... I didn't make it up. I live with it every single day. Looks like me, my unwanted beard, and razors are going to be together until death parts us.