My mom used lice to control my social life.
From the ages of around 8-15 I had lice, off-and-on but I think likely on the entire time, it was just never completely taken care of. My mom would never buy the shampoo, saying it was too expensive and never worked. She insisted on combing through my hair with the comb and individually picking out each louse with her hands. (?) She wanted to keep my very long hair, so she refused to cut it, and used that as an excuse for manually picking out the lice.
eventually she graduated to using shower caps full of conditioner that I had to wear for at least 2 hour intervals. Obviously I couldn't leave the living area during my lice quarantines. The conditioner worked to suffocate them sometimes, but I don't think it got all of them as after a month or so, they'd be back.
I was even instructed to sit at the table, hunched over a white piece of paper, and to scratch my scalp to let the bugs fall down as well as nits, and to circle them on the paper. (??????) my mom also sprayed Pam cooking spray all over my scalp after finding out that pam kills lice. My scalp burned soooo bad, like all the bites from the lice were on fire.
One time we were going to a drive in theater, and my mom made me go out with the shower cap. she put a beanie on my head, but I still cried and cried in shame. She showed me my head with the big beanie covering the shower cap, I assume to show me it "wasn't that bad", but what girl doesn't want to look cute when they go out? I felt so ugly and I looked silly. You couldn't tell if I was bald or not under the cap and it was huge. It made me cry even more, which both my parents laughed at...
I had lice for years, and at times I remember them crawling in my eyebrows, all over my head... they were as big as my fingernails and so painful. I had marks around my hairline that showed how bad it had been getting.
my mom didn't fix it at it's worst when I was 15 because she was ashamed of her boyfriend finding out I had lice... My dad ended up coming to the house even though they separated to finally fix my hair. He hadn't done it before because he was scared of her and she always said it was her job.
I think she kept not finishing removing them because that way I couldn't stay at other people's houses....
it was so bad.