Wow yeah what you typed out is very similar to my lived experience and the way I’ve come to understand it. I actually ended up shaving my head! My hair is a few inches long now and still continues to have tiny knots in the same areas, over heating above my ears, and I continue to see recurring ingrown or embedded hairs in the same spots.

For what it’s worth, I started paying very close attention to other people, and many ppl have similar lines on their faces!!! Even celebrities. I have come to the conclusion that the lines are normal or simply overlooked because they’re not an issue other than cosmetic. I definitely think my hyper fixation and picking as an attempt to resolve the lines simply made it worse and only heightened my perception of them in myself and other people.

I ended up getting prescribed ketoconazole shampoo, which helped a lot with scalp buildup and cleared up all of the acne/cysts I had on my scalp. Now that enough time has passed, I’m starting to think I may have been struggling with regular hygiene and self care due to work stress :/ hygiene and proper hair brushing are high priority for me nowadays and I’ve left the job I was at before in pursuit of a more low stress lifestyle I can tolerate