Cause, cure and treatment

"The cause of the condition is unknown, as is the cure, which makes it very difficult to treat"

I have often likened hair-pulling to nail-biting. I do both, and the similarities are numerous:

I do them both more when stressed or very bored
if I feel or see long nails or eyelashes/brows I want to get rid of them
I feel a certain sense of relief or release when I do either
both activities have become very habitual for me

Yet, one is completely accepted as a bad habit, and the other is seen as a disease to be 'cured'.

I've never heard of someone taking drugs in the hope it will stop them biting their nails, or even suggesting that there may be, or even needs to be, a 'cure' for nail-biting.

Why shouldn't I bite my nails and pull out my hair?

The only reason I have found is one of totally superficial aesthetics, forced on us by the consensus of our society that beauty is having long luscious hair and nails.

I know that realistically, this is the society we live in and we have to be able to get along in our life, and I know that people have all different views on what hair-pulling is.

The danger of calling it a condition with a possible cure, however, can leave us in a very tricky situation, and if we're wrong, if there is no such cure, then we're left chasing something we can never find.

If you want a 'cure', a real cure, that really exists, then what you're looking for is acceptance, the only real way to escape the nightmare that many hair-pullers experience.

I know this is a tall ask, and it can take many years to find it, but if you decide to search for this, then at least you can be sure that you're searching for something that exists.

Cover up?

I recently watched some youtube videos about Trichotillamania and found quite a few on how to cover it up with make-up or hair extensions.

One particular video was made by a young girl, applying make-up to cover up her lack of eyelashes and eyebrows. Sat at her bedroom window she spoke in hushed tones as she tried to avoid being seen by her neighbour outside. A few times she said her neighbour looked freaked out, supposing that this must me due to him seeing her make-up-less face.

She seemed totally ashamed of her true appearance yet was comfortable enough to share this secret face with any other sufferers searching for online help on covering up.

But why should she be ashamed?

In fact, I thought she looked much prettier without the make-up though I'm sure I could never convince her of that.

I know this because I have also had the same battle for almost 15 years, although finally this battle is easing up.

Years ago I was horrified at the thought of anyone seeing me without make-up. I would run to the bathroom, head-down, as soon as I woke up to make sure all was in place. I had this all covered, I was on top of it, until the odd morning where I was too tired/rushed/busy and would find myself suddenly in the middle of the office at 9.45am (shock, horror!) with no make-up on!!!

Deciding that the eyes of the whole world were upon me I'd rush to the toilet asap to fix this fatal error! Of course, after this happening a few times, I realised that actually, no-one gives a shit, and no-one had even the slightest incling of this devastating situation.

Slowly, over the years, I gave less of a shit if I'd forgotten my make-up, realising other things were more important, and gradually I arrived here, where I very rarely use make-up, and you know what, I very rarely feel paranoid about people looking, which is ironic.

I guess my plan is that if anyone ever mentions it, I'll just call their bluff by coming straight out with it and see if they have anything to say then. I've been preparing for this situation now for almost 15 years...but it looks like the only one paying attention to my missing eyebrows and eyelashes, is me.

Be carefull what you read


When I first discovered that there was a name for this passtime of mine I bought all the books I could to try and help myself stop.

Unfortunately, I never finished reading any of the books because they were so damn depressing, enough to make you pull your hair out!

Do I really need to read about people saying trich destroyed their life and they can't go out or have relationships??? Is this really the support I need to stop???

NO!

Although, it did make me realise that my pulling wasn't so extreme.

None of the books were objective, they all had this undertone that hair-pulling is a nasty disorder sent by the devil and you must dedicate your life to exorcising it out of you! Sadly, I believed it for a while, and it made me feel terrible which, ironically, lead to me pulling more.

So far, I haven't found anywhere that doesn't have this negative and judgemental view of hair-pulling and hair pullers, and I just wish that someone had told me years ago that there are other views and not to take any book as gospel, nomatter how much psychiatry experience the author has!!


Please let me know if you have found anywhere or anyone who doesn't see hair-pulling as the enemy but as just part of who we are, I'm wondering if I'm the only one???

Like thousands of people all over the world and right through history I pull out my hair, but unlike most people, I think it's OK.

I've been pulling out my hair now for 10 years. For the first 6 years I did my best to hide it from the world and was pretty sucessfull, although it meant living every minute worrying that people would notice and avoiding it. I thought I was the only person in the world who did this and battled with myself everyday, not knowing why I couldn't stop myself.

One evening I googled it. Trichotillamania! It has a name! other people do it, and always have! I'm not on my own!

After hiding it for 6 years I finally thought I could see the light at the end of the tunnel!

I started telling people. I told my mum. She said she knew all along, never really thought much of it though, she figured, as I'd never talked about it I also didn't think much of it.

So maybe it's not a big deal!

I told my boyfriend of 6 months. He didn't understand. It was a big deal for him and I wasn't strong enough to deal with a negative response. I fell apart for a few months, didn't go out, started failing my uni exams and my hairpulling got worse.

Slowly, after uni finished I broke up with my boyfriend and started getting my life together. I got a job, new housemates and finally, met a man that understood me. I started CBT to see if it would help. I kept my hairpulling hidden from him for a few months until I had to say what my appointments were for. I was terrified but felt I had to tell him my dark secret. a cool, calm 'OK' was his response. no big deal. It didn't change anything, he was just happy that I felt I could talk to him about these things.

His acceptance has helped me accept it myself. The CBT didn't really help much although it was nice to be able to talk openly about it and helped me feel a bit more confident opening up to people about it. I spent hours and hours analysing why, when and where I do it and realised that it's in 2 extremes of being over- and under-stimulated. It's worst when I'm really bored or wound up. So rather than continuing the fruitless battle against hairpulling, I started to try to mould my life to avoid these times.

Most importantly, I stopped beating myself up about it. The worst thing about hair-pulling was the shame and self-hatred, so with that gone, me and the hair-pulling are managing to live side-by-side with minimum stress, and now the negativity is gone I can see the positive things that come from it too.

During my battle coming to terms with hair-pulling, I searched for support all over, and nowhere could I find anything positive that really helped. All the books I read told me to take drugs and pay professionals to talk me out of pulling. Nowhere was the focus to make me feel bettter.

So I want to write a blog to speak to people about the other options. I believe that hair-pulling isn't necessarily a problem, but rather, the pressure from society to be beautiful is a problem, and if you can shake off that pressure, or put it in perspective, then maybe you will see some good come from it.

There have been many people and ideas that have helped me along the way and it's these that I'll add to my blog as I go. So if you pull your hair, or know someone who does, I hope that you can take something positive from this!

Til next time :-)

Most people pull their hair so why are so few labelled 'Hair-pullers'?

It is now firmly embedded in our culture for people to regularly remove their hair.

Athletes, both male and female, pull out their hair in the name of sport and competition.
Ladies pull out their hair in the name of vanity and fashion.
I pull my hair in the name of distraction and escapism.

Yet only my kind are labelled to have a problem...

It's fine to pluck your eyebrows into the standardised accepted shape, but any more than that and you have a problem....and god forbid one should get any pleasure from this action! It's supposed to be painful and unpleasant to wax and epilate, if you derive any pleasure from it you must have a problem!

So, the question I'd like to ask you is, who has the problem?
Me or society?

Once I can get past the guilt and shame forced on me from our society I quite enjoy pulling out my eyebrows and eyelashes. It takes me into my own world for a while, a world where I'm in control, I know what's goin on and the rhythmic pulling soothes me like a baby being rocked to sleep, and when I come back to this world I may indeed have less hair but ultimately no harm is done.

The harm begins when this world judges me for this, and makes me feel like I've done something sinister and wrong, like I have a big problem and I must start a battle with myself to stop this evil!

Everyone wants to escape sometimes. This world can wear you down.

Some people drink,
some people smoke,
some people party,
some people get lost in books,
some people play computer games,
some people clean their houses,
some people take illegal or legal drugs,
some people are consumed by football,
some people knit,
some people pull out their hair

Let's stop beating ourselves up about which one we happen to take on!

My CBT Experience with Lisa

I thought I'd write about my experience of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy so that you can compare your experience with mine or so that you can get an idea of it if you are considering it.

I started by going to the doctors to tell them I had Trichotillamania. The doctor was not amazingly understanding, she seemed a little bit freaked out, (though that could have been my paranoia) and she referred me to Lisa, their CBT therapist, to start the next week.

Lisa was really nice, and walked me through a path of tasks over the weeks, which included keeping a diary of all the times that I pulled my hair out, including when, where, how much and how I felt before and after. Then we gradually analysed the patterns in when I pull and pin-pointed certain situations where I was more likely to pull, and discussed how I could try to avoid or minimize these situations. Although avoiding my boring job was pretty tricky!

It was really beneficial to talk to Lisa and started to normalise the process or discussing my hair-pulling. She never judged me, she just wanted me to get to wherever I wanted to be, which, at that time was, to be not pulling my hair out anymore.

The down side though was that, through spending so much time focussing on not pulling my hair out, I ironically ended up doing it more! I think that this was a worthwhile sacrifice though, afterall, to make omlettes you do have to break a few eggs!

Lisa also encouraged me to try various tactics to stop the pulling, like sitting on my hands or moving into another room. I'm sure I even tried wearing gloves so I couldn't grab it! Anyway, to cut a long story short, despite looking seriously cool sitting on my gloved hands, none of the methods worked for me, they just took up so much mind-space and left me frustrated at trying and failing.

A few months later my sessions with Lisa came to an end and I was referred for further CBT but the waiting list was almost a year, so I didn't bother. That was 5 years ago now, and I still pull out my hair just as much, but don't get half as frustrated because I don't fight with myself to stop it. The only time in the last 10 years that my eyelashes had a chance to grow back was in my first year at uni when I was constantly busy working or seeing friends, though also always ill as I never had time to recover.

I'm sure one day when I find a job I enjoy and have a full social life and hobbies I will gradually stop pulling my hair and I think that this is a better goal to have than the frustrating battle I had with myself through CBT. I think that for me, I just find it hard to do nothing, and somehow that got me into the habit of pulling out my hair, I always used to fidget as a child and had fads of toys I just wouldn't put down. When you grow up though all the fun toys are gone so I had to find something else to occupy my hands when I'm bored.
I vote, bring back more toys for grown-ups!

Anyway, I'm not against CBT, I'm sure it works for some people and would love to hear how your experience of CBT was or what your thoughts are!