My pulling started when my "conscious life" began in my last year of high school. I became more aware of the world and my life as a whole. I started thinking about who I was, should, or wanted to be. I thought about my future and what I wanted to do with my life. And I started thinking about college and how to get into one. Studying hard, getting good grades, applying to colleges and anticipating responses, SAT, surging hormones, chasing girls, and identity crises may not seem like big deal but at age seventeen it all was stressful enough to make me pull my hair out, literally.

I pulled out from my eyebrows. I can not remember the first time that I pulled but I do remember the feeling I had whenever I did. Whenever I was stressed out, which was all time, one of my hands would go up to one of my eyebrows and start playing with a hair. It would start slow, just touching and feeling the hair. And then I would pull at it a few times and finally pull it out. As soon as I pulled, I felt a kind of relief or release of a little tension. But only after pulling the hair out I would become aware of what I was doing. At first I did not think of it much and thought it would go away. But the urge to pull got stronger every time I plucked a hair and I started to have noticeable empty patches in my eyebrows. The first people to notice and start questioning were my parents. They would say "Why don't you just stop". I did not know why I could not stop; I did not understand why I had this irresistible urge to pull out my own hair. All I knew was that I looked terrible and I was so sad and my self-confidence was totally gone. I was ashamed of how I looked and thought that I was crazy. I did not know of anyone who had this problem and I thought that I was the only one in this world with this strange problem. So this was just another stress added to all the other ones. But there was no way out; the urge was absolutely incredible and overwhelming and when I did pull it caused even more stress because I knew I had given in to the urge.

I moved out to go to college, thinking that the pulling would get better. However, it only got worse. By now all that I thought about was my hair pulling. I was always sad and self-conscious about how I looked. I would avoid people and public places and would wear sunglasses all the time. I tried many ways to keep my hands off my eyebrows; wearing Band-Aid on my fingers, wearing a head-band all the way over my eyebrows, applying lotion or cream on my eyebrows so they would be slippery and hard to pull, etc. But nothing worked. A few times the urge was not so strong and I did stop pulling but only for a few weeks. By end of my second year in college, I was devastated. I was angry with myself and had become really depressed. My hair-pulling problem was consuming all my time and energy. Not only did I look terrible but also emotionally I was broken. The worse part was that I did not have anyone to talk to; I was ashamed and did not want people to think I was crazy. I searched for books on hair-pulling but did not find any. From a psychology course at college I knew a little about Obsessive Compulsive Disorders (OCD) and I did read a book about it. But there was no mention of hair-pulling and it did not help anyway. By then I was seeing a psychiatrist for my depression and when I finally did find the courage to tell him about my hair pulling problem, he said that it was probably stress related and would get better when my depression got better. The anti-depression drug (Prozac) that I was taking did improve my depression a lot and helped somewhat to reduce the urge of pulling. After about six months I stopped going to therapy and taking Prozac.

I realized that I was the only one who could help myself and that I had better do something about this problem before I went completely crazy. I was determined to find a solution and get my life back together. I searched the web on hair pulling and found Amanda's web site. For the first time I found out that I was not alone; this was a great relief. I found that the scientific name for compulsive hair pulling was "trichotillomania". As I read and learned more about it, somehow the urge to pull was slowly reduced. Although I was terrified of my eyebrows not growing back, they did and I thank God for that all the time.

So now, finally, after six years of pulling and struggling, I have found some relief and control. Although I still do have the urge to pull, it is not so strong and I can control the urge much better.

What helps me:

I stay away from caffeine, and chocolate. Just reading about it and reminding myself that I am not alone in this struggle and I must fight it. Getting rid of stress with exercise. Reminding myself of how I looked and would look if I started to pull again. Not spending too much time in front of TV. Faith.


Back