When I was little, I put gum in my hair just to see what would happen. My mom had to cut it out.

My first memory of pulling was riding in the car with my mom. I yanked a hair from my head and said to my mom, "Hey this doesn't hurt." She told me, "Don't pull your hair, there what if you can't stop and are bald?" I don't know how she knew that.

I began pulling in 6th grade. I was having a miserable year and was depressed. While I was sitting in Mr. Johnson's Social Studies class, learning about the Pelopenesian Wars, my mind began to wander. My hand (instinctively?) rose to my eyebrows and I began twisting them. After a while I realized how weird I was being. I didn't want to make myself the subject of even more teasing. I thought, Well people pluck their eyebrows, I could do that. I thought this was a safer alternative. Very soon I had created noticeable bald spots on my face. I was wearing make-up regularly to cover the damage. But, because it would wear off during the day, I was teased. "Why did you shave your eyebrows, Amanda?" I ignored them as I always had. But this time the teasing was different. I couldn't rationalize it the way I could before. When they had called me a bookworm, I could always tell myself that reading was wonderful and they were just jealous. I knew I hadn't shaved my eyebrows, but, like them I wanted to know why. Why had I done this to myself? Wasn't the fact that I had ditched my wonderful friends in a failed attempt to be popular enough? Already friendless, I had made myself ugly. Before I had been teased as one of the nerds in the school. Now I was singled out of the nerds as a freak. I now know I'm not a freak. But that time in 6th grade is deeply imprinted in my emotions. I might know I'm not a freak but I can feel like a freak as the result of the tiniest incedent. My saving grace came at the end of 6th grade. It actually came in two forms. The first was my pediatrician, who noticed my pulling at my camp check-up that spring. By that time I had moved onto my eyelashes and my hair. She called attention to it and told me it had a name, trichotillomania. I began seeing a therapist and saw her for the next six years. She did wonders for my self-esteem. The second was somehow finding the courage to call my friend and ask her forgiveness for my behavior that year. In her remarkable kindness she forgave me. One of the times I was being teased that year someone asked me the usual question concerning my missing hair. He went onto say that he had asked my friend about it and she had said that I couldn't help it and not to bother me. I have never mentioned this incedent to her, nor her to me. In my mind it stands out as a definition of true friendship. She stood up for me even though she had know idea what was happening to me and even though I was being truly hateful towards her. I have been lucky to have had many such friends in my life. I can never repay them for what they have given me and I probably would not be here if not for them.

As soon as my mom found out that this was a disorder, she told all her friends. As a result, when my friend's grandmother saw an Ann Landers article about people who pull their hair, she clipped it and sent it to my mom. As a result (although it took many years) I am open and vocal about trich. The more people to whom I speak about trich, the more opportunities people who suffer alone have to find hope. The article provided the contact information about TLC. She found out about their conferences and retreats and my parents took me to them. I have been so fortunate to both have parents who have supported me completely from the beginning, and to find out the name and about TLC so early. It was at that first conference in Washington DC that I first met other pullers, including Christina Pearson, the founder of TLC. She has served as an inspiration to me. When I first started attending TLC events I was the only young adult there and most of the programs were not geared towards me. I did however enjoy the spotlight as the young, cute, brave kid that I was and am. Now many young adults attend events, and I am not as young as I was. But a couple of years ago, at the retreat I ran a workshop for the young adults. So I guess I'm still in the spotlight. I attended the TLC retreats every summer. The last one I attended was in 1998, before my senior year of high school. I also attended many of the TLC conferences in Washington D.C. and NYC.

In 7th grade my friends and I joined a program at our middle school, a smaller school within a school. Although as a group the members of this progran were stigmatized as nerds, among ourselves we formed a strong community. This group provided me with support and unquestioning friendship. Although I'm sure they were curious, they never once asked me about my hair. This was the year I told my first friend about trich. We had been friends as children and although moving had separated us, we spent every vacation together and remained close emotionally. This was the same friend whose grandmother gave me the information about TLC. I was so nervous and I remember my heart pounding. I had planned what I was going to say with my therapist. To my surprise the announcement was received with love and support. That reaction gave me the courage to tell a few of my friends at home. I have never had a bad reaction to being open to others. That summer I had my first serious boyfriend. I told him about trich and he understood not to touch my head.

In 8th grade two important events happened. The first was that the science section of the New York Times published an article about trich. In my science class we had a homework assignment to bring in a science-related article and exchange it with someone in the class. I brought in that article and after my classmate finished presenting it, I raised my hand. I told everyone in that program that I had trich. I think I cried. Everyone was supportive. I noticed that my friends would attempt to get my attention and distract me in class if they saw me pulling. We never mentioned it, but I appreciated the effort and love. Of course as a result we often found ourselves in trouble for talking in class. Second event was shaving my head. Actually my mother did it for me. I thought it help stop me from pulling; it didn't. The reaction to my scalp was amazing. A teacher of mine (not in this program) told the class, while I was getting a drink of water, to be nice to me because I was sick. When my friends said that I wasn't sick, she said they were wrong. According to the school I was either dying of cancer or had shaved my head to be supportive of a friend going through chemo. Actually I did a fictional speech at our school's speech contest about someone who does that. Whenever people asked why I did it. I told them it was my choice, that is what I wanted. Whenever someone asked my friends, they replied the same thing. That summer I went to a new camp and I was nearly bald. I never really bonded with any of the girls at that camp. I wonder whether it had anything to do with my hair. My counselor did know about my pulling and urged me to tell another girl in our cabin who was anorexic. I did. For the first time I realized how closely trich is related to other disorders. I knew it was similar to OCD but here was another. I believe that many disorders are like trich, they manifest themselves in causing a lack of control over a behavior.

In ninth grade I moved from middle school to high school. With that move much of the teasing stopped. I would never become friends with the people who had been so cruel, but we were able to co-exist. I became better able to defend myself. My math teacher had a rule that we could not wear hats in class. Well I had to wear a hat. So, after the first class, I stayed behind and told her about my situation. The guys in my class thought she had a double-standard for girls, but I was allowed to wear my hat. I have always been lucky that I have a well-shaped scalp and I look sophisticated bald. I'm also fortunate that I look great in hats and have a penchant for accessorizing. In science class, the boy who sat behind me started calling me a freak. At this point I knew I was not a freak, but the name-calling brought the old feelings that I was a freak to the surface. I became depressed. One day, instead of ignoring him, I asked him why I was a freak. He said because I was bald. I said, "What if I had cancer and was bald from chemo?" He said I would still be a freak because having cancer is abnormal because it isn't the norm. Then I knew he was crazy and rather than tease him about it (because like my pulling, he couldn't help it) I just kept quiet. My classmates (none of them my friends, in fact some of them used to tease me) started making his life miserable and being friendly to me. I would like to think that they did so because they had overheard his comments. I never joined in the teasing. I never have and I never will. Everyone has something that makes his/her life difficult. Nobody should ever take advantage of that. In ninth grade I got my first wig. When I wore it to school the first time, no one commented on the fact it was a wig. I only received compliments, including a backhanded one from the pest in science. I started pulling from the wig. I would make huge piles of wig hair which would have to be picked up and hidden. In fact one of my teachers noticed and one day as he was leaving the classroom to photocopy something, he told me to stop playing with my hair. Oh the humiliation! And in front of my crush too! But I stopped pulling my own hair! In fact, I would have to take the wig off to stop pulling. That was my first remission. That summer when I went on a trip to China with that camp, I didn't have eyebrows or eyelashes but I had a full head of hair. Ninth grade was also the first year that we didn't have to take yearbook photos and since I was bald at the time they were taken, I didn't. The yearbook does contain a picture of me that year, but it was with my wig and a candid.

I started my sophomore year in high school with a full head of hair, but without eyelashes or eyebrows. Hm, as I'm thinking about it, I cannot remember that much about my pulling my sophomore year in high school. Oh that's right, in my sophomore year in high school I started my support group. After the summer I started pulling again. My therapist and I decided that perhaps what I needed was a support group. The nearest one to me was one in NYC (which is by the way still in existence and which I attend when I'm home). However at the time I was still living in Westchester and in high school. The support group met on Tuesdays from 7.30 to 9. By the time I reached home at night, I had to go to bed and couldn't do my homework (Gosh darn!). Furthermore, the group was comprised of women much older than I. While they could understand what I was going through, having been there themselves, I could not relate to their problems with work and relationships. So I took the next logical step, I started my own group for teenagers. Starting the group included placing a letter in the school newspaper revealing my deepest (well ok most of my friends knew) darkest secret. I expected all the cruel kids who had teased me in middle school to renew their cruelty. Well, they either didn't respond to the letter or told me how brave I was. Just went to show that these kids had been mean more because of issues inside themselves, not because of anything having to do with me. I was just an easy target. I began to pity them rather than hate them. I had issues too, but they never caused me to be mean to anyone. Their issues were clearly worse than mine. I continued running this group throughout my high school career. We met approximately once a month. As the eldest member of the group and the only regular attendee, I was really in charge of running the group. Therefore I functioned more as a support for the other girls than they for me. Nonetheless the effort is one of which I am proud.

The summer after my sophomore year is one which changed my life forever. I went to Longacre Leadership Program, on Longacre Farm. The Farm, as it's known, is not a summer camp, it is a community. One truly has to experience the Farm to truly understand it. Through the Farm and the people I met there I gained the confidence to be myself. For the first time I met other people who, while so different than me, were like me in ways I never imagined. For the first time I met other vegetarians who were my age! I met other people who were politcally active, who came from schools so different than my own, who did THINGS that really made a difference in this world. I have never felt more at home than at Longacre Farm and I never felt so comfortable than with the people I met there. I do not want to say too much about my experience there because by putting it into words I lose some of the specialness. I will simply say this: who I am today is largely a product of what I learned at the Farm. Thank you to everyone who touched my life. Furthermore, for the first time ever I stopped pulling my hair everywhere.

I started my junior year refreshed by the Farm and a summer of being pull-free. I experienced major culture-shock. I was coming from a world in which I experienced total support to a world that, with the exception of my friends, was completely unsupportive and stressful. I started pulling again. Yuck. I got a hair piece made from real hair and dyed to match my hair. The man who made my hair piece for me had made a hair piece for Jon Voight's neice who also had trich. Well guess what happened when I got the piece! I started pulling from the hair piece. Towards the beginning of the year, my teacher called me aside one day after class. I was nervous because she was a teacher who had a reputation for being strict. I was not in trouble. She had noticed me pulling in class and had talked to my dean about it. Luckily my dean was informed about trich and was wonderfully supportive. He told her about it and she remembered me as the girl who had written the letter to the school newspaper the year before. She had called me over because her officemate also had trich! This teacher had gone to this high school and began pulling there. She didn't have much trouble with it after high school and had only started pulling again upon returning there as a teacher. That should say something about my high school. Junior year was when I started looking at colleges. My first choice was UC Santa Cruz for several reasons. One reason was that Santa Cruz is where TLC is located and I knew if I went to school there I would be in a supportive community. My other reasons were more superficial; I hate cold weather and I thought I wanted to be far from home. UC Santa Cruz did accept me when I applied as a senior. In fact I was selected to receive a large merit scholarship! However by then I was less eager to be so far from home and I also wanted a more challenging academic environment. Anyway in my junior year my family and I traveled to the West Coast to visit colleges. The last time I had been in California was when I went to my first retreat. While we were in Santa Cruz my family and I went to the TLC open house. I was able to see the base of the whole operation. One of the schools I looked at was UC Berkely, where I celebrated my 17th birthday. I also had my first experience in a co-op, an experience that would convince me to move into the co-op at Vassar a few years later. That spring I had the hair piece removed and cut my hair really short. In the summer I went back to the Farm for another amazing experience. I had another completely pull-free summer.

After the Farm, I went to my last retreat, where I led a group for children and adolescents. I had my hair styled by one of the sensitive hairdressers there. The next day I went and had my senior portrait taken. It was the first school picture since 6th grade in which I wasn't trying to hide something. After the Farm and the retreat that summer I thought I had the tools necessary to not pull during the school year. All I had to do was take time for myself and not stress over school work. I couldn't do that. I was taking all college level, AP courses and pushing myself to over-acheive in all of them. Furthermore, I had many leadership responsibilities in school and was trying to apply to college. I applied early to Brown (I'm so glad I didn't get in, I wouldn't have been happy there!) At some point in November I made the concsious decison that I could either not pull and not do my work or pull and do my work. I chose to pull and do my work. Within a short time I was bald. But I was also doing well in school. My second semester of my senior year was a bit better. I was still pulling but the stress of having to apply to college and get good grades so I would be accepted was gone. Yes, I slumped a bit, but in doing so I (for the first time in high school) got straight A's. I would learn more about that in college. As the school year began to draw to a close I realized I had been lying to myself. I had told myself that I was ok with my pulling, that I loved how I looked bald and I didn't care about hair. I was deeper than my looks and people who judged me on appearance were not worth my time. Well in the real world looks matter. And, superficial or not, I care whether I have hair. It's one thing to choose to be bald. That's cool. It's another thing to not even have a choice. When I looked in the mirror my eyes never traveled past my forehead, I just didn't want to think about it. I thought I was a beautiful girl except...well you know. I wanted to be able to toss my graduation cap in the air. I didn't want to wear a hat to prom. I wanted hair. My therapist and I began to work on an aggressive plan to grow my hair. I decided not to study for AP exams. I had gotten into college so they had served their purpose, any credit I would receive from them would just be an extra bonus. As it turned out I scored high enough on all of them to receive credit. In fact, I had more credits than Vassar accepts. I slathered my hair in conditioner and put a shower cap on before doing work. What also helped is that after AP exams classes stopped and I started my senior project: an internship at the NY Botanical Garden, where, for the first time, I learned to love little kids. I also started going to my mom's hair stylist, a young woman who thought my bald head was so hip and cool. She helped my hair look attractive as it started to grow in. And grow in it did. I had a short crew cut by the end of the year. A funny story related to this haircut: When you are a woman and you are bald or have drastically short hair people make assumptions. They assumed I was a rebel, an artist, a cancer patient, a freak and... I was at a cast party for the senior class play (for which I built two benches) and people were drinking. One boy said to his friend (right in front of my friend) "What's that dyke doing here?" obviously refering to me. Having a sense of humor about such close-minded, homophobic things, I thought it was hilarious. Despite my school's admonitions not to, I threw my graduation cap up in the air and in a miraculous display of my little hand-eye coordination, caught it. And of course after telling everyone I wasn't going to cry, I sobbed hysterically. I tear up even now thinking about it. And prom... my hair stylist wanted me to shave my head and get a henna design on my scalp and wear stick-on rinestones. But I had worked hard for my hair and I wasn't going to give it up. She consented to spike it. She said it was a relief after doing millions of fancy up-dos for all the local proms. At least I was being original.

That summer my family and I moved back to the city. I worked at the Botanical Garden and at Starbucks. I pulled a little bit, but not too much. That smmer I was also filmed for a segment Inside Edition did on trich. It aired for the first time that September.

Arriving at college as a freshman is an adjustment for anyone. For me it was an especially large adjustment because I, for the first time, was not known as That Girl. You know, the bald one. Every year I would go through the same pattern. I would start out fine, begin to pull, fight it, give up and be bald. For the most part I didn't care because I had my group of friends and I could ignore everyone else. In college I didn't have that group of friends who knew and who had been there. For the first time I cared about my environment. I didn't want to be known as That Girl. I wanted the people who knew me to understand and be supportive. But I didn't want to suffer a major relapse for that to happen. And for the rest of the student body, I wanted to be anonymous or at least not known for my pulling. I'd rather be anonymous than be called names. Added to this was the fact that I didn't have a lot of time in high school to give to a large social life. The time I spent with friends was restricted by work. I learned that most people in high school had not spent so much time with their books. I wasn't used to balancing academics with a social life. Furthermore, I started pulling again. I was at the point where I felt like I was about to lose total control. I started seeing a therapist by campus. She was amazing. She showed me that I had always associated doing well with stressing out and pulling. I didn't think I could succeed without pulling. Just look at what I told myself at the beginning of my senior year! I needed to learn what work I had to do to achieve my goals. Freshman year was the time to experiment. While most freshmen are learning how to do more work, I was learning how to do less. I learned that I was putting in way more than I needed in order to achieve my goals. When I feel myself becoming stressed, I ask myself what I actually need to do. I also ask myself, "What's the worse that can happen?" Usually the answer is that I fail. So I play through that scenario in my head. If I fail, I can go to my teacher and ask for a chance to make it up. And if I fail in the long run it will have little effect on my life, if any. I have also learned how to reduce my stress. I work out six days a week for about twenty minutes. I do not do any work on Saturdays so I have a real weekend. And sometimes, when I'm being especially good, I put on gloves while I'm doing my work. This all helps me. I haven't stopped pulling but I'd say I'm doing about 75% better than I was.

I am going to stop here because it's my web page and I can. Right now as I write this my hair is red. I have always wanted red hair and last year I decided to go for it. My parents pay for all hair-related products because they are that cool. So I get my hair done in a really nice salon in the city. My hair is layered because it's been growing out from a "boy" type cut. The longest layers are shoulder length. My goal is for it to reach my butt. One of my friends from high school said that if I grew my hair to my butt, she would shave her head no matter where she is in her politcal career. I fully intend to hold her to it. Wish me luck!