Other Anyone with Trichotillomania?

Laifan

Kyrie
I've read up on it since mine flared up last year and I'm past my 30s so not sure how rare it is. At the moment I pluck mostly my eyebrows and eyelashes with my fingers while working. I used a band-aid on my left thumb on Friday and managed not to pluck all day.

From I've looked up I'm a rather mild case - thankfully I haven't started attacking my scalp, and my right eyebrow has the most damage.

I've had to explain it at my salon more than once now and got these weird stares so I haven't really returned there for a while...

So anyone else with this condition? How do you manage it?
 
Hey! When I was ending grade 3 to grade 5-6 I also pulled out all my eyelashes and eyebrows with my fingers. I usually did it when lying in bed trying to sleep and looking back at the pictures I'm glad I never ended up pulling hair from my scalp. I was put into therapy for a while to talk about why I did this and what caused it. For me, it was just lots of anxiety mixed, habit and insomnia.

When I look back on it I realized that something triggered me into starting this as a coping skill even though I didn't realize it until later on. (I had lots of anxiety around changing schools since I would need to speak a different language, had no friends and it wasn't in my neighbourhood) And throughout these 2 years, people would ask if there was something wrong with me since they thought I was sick.

I talked to a therapist, put reminders up not to do it and slept with bandaids on my fingers. And slowly I stopped doing it.

Hopefully this helped! I get for some people it's not psychological and that some people can't go to therapy or talk about it with anyone. But good luck, I know how hard it is.
 
Sad to hear that, that seems like a lot of pressure for a kid =/

This was a self diagnosis - I used to undergo therapy, but stopped going because I don't really have insurance. I've read there's no definite treatment - only behavior changes and being able to handle stress. So I'm hoping my band-aid technique will help curb that habit... Last year was very stressful for a variety of reasons so little wonder it affected me more deeply.

My sister and some colleagues at work know about it, guess they wrote it off to a strange tick or something. In a way it is. I'm glad I wear glasses with thick frames as at least I can hide it a bit. My right eyebrow looks really pitiful hah.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top