How one trichster got rid of her mania
I knew it wasn’t something I should be doing. But I didn’t know how to stop it.
When I was 12, I remember seeing a video in elementary school about microscopic living things. There was a segment about tiny mites that live in eyebrows and eyelashes. It grossed me out beyond belief and brought attention to this area for me. I started pulling at my bushy eyebrows and went from beautiful, thick, long lashes to nothing.
The act of pulling was in a weird trough between pain and pleasure — pulling felt good, though there was a little physical pain sometimes. The resulting baldness always felt bad. But I want to caution against using the term self-harm. Psychologists do not consider engaging in these behaviours to be self-harm. (http://www.bfrb.org/learn-about-bfrbs/tools-a-info-for/for-teens-youngadults/teen-faq#a15)
Looking back, I think I had a predisposition to trich. As a child, I used to twirl my hair a lot — a common precursor. I believe the hormonal change at puberty, along with the stress of my father’s sickness (he had leukemia) triggered the onset of my hair pulling.
And I was always pulling. I didn’t ever mind that I was in public. I figured most people weren’t paying attention to …read more