Trich, TTM, Trichotillomania. They are all words that doctors and therapists use to label our hair pulling behavior. It’s a horrible name really. But it makes some sense: trich is Greek for hair, tillo for pulling, and mania for an abnormal love for a specific object, place, or action. Um, excuse me? An abnormal love!? I have no love of pulling. And why do I have to have the word “abnormal” included in the meaning of my disorder? Bah. As a result, Trich is my preferred word. That or just “pulling.” The people who know me well, know what that word means in my vocabulary.
Ok, so back to the point. I am a hair puller. I started when I was 12. I am now 32. Thus, I have spent 20 years or two-thirds of my life as a person who pulls out her own hair. Needless to say, I identify with the disorder. I consider it a major part of who I am. I don’t know if I would recognize myself as a non-puller. Could this play into the reason why it is so hard for me to stop? Sure. But what to do about it?
That brings me to this blog. My desire is to host a place where people can come to research, to learn about the disorder, to share their stories, to commiserate & vent, or to finally put a name to this behavior that they’ve been doing. At the same time, I hope to learn about myself and express myself. My friends and family know that I pull and I talk somewhat openly about it. However, I don’t have contact with any other pullers, and another puller is the only one who can truly understand the muddy, confusing, infuriating depths of this disorder. Sure, many people try, and I appreciate their efforts. But I know, deep down, that they still don’t quite get it.
So, please join me in my journey. Please feel free to share and comment as you are comfortable. If you are not a puller, but are here to learn or to support someone who pulls, great! But please be aware that words are powerful, and I’m not the only puller reading this blog. We tend to be a self-concious lot. So if you choose to comment, please choose your words carefully and kindly.
Huh, not sure what happened with that font in the last paragraph. I don’t mean to make it look as though I’m yelling.
Can you share with us what you have done to attempt to overcome? I myself have been a puller since 15(mainly split ends etc) and am on Prozac for OCD and Clozanapam for anxiety, and although my physician said it would help, it has not. Have you tried CBT?
I am glad I am not alone
Just another note if you are new to the blog: use either the “Blog Posts” tab up at the top left of the page OR the links under “other musings” to find my more detailed posts. If you are interested in one particular topic, check the categories under “what you can find here” and it will link to any posts that address those issues. I hope to add more about my personal story/journey soon, so please come back soon!
I’m an eyelash and eyebrow puller. Sometimes after pulling out the majority or one sides lashes or brows, I just completely pull them all out, then pull out the other side’s even though the urge has been satiated. I figure I’ll end up pulling them out within the week, so why not do it now so they can’t start growing back in. I’m so ashamed…
I know easier said than done, but no shame needed. This is a disorder. A chemical imbalance of some sort. It sucks and it is easy to let it rule us, but try not to let it shame you. Just know that you can try again tomorrow.
hello, nice to find someone else writing about this subject
xxx
I just did a search for “trich” and your blog was the first that came up. I am going to start my own blog in which I’m hoping to do very much the same as you – not only letting others know but helping to learn about yourself.
It is also interesting that, in otherwise great lives, something like this can affect us so much! I am 20 at the moment and have been pulling since I was about 10, not too badly at the moment but its definitely something I know most people are completely unaware of so thanks for starting this blog and I will follow your journey as well as starting to think about my own!
xx
Thanks for writing mspenny. I’ve got a decade on you, both in age and pulling, but I agree that my life functions pretty darn well except for my pulling. Despite the huge desire I have to grow my hair back in, I still can’t get past the urges. I keep trying though. Some days are better than others. Let me know the url of your blog once you get it set up!
Thank you thank you!
I am so relieved to hear of other people’s experiences of something that is very much (in my experience) viewed as a shameful secret.
I have been hair pulling for 20 years (started at 13) and just can’t get my head round why i do it. I know I am sick of it, hate that loss of control, hate the stress of windy days, of someone standing behind/over me and worrying what thin patches they might see.
I’m very good at hiding it by now but still there are lapses and I dread the day when someone at work might see/say something.
My family don’t know how to deal with it, they are uncomfortable with the notion so we don’t talk about it.
I have two young children and worry that this might be passed on to them in some way.
I’m on antidepressants but am a fully functioning and productive person, i also work in education and routinely find myself counselling troubled students, other people’s problems and therapies seem so much easier to tackle don’t they?
I agree that trich is a form of self harm but think it misses the peculiar form of damage to someone’s self esteem this condition involves. Hair, particularly for women and girls is such an important part of us, why do we do this thing that makes us look disfigured (is that too strong a term?)
I’d like to ask though to any women with trich whether you find pulling is affected by their menstrual cycle? I know pulling is partly about ‘zoning out’ at times of stress and anxiety, but I have noticed that even if I do manage to suppress the pulling for some time, the point where I lapse nearly always coincides with the beginning of my cycle.
Anyway, glad I found you. Take care.
If this is truly biochemical in nature, it totally follows that at least some people would be affected by hormones. They are just another form of chemical in our body. I’ve never actually tracked my symptoms around my cycle, but now that I’m using a calendar to stay accountable with someone, that might be an easy thing to add. PMS can make all sorts of weird things happen, so it wouldn’t surprise me at all if it made pulling levels go up too.
I’m fortunate to have a family that will listen if I want to talk, who encourages me, but will also stay quiet about it if I don’t feel like discussing it. I really think the more open you are willing to be about it, the less shame their is, and the less scared people are to talk to you about it. Don’t let it rule you anymore! It just isn’t worth the mental anguish.
Not long ago I read this article on Salon that I found inspiring:
http://www.salon.com/mwt/col/tenn/2009/01/06/trichotillomania/
I don’t know if you follow Cary Tennis, or if you like him, but I really found resonance with his idea that none of us are in full control of our own bodies at all times. We like to believe that we are, but it’s simply not true. For anyone.
Full disclosure: I’m not a hair-puller. I’m a skin-picker. I’ve been doing it ever since I had chicken pox, which must have been when I was around 10. I can’t even tell you how many scars I have on my body from this compulsion. It’s particularly humiliating because my face is a frequent target, so there’s often no hiding it. Strangely enough, it’s been easier to hide since I got pregnant, because hormone changes ramping up the oil production on my face somehow changed the equation. It’s now my shoulders and ankles/feet that bear the brunt. Much less obvious. Call it a partial, if temporary, win.
I’ve seen picking lumped in with trich and I’ve also seen it given its own disorder status, related to trich, somewhere in the OCD spectrum.
So, I get it. At least partially. The details are different, but the impulse control, the embarrassment, the frustration have to be pretty similar.
Thanks for sharing J! The more I open up about this disorder (I skin pick a little too but not enough to really consider myself as having it at the level of disorder) and talk to people, the more I learn how many people suffer from these Body Focused Repetitive Behaviors (both the OCD subtype and the automatic, which is more what I have). I’m really starting to think that we aren’t a minority at all. I’ve sat at table of 5 very typical, “normal” women, and all of them either did one of these behaviors or knew someone who did. Not always to the point of disorder, but way more than you would ever guess when you’re sitting, caught in the trance & repetition, thinking you’re the only person who does stuff like this.
Thanks for sharing, Dawn. Yes, weall have our demons to fight in this world. One of my children is fighting with ADD and bi-polar. No one can live in another persons head and body. I agree, that the more open we are with our demons, perhaps the less hold they have on us. Love, Nancy