I am a female with Trichotillomania AMA
Trichotillomania is a disorder in which the sufferer pulls out their own hair. It can be from any location but most sufferers pull out their hair from their scalp.
I normally wouldn't mention my gender, but since hair and physical appearance in general is valued as so important for women, I thought it would be relevant to include.
Anyways, AM(almost)A!
Hey there @NavySodium
I was pretty unfamiliar with this disorder until recently when I discovered this video and started learning more from this particular girl on youtube. As you see she is pulling her hair as you said from her scalp mostly.
My questions for you are...
1) When did you discover you are suffering from it?
2) How would you encourage other people to better cope with it?
3) Is there any positive aspect you can find? Or funny? I imagine you have learned to live with it somehow. :)
Also, congrats for sharing this!! I am grateful for the opportunity to learn from you.
@cristiana33 Thanks for the response!
I discovered I was suffering from it when my mother pulled me into the kitchen and told me that there was a name for what I do - called trichotillomania. I had been pulling for about a year before that but I didn't know why or if I was the only one.
My advice is to not care so much about what people think. As a girl it's really hard because society tells you that your image matters a lot, and of course a major part of that is your hair. I used to cover my face in pounds of makeup to try and hide the fact I had no eyelashes and I was so self-conscious about my hair that I walked in strange ways sometimes to just avoid the wind! It did no good though because I would still get a lot of comments on it. Once I went to college I stopped wearing makeup and I stopped caring so much about what other people thought. It might have been a coincidence, but after that nobody commented on my trichotillomania at all. People love commenting and picking at what the other person is already obviously self-conscious about, so you have to be comfortable in your own skin or people will tear you apart.
Having trich has put me in many hilarious situations. Once, about a year ago I decided to start fresh - I went bald. There were a bunch of children on the college campus that day and I got so many stares in HORROR. They thought I had cancer or something. I laughed soo hard. Bald girls can be scary things.
Thanks again for your questions, these were great!
Hi, I actually have had trich myself for 10 years! I have no hair on the side of my head, crown and I am missing some eyebrow too. I'm so proud of you for sharing it like this! I'm just curious as to if you have had any medical help; I'm currently on a waiting list for CBT to help with it along with anxiety, compulsive behaviours and depression. I've heard many horror stories of people with trich and the doctors; I had one say 'well at least she's not cutting', when unbeknownst to her I was!
@SingingForAbsolution
I've never been to a doctor about my trich. I've talked to therapists about it but they seem to not usually be very well educated on the subject so they are not much help. My mother also thought a hypnotherapist might be of some use to me and I've heard of hypnotherapy being very useful in many trich cases, but unfortunately that was not the case for me. Recently I've heard of a supplement helping in trich because it helps manage compusive behaviour. Here is a cool research article about it. There is such a lack of research being done on trich that I find any research at all is beneficial. https://www.trich.org/dnld/NACarticle_InTouch55_rev.pdf
@SingingForAbsolution Hello I like muse too! and I've been suffering TTM since I was like 12 years old, :I It's good to find people to talk about it.