My Trich Story: Why you're not the only "weird" one

Trichotillomania, commonly referred to as "trich" is the compulsion to pull hair from the scalp, eyelashes, eyebrows, chest, basically anywhere, and, in some cases, eat it and/or the hair follicle. The disorder affects thousands in the U.S. and usually peaks in adolescence. The name is derived from the Greek language-- trich (hair) till(en) (to pull) and mania, meaning madness or frenzy, and I can say with the utmost confidence that, that is exactly what it is.

The entire concept doesn't seem so bad. People who don't suffer from it don't quite understand, so I'm going to try to explain.

Pulling hair can result in not only bald patches, but also infections and bezoars (pretty much big hairballs) since hair isn't digestible. It can block a person up and even result in death.

So why not just stop?

It's not that easy. Most of the time, pickers don't even realize they're doing it. Idle hands are our worst enemies. Other times, we know exactly what we're doing. First, the thought comes up-- "I should pull. I want a follicle. I want a coarse hair. I want control." etc. Once the thought is in a person's head, tension mounts, and sometimes it's next to impossible to not carry it out. It's hard to focus on anything else.

I started picking when I was in junior high. At that time, I mainly focused on my eyelashes. I had no idea what I was doing or why, and I definitely didn't know that it was the beginning of a disorder that would change my life.

My mom noticed lashes missing from my eyes (my left one specifically), and she'd simply tell me to stop. When I didn't, she threatened to take me to a therapist, which seemed like an awful and unnecessary punishment at the time. Within the month, I stopped pulling, though I doubt it was because of her.

You see, pulling gets worse when life is more stressful. I probably went months, even years at a time without pulling any of my hair, all because I was less stressed.

Then I got into high school, and I moved onto the hair on my head.

Anyone who knows me also knows that my hair has always been a huge part of my life. It's one of my main identifiers. Since middle school, I've been dying it, chopping it off and growing it back out. Until junior year, though, I always kept my hair fairly long. Then, I got it cut to my chin, then a bob, then a pixie cut. That's when the proverbial shit hit the fan.

For the entire duration of my junior year, my pulling was mild. I'd sit at the computer and pick the hairs at my temples and flick them away so that I'd have to sweep them up later. At the end of the school year, though, my parents separated. I had a huge trip to Europe planned at that time, and despite my hesitance, both my mother and father urged me to go, just to get away from everything. Those three weeks were spectacular, but I had to return at some point, and I can't even begin to describe how stressful it was. Dad was in an apartment down the road. Mom was crying all the time, and I refused to pick a side in the divorce. Needless to say, my pulling got worse. My new focus spot was the back of my head, a little to the right.

I've always had unreasonably thick hair, thanks to my dad's side of the family. It never looked like a lot, but every time, and I mean every single time, I went into a salon, the ladies would say, "Oh, your hair is so thick! I had no idea!" Every time. With my new pixie cut and my pulling at an all time high, however, my hair wasn't looking so great anymore.

Still, I didn't do anything about it. My mom commented on it every once in a while, but I wasn't to the balding point just yet.

Senior year came and went with new stressors. I pulled my hair every day in class, wondering if the people who sat behind me would notice.

College was when I actually got the chance to talk about it. I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder after a few too many panic attacks, and while talking with my psychiatrist, a question arose. "Do you have any compulsive tendencies?" She gave a few examples, hair pulling being one of them, and a bell seemed to ring in my head. Raising a hand to my thinning hair, I thought, yeah, I do that.

Even then, that was just the tip of the iceberg. Talking with people does not help. At all. I was told to try rubber bands, stress balls, sitting on my hands, anything to keep them busy and my mind off my hair. None of them worked for me. I even shaved my hair into a mowhawk. All I did was find a new place to pull where my hair was still long.

I pulled, and I pulled, and I pulled, and I eventually got my first bald spot. Then another. Then I picked the hair between the two so that there was just a band of skin on the back of my head.

It's hard to explain how it feels to do something like this to yourself. It's awful. You're constantly wondering if people are staring at you, if they know you're dirty little secret. You feel alienated from everyone, so it's easy for isolation and cases of agorophobia to stem from trich.

My mom would come up behind me and lift up any of the hair that covered it, then sigh and shake her head. I love her dearly, but that didn't really help either. It's a compulsion which is defined as "an irresistible urge to behave in a certain way, especially against one's own conscious wishes."

It was awful. Soon, I got stressed about being stressed because I knew that it would cause me to pull more hair out. I could sit for hours just twisting a strand and pulling it out. Hairs littered the floor of my bedroom, my pillowcases, my blankets. They were everywhere.

There was shame, and there was a lot of me being extremely self conscious. I began to wear beanies everywhere I went. When Mom caught me pulling, she'd toss me one. I'd purposely have one in every room so that she could.

I'd read briefly of other people with trich, but they were just other sufferers-- other people with the same problem. Then I stumbled upon an article about a girl named Jillian Clark who shaved her head because of Trichotillomania. Ironically, she did this after being pull-free for a long period of time. " It was almost like my big “f-you” to the disorder, shaving off this perfect hair that I finally had and worked so hard for," she says. Clark then went on to talk about how shaving her head helped boost her confidence.

I read the entire piece with a huge smile on my face, nodding the whole time. This girl knew what she was doing. She was happy without her hair and even started doing photoshoots. Everything about her stood out. She was absolutely beautiful, even without the hair that society loves so much.

Now, I don't want to turn this into a "fuck society's view of beauty" piece, but it's a little hard not to. Most people associate a shaved head with something awful-- Cancer, loss of identity, breaks from reality, punishment, and who can blame them? No one shaves their head just because they feel like it, especially not girls.

But what is hair, really? What is its value? We all have this idea that long, thick hair is beautiful and that thin, breaking hair is unhealthy. That girl obviously isn't happy with hair like that. I bet she's jealous of so-and-so's nice, bouncy curls.

Wrong.

Sure, hair is nice. I'm all for it, but I'm also all for doing whatever you want with it. If you mess your hair up, give it time and it will fix itself. There are even oils and vitamins to help with that. That's the entire point. It grows back.

So, for the love of god, stop stressing about bad hair days or bad haircuts. It's not worth it. There are so many better things to focus on.

Today, after I finished my classes, I went home, walked into the bathroom, and stood with my back to one mirror while facing another. I lifted my hair and surveyed the damage I had done in the past few months. It wasn't pretty.

I felt guilty and different, like something must have been so wrong with me if I intentionally pulled my own hair out to the point of bald spots.

Then, I thought of Jillian, and I put the mirror down.

I was so tired of feeling like a freak, so done with being self-conscious. It's just too exhausting.

So, I got into my car and drove to the barber shop where I got my very first haircut. I hadn't been in probably fifteen years.

My mind was absolutely made up. I knew why I was there. There was no turning back.

One man was working, and he wasn't anyone I knew. I was expecting to see the lady who always cut my bangs crookedly.

When I sat down, he frowned and asked what he could help me with. I simply told him that I needed a haircut and was surprised when he said he couldn't. do that. "I don't cut women's hair," he stated.

I smiled at him. "You don't have to."

I told him that I wanted to shave my head, and he looked at me wide eyed. "Why?"

After stuttering and staring at my feet for a few seconds, I told him. "I have something called Trichotillomania. I pull my hair out, and I'm trying to beat it. Hopefully, this works."

He seemed thrilled to be cutting my hair. We made small talk the entire time he was shaving the back of my head. Then he looked at me in the mirror, razor in hand, and asked if I was ready. I took a deep breath and nodded, then felt it drag over the middle of my scalp. Clumps of hair fell into my lap. At first, it was horrifying. I had to tell myself to just stay in the chair. Don't run.

Then my bangs were gone, and it felt like light shined on my face for the first time. I hate to sound cliche, but I felt free. It was an intense experience, like I finally came out of hiding, or got a drink of water while stranded in the desert.

I paid the barber and thanked him a few too many times, then went home and stared at my new hair, or lack thereof.

I'm not telling everyone to shave their heads or anything like that. I would, however, like for everyone to stop hiding. Follow your gut. If you've got a problem that you think is weird, stop being ashamed and do something about it. Embrace it. Make it part of you. Love it.

I would not be the person I am today without my array of issues, trich included. Now, I'm not exactly looking forward to a lifetime of urges to pull (Trichotillomania is usually chronic), but this was a learning experience, and I am looking forward to a lifetime of those.

So what if I'm the weird girl at school now? People have stared at me for my hair for years. Nothing is changing in that capacity. If people think I'm a freak for shaving my head, then they're obviously not looking at the big picture.

I did this to help myself, not anyone else.

No matter who you are or what you do, you are not weird or awkward or a freakshow. Everyone's got problems. It's just that no one admits to them.