an ever-so-slight trichotillomania

severely elevated | very elevated | moderately elevated | slightly elevated | HUNKY DORY! | slightly depressed | moderately depressed | deeply depressed | severe depressed || anx : 0| agit : 0

I just visited the blog of a trichotillomaniac, i.e., a person who has the habit of pulling out her hair (Normally I would place a link to a site that I cite, but I'm not sure she wouldn't mind, so I decided against it this time).

It's quite interesting - for me, at least - to read other people's musings on their own flavor of psychosis, especially those who have conditions similar to mine. Aside from the fact that I am amused by how another person's thoughts could mirror mine, I find it comforting that I am not alone. In this particular case, I am reminded of another little beastie in my menagerie.

Anyway, back to the blog I was talking about. I like how the lady described her condition on her home page: trichotillomania is often seen as an impulse control disorder, but what it actually is is a manifestation of obsessive-compulsive disorder. I take this in and tell myself that that makes perfect sense.

I had a season of a trichotillomania of sorts, when I was a teenager. It didn't get to the point where I was balding, but I did have a semi-bald spot at the top of my head; the spot wasn't so obvious if I parted my hair a certain way, but it was visible enough for people to point it out to me. I remember seeing that thinning patch in a photograph and thinking, "Omg, they're right.. oh no, I'm repulsive!".

The hair-pulling started when I was much younger and simply became more frequent in the teen years. What usually triggers it is a sense that all is not right, the kind of frustrated feeling I get when I touch my hair and notice that it isn't half as nice as I want it to be. For some subconscious reason, I projected my apprehensions onto my hair. Whenever my fingertips feltthe tiniest bit of deviation in my tresses - a slight kink, a misbehaved wave - I knew that pulling out the offending strand/s would make things better. But as natural hair goes, there were always deviant strands, and I always had several to uproot. I even had this sick satisfaction in seeing that I had uprooted a lot of evil hair - that somehow gave me a sense that all will now be better. I did it not because I wanted to, but because I had to. If I didn't, all will not be right.

It's not a problem of impulse control. It's an excessive itch to flatten out the feeling that all is not right.

Finally, one day, I had one of those artist fits and had my hair cropped really, really short - as in, one inch all over. I decided that I could go for a punk / nonconforming artist /modern woman look. Besides, I just got so sick of my stubborn hair, it was time to subjugate it. Keeping it that short had other benefits aside from the cool factor: it prevented me from doing any pulling, at the same time it made my hair appear thin all over so it kinda camouflaged the balding spot.

I suppose that drastic haircut marked the decline of my version of trichotillomania. I haven't been pulling my hair that obsessively and that massively since.

I realize now that the hair-pulling was simply reincarnated into other OC behavior, such as compulsive tooth-brushing, obsessive hand-sanitizing, and so on (This is in addition to my still-consistent, from-childhood-and-never-went-away OCB's like lock-checking, cleaning, rubbing and so on).

I still engage in hair-pulling every now and then as an adult - in fact, I must admit that though I do not have an unattractive bald spot, I right now have a few ultrashort strands on my thickly-covered crown. I manage to stop the pulling by reminding myself of the patch of scalp I spotted in an old photograph of me. I tell myself that I wouldn't want to be a fat, ugly bald old lady.

I realize it has also helped if I set aside a budget for regular hair treatments - it teaches my tresses to more or less behave, and thus somewhat lessens the all is not right feeling. Still the best cure against my hair-pulling it is to not allow myself to be idle.