It's Trich-y Is The Title

The reason I don't do
no-makeup selfies right now

Ever since I can remember I've pulled out my hair. It used to be my head hair. No matter what I did, I couldn't stop myself. Somewhere between ages 8 and 12 (I honestly don't remember the exact time) I had a large bald spot on the top of my head. My family was stumped. I was often reprimanded for this impulse I could not control, once being asked "What's next, your eyelashes? And then what? Eyebrows? If you run out of hair on your face will you start pulling out someone elses?" After a few years I quit pulling out the hair on my head, my bald spot was gone, and it wasn't really brought up again.

Then I hit adulthood. I moved out on my own, my anxiety became worse and worse, and I started pulling out my hair again. This time, however, I wasn't hiding clumps of hair under my mattress, I was pulling out my eyebrows, bit by bit, examining each hair, feeling weird relief in this tiny behavior. After a while I started going after my eyelashes as well. And again, I couldn't (and still can't) stop myself from doing it. I try. I try really hard. Sometimes I realize what I'm doing and I stop. Other times I don't realize until its too late and I only have half an eyebrow, or I have a large gap in my brows, or I have no eyelashes left (see photo).

What I have is a classic case of trichotillomania. For those of you who don't know what this is, I'll do some defining. Trichotillomania is a disorder characterized by the irresistible urge to pull out ones hair. It often has great social impacts as most people with trich end up with bald patches or noticeable hair loss and have anxiety about going into public as a result of it. Before the days of filling in your eyebrows and the sudden popularity of falsies, I had a super hard time being around people after an episode. I was very aware of just how much eyebrow I didn't have, because I would try to hide it (to no avail) and because my family would often point it out to me. Because they never really understood that I literally couldn't stop myself from pulling out my hair, my very embarrassing disorder was almost treated like a joke. I don't hold any bitterness in my heart over this. It wasn't until recently that I even knew that this was a disorder, how were they supposed to know?

My brand of trich is automatic. I do it without thinking, when I'm doing brainless activities like playing on my phone or watching television. But like most people with trichotillomania, it also comes with a ritual. Pull out the hair, examine the hair, put it in a pile on a light colored object so I can see my collection grow. Bonus points if the root comes out as well. If someone walks in on this I hide my little pile of eyebrows or eyelashes, immediately embarrassed that I've been caught doing something that I repeatedly got into trouble for as a child.

The fun part is that there are a lot of different reasons as to why a person may have trich. It is classified as a mental health disorder but no one is really sure what causes it. It is closely linked to anxiety, depression, and OCD, but is not caused by any of those things. The fact that I have anxiety and depression, however, definitely relate to my trich. I'm most prone to pull hair when I'm feeling especially stressed, and often will pull out my eyelashes specifically during depressive episodes (btw, not having eyelashes is no fun. I get A LOT of shit in my eyes).

Anxiety and depression are also linked to excoriation (skin-picking disorder, formerly known as dermatillomania) which is another fun thing that I do that I'll talk about later but I bring up because lately now that I've got no eyebrows or eyelashes to pull, I've moved to tweezing out my leg hairs and picking at my skin to better get at my leg hair. Because of this I have permanent damage to the tissue on my legs, and some awesome scarring that I hide whenever possible. Last weekend was the first time I wore a dress or skirt without tights since February, when my trich and excoriation got really bad.

I go to a lot of therapy now, because I'm still classified as a suicide risk (don't worry, I'm sticking around). However, part of that therapy lately has been focused on trying to find the underlying issue to my hair pulling (if there is one) and helping me recognize my urges without acting on them. However, as anyone with an impulse control disorder can tell you, that's fucking hard as shit.

Life with trichotillomania is hard. But life is hard in general for most people. But I've promised myself I'll be honest with myself and my friends from now on and admitting to this is part of that honesty.

I have trichotillomania. Thank god for eyebrow pencils and falsies.



Alexis Olmstead is a 20something barista living and working in Seattle, Washington. For more updates on her mental health journey (or sometimes random rants) check back often. 

Also her bff Chris just put out an EP and it's super good. You can get it for $5 here: https://www.mkt.com/theuptown4/item/chris-taylor-nostalgia-ep (Alexis did not get paid to advertise for this and will recieve no profits)