It occurs at random — or at least I thought so.
There are moments that you think you’re fine... But then something sets you off. Something crawls back up from the depths that you've been keeping it in. That "something" is all the emotions I feel at once.
There are days where I want to avoid mirrors completely but doing my makeup is easy; it's quick and I thoroughly enjoy doing it.
When I do find a mirror, I tend to get very close to it so that I can try to find something — anything — that seems wrong.
It doesn’t feel like I'm in control of my hands when it strikes. They graze my eyebrows and eyelashes, looking for any imperfections.
In these moments, I am able to forget about anything that bothers me.
I suffer from trichotillomania. It shares many symptoms with obsessive-compulsive disorder, but it involves the pulling of one's own hair. It can involve any hair found on the body, but I specifically pick at my eyelashes and eyebrows. Occurring more frequently in females, it is estimated that 1%-2% of adults and adolescents suffer from trichotillomania. The disorder can be difficult to pinpoint because it can occur at random.
It took me many years to realize that I had this disorder. It started around the same time that I started high school, but I can't recall an event that triggered it. I remember not thinking that it was a big deal at the time. It started slowly. I got annoyed by the eyelashes that I could see in my peripheral vision, so I would pull them out. I thought that what I was doing was fine. I still had a full set of lashes on me.
As I progressed through high school, I noticed that it became a daily routine to attempt to pluck an eyelash out a few times each week. Again, I never felt that I was doing anything wrong at the time. But one time, I remember being so stressed that I sat in front of a mirror and obsessed over which eyelash looked "ready" to be plucked. Strangely enough, I didn't just pluck any old eyelash. I was picky. Any eyelash that didn’t look right or stuck out to me was fair game. That day, I was horrified at the monster I had become. Most of my eyelashes were gone and I had to look at my bald, red eyelids when I passed any mirror in school.
When all of this started to get worse, my family noticed. “You need to stop doing that,” they would say to me. These things didn’t help. Reminding me how ugly or weird I would look without eyelashes didn't stop me. In fact, it just created more stress.
To save my eyelashes, I left them alone for a month, covering them in medicine to help them grow back. That’s when my next obsession occurred: My eyebrows. When staring at the mirror, I had to force myself to not touch my eyes. One day, as I was staring into the mirror, my eyes flicked up to my eyebrows. "Imperfections. Things to do," I would say to myself.
Just like my eyelashes, I didn’t think anything was wrong. Eventually, it escalated to the point that my eyebrows were almost gone. I was embarrassed and I fell into a period of depression where I didn’t like what I saw.
A few years ago, I searched online for what I had and was surprised to see many men and women sharing their same experiences. All of them have had different triggers that made them pick. Each person explained specific areas of hair they would pick and why. I finally didn’t feel like a freak — but now I had something not a lot of people have.
When people ask about trichotillomania and what the experience is like, I describe it as immense emotions of tension, stress, and anxiety. The process of looking for a hair to pull is the beginning of feeling better. Then once the hair is pulled out, there is a temporary sense of relief and pain. The pain doesn’t drive a person to stop, however.
A few days ago before I wrote this, I mindlessly walked to a mirror and picked. It wasn’t until the third eyelash that I realized what I was doing. I'm worried. I was doing very well for awhile and my lashes have grown back. The scariest part is that it comes at random. I'll be stressed, bored, or anxious. Or, in some cases, I'll just do it without thinking because it's a habit.
After years of enduring this, it still hasn’t stopped. While writing, I had this urge to pick the eyelash that I could see out of the corner of my eye. I stayed strong and didn’t touch it. I am slowly leaning towards therapy, but I'm not sure when that will be.
So until then, I will continue to live this constant hell that has taken over my life.
