When I was about halfway through my seventh-grade year, I started pulling out the hairs of my eyebrows. I vividly remember sitting on my bed, working on homework, and reaching up to touch my eyebrows before thinking, “I wonder if I could just... pull one out." The thought came to me pretty much out of nowhere, and when I did it, it felt almost relaxing. I had always been a very hard-working student and was generally stressed out whenever I was studying or working on homework because I felt the need to do everything perfectly. For whatever reason, pulling out one of my hairs seemed to help ease that stress. Little did I know, I had just set off what has now been a six-year-long journey with trichotillomania, a disorder that causes one to pull out their hair.
Trichotillomania is a type of disorder classified as a Body-Focused Repetitive Behavior or BFRB. BFRBs are not simply habits or nervous tics — they are much more complex and often have to be treated with therapy or medication. Nail-biting is perhaps the most well-known BFRB, but other BFRBs include dermatillomania, which is a condition that causes sufferers to pick at their skin uncontrollably and often leads to bleeding and scarring in the affected area. Trichotillomania (often referred to simply as “trich") affects all individuals differently — I have only met a couple of other people who suffer from it, and they range from pulling only their scalp hair to pulling from their lashes, brows, and scalp. It is unknown what causes the condition, but it often manifests itself during pre-teen to early teenage years, and most people who have it or any other BFRB typically deal with it their whole lives after it has begun.
As a child, I always had prominent eyebrows (something I am incredibly envious of today). For the first few months after I started pulling, it wasn't too noticeable. My family and friends probably noticed that there were a couple of sparse patches in my brows, but likely assumed it was just due to some accidental overzealous tweezing. Since my brows had always been so thick, my mom had started tweezing and shaping them for me when I was only about 11 or 12 years old. Looking back on it now, I think that me being more aware of them from a young age is one of the reasons why that's the only place I pull from.
Having trich, as with any BFRB, is not easy. My parents were often frustrated at me in the earlier days because it seemed like a bad habit that I should be able to break myself of. I grew extremely self-conscious about my appearance, something that I had never really felt before. I kept buying fidget toys, and my parents started whistling at me when they saw me touching my brows.
None of this worked, though, and I spent many hours in front of a mirror wondering how I had become this freak, and why I couldn't just be strong enough to stop.
Kids, having pretty much no filter or social skills, would come up to me and ask what happened to my eyebrows. Any teenagers or adults I met would always glance slightly above my eyes before looking into them, and I knew what they were thinking.
One day, I finally looked into this “habit" to see if it was something that anyone else was dealing with. Sure enough, I found resources and articles on trich almost immediately and realized that it's not a habit at all. It's a mental disorder, one that causes physical change, distress, and/or pain, and is often classified as a type of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
It was honestly a huge relief to see that I wasn't the only one going through this, but realizing that it would likely be something I deal with my whole life was difficult to come to terms with. This was a truth that was even harder to communicate with my family and friends. Over time, though, they have learned to accept that this will be a lifelong battle and that it's just a manifestation of my mental health issues and part of me. Even if I overcome it one day, I will always carry with me the person I was with it.
I have met few other people with BFRBs, and most people I know still don't realize that my bald brows aren't just from an accident or nervous habit.
I truly hope that these disorders become more normalized, and represented in the media in an honest and positive light because they are nothing to be ashamed of. I think that my younger self would be surprised to see how much more comfortable I am in my skin today, because, while having to draw on my eyebrows every morning isn't ideal, it's also not the end of the world.
Some days will be harder than others, especially right now (to anyone managing a BFRB during these times: be gentle with yourself), but I know that I am doing my best, I know that tomorrow is a new day to get it right, and I know that I am beautiful just the way I am.
