Trichotillomania and me

Post three in day one and I am still yet to talk about how trich and dermatillomania affect my life. Actually, I don't think they do affect my life to such a degree that they prevent me from doing anything. I guess, reading other websites and forums that they should, but they don't. I don't hide myself away from society, and I don't see why anyone should. Unfortunately, there is a lot of misunderstanding about our conditions (see previous posts), and some people do find the need to hide away. I think that my condition is more embarrassing for those around me than it is for myself, and for that I do feel a little guilty.

I do not remember a point in my life where I wasn't picking skin. When I was a very small child I remember being told off for constantly chewing the skin around my fingernails (I have never been a nail bitter however). I'd pick and chew at the skin until it became sore and bloody. Once the scabs were hardened, I'd chew and pick them off. My Grandma once said that she did the same and thought that we did it because we lived in a hard water area, though I am still to work out the logic behind that one.

When I was about six, I decided that it might be a good idea if I started to eat the skin I was chewing off. My reasoning at that time, and with no understanding of biology, was that if I ate the skin it would help more grow back in its place. From there, things went from bad to worse. If I fell over I would pick and eat the bloody scabs from my knees. If the skin on my fingers or toes was hard, I'd chew it off and swallow it down. I've been eating skin and scabs now for 24 years and I can't stop. I never thought of it as a negative condition, just something that I do.

As time went on, I began to think of more and more ways to be able to get my skin in a condition ripe for picking and eating. I would burst blisters with a needle and leave it a few days for hard skin to form. That provides a good chew and isn't at all painful to pick off. Sometimes you can go a little too far or deep and that's pretty nasty for a few minutes. I'd also sew the the hard skin on my fingers together and pull the cotton through so the skin would rip easily. I haven't done this in quite a few years and I want to make it very clear, here and now, that I have never been a cutter.

I still, to this day, pick and eat at skin. In recent years, and I think due to my trich, I tend to pick my scalp and eat the small scab wounds. I like when the scab starts to form and I can get this little hard, sticky ball of plasma/blood. That sticks your teeth together when you chew it. I know it sounds as though I do this as some sort of premeditated action, but it's usually not until I am chewing away that I notice what I am doing.

With regards to good old Trich, I can pin point the start of that. I started picking/pulling (I prefer to say "picking" as that is how we have always referred to my action) when I was sixteen. I had just moved to a different area and I guess it was a very stressful time. However, the roots to this started a few years before when my mother found some grey hairs start to grow amidst my dark brown locks and she would pull them out for me. Anyway, my journey into Trichotillomania began when I found some really curly, wiry hairs and pulled them out. From that point I became addicted to finding those types of hairs and removing them to play with them.

A few weeks after we moved, I made friends with a girl (who is still a very dear friend) and she noticed me picking in class. She said that she did the same and would always be delighted when she pulled a root out with her hair. She said she would stick the hair, by the sticky root, onto her bedroom wall. I'd started to pull the roots by this point and was also obsessed by the stickiness of them. As I obviously have an oral fixation with eating my skin, I thought I would try to eat the root...and that is when my Trichophagia began. My hair pulling quest had developed from finding that perfect, wiry hair to finding the best root to chew on.

My behaviour developed very quickly, to a point where it became uncontrollable. From starting off with me being aware of what I was doing, it quickly became a case of me just finding my hands in my scalp, pulling out strand after strand. My parents began to notice what I was doing, as did a lot of my friends. Initially, I would ask people to make me aware of when I was picking and to make me stop. That didn't work as I started to become very irate with anyone who told me to stop. Along with that, it turned me into a devious picker, trying to find a place to escape from the eyes of others when I felt the urge to pick come on.

By the time I was eighteen I had began to develop some bald patches on the left hand side of my scalp and on my crown. As a right handed person, the left hand side became my favourite pick location as I was picking usually as I was writing in class. However, I made sure my spots were not too visable, doing it under the top few layers of hair (I have very thick hair). The crown became really short and weird looking, to the point that it almost looked as though I had a semi mullet! Having fairly long hair, I'd wear my hair up very high to try and hid the mess I was making.

I've been a Trichster now for over 14 years and I know that there is no cure. I accept that and I know that this is something I have to live with for the rest of my life. My partner is supportive of me and does his best to make me aware of when I am picking. Being a puller, I get pissy at him for telling me. He has tried to get me to do other things when he catches me, but that makes me resent doing certain things as I see them as punishment for something that I find very hard to control. I know he gets really embarrassed when he catches me picking in public as people tend to stare at us, and I do get really upset that I make him feel like that. I know he must also get pissed that he constantly has to walk over a hair carpet, though he never says anything.

I have been lucky in that my picking hasn't caused me to have to wear a wig or hat constantly. One thing that it has done is turn my hair white prematurely. I didn't know until yesterday that Trich was the reason for this happening to me. I started growing dreads a few years ago in hopes that would help me stop (as well as looking pretty damn cool). It didn't. I now have another trich obsession in finding loose hairs in my dreads with dried out roots. I always get a high when I find one of these hairs and chew on the root. My hair is a mess because of the picking, but at least I'm not actually picking the hair from the root so much anymore. I suggest, if you can stand them, getting dreads. Don't be fooled by the myths, you can wash your hair with them (I do every day) and they don't harbour bugs. It won't stop the picking, but it will help if my experience is anything to go by.

So, there you go. That's me. If anyone wants to talk about it then leave a message below.

I'll leave you for now with a word of advice, there's a lot of sites out there offering five minute Trich cures. Don't believe them. One post said that someone was picking when they entered the site and never picked again after perusing the site for a couple of minutes (and after paying for their online "therapy"). It's a pile of crap placed online from people who want to make a profit out of a problem.