I have trichitillomania and a skin picking disorder. I feel like I started improving in the summer holidays but as school started just this week I can’t stop myself. Although I haven’t pulled my eyebrows yet which is my main problem I have been picking my lips and can’t stop. My trichitillomania also started at school, because I don’t have anything to do in lessons.are there any good fidgets,they have to be quiet and small for school? Thanks

My hair is getting ever greasier and I really want to stop but I can't
every time I shower I tell myself "okay, no more pulling because your hair's all nice and neat" but I do it anyways
and now it isn't even nice and neat anymore because it's just SO greasy
what to do

I have recently heard of trich and I am wondering if I might have it or if my behaviours are relatively common? I often pluck hairs on my body such as my stomach and public hairs. I find it so addictive and I can’t stop myself unless I have gotten out all the hairs that are bothering me (usually dark, thick looking hairs) i do this most nights.. I don’t pull out hair on my head however if I am feeling extremely overwhelmed and frustrated, I do grab my hair with both hands automatically and tug at the root (I don’t even think about it, it just happens) but not to the point where I have ripped any hair out but it does give me a sense of release.. I always feel guilty and embarrassed after I have done that though.

Any thoughts and opinions are welcome! Thank you x

Just got this compression beanie in the mail. It feels pretty good on my head so far. A little on the pricey side in my opinion. I usually wear a normal beanie to deter my pulling but that hasn’t been as effective lately. I’m hoping the extra squeeze and the lighter material will be helpful.

I have been mostly free of using my hair as an anxiety release, but recently had a traumatic incident and struggled not to at least twist/ twirl it. My 2 year old has started emulating me... he also picks at things quite a bit like healing scabs, peeling paint, that kind of thing. Breaks my heart to think I've given him anxiety either genetically or through observed behavior. Any advice? Favorite young toddler fidget ideas?

Gosh I’ve been dealing with trich since I was in 1st grade. I’m 29 now almost and sometimes I can get a good control over it. Recently there have been some HUGE stressors in my life and I have nearly ripped half of the hair on the crown of my head, right down in a line. One half with hair the other not lol. Does anyone else chase the bloody ones? Those have such a distinct sharp pain at first and then still kind of ache a bit after but it feels stupid good in the moment.

I shave my head and usually that stops the urge because I can’t pull with my fingers. But I also pull from my chin with tweezers and have discovered I can still pull my hair with tweezers even if I shave on the lowest setting nearly to my scalp.

I know I need to hide my tweezers somewhere or have someone do it for me. But I get so incredibly, horribly anxious, if I cannot pull a hair out I’ve been focusing on, especially on my chin where I can feel the little stubbles coming in. It feels like constant static energy making my brain feel fuzzy if I can’t get them or am resisting the urge.

Usually after I pull I can just shave my head and forgive myself instead of beating myself up over it. But man I’ve done a number this time. It’s getting to the level of when I was in college and ripped out all the hair on the crown of my head.

This mess is so hard to break…

I’m an Australian Therapist with Trich

Hello! My name is Katie Parker and I’m an Australian Psychologist with lived experience of trichotillomania and other body focussed repetitive behaviours.

I’d love to start working with the trich community and I’m currently taking new clients for appointments on Fridays. I’m based in Perth but can provide online video sessions Australia-wide.

Whether you want to work on trich specifically or any other concerns, please check out my profile on Psychology Today to see whether you think we’d be a good fit.

In the interest of confidentiality, rather than commenting on this thread, please reach out to me directly via email if you have questions.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/counselling/katie-parker-bedford-wa/1362522

Salut !

Connaissez-vous un bon dermato sur Paris ou dans le 95/93 ?

Merci d’avance.

Bon courage à tous.

hi, i’ve been pulling my hair out since i’ve been in the second grade. i want to stop, but there’s been moments where i’ve just lost all hope. i’ve always pulled kind of differently though and i wanted to see if anyone could relate or recommend ways of stopping. It’s a compulsive thing, like i don’t really notice when im pulling and when i do pull, i don’t pull from the root. Instead, I tie a knot in my hair, big or small until i am able to pull it out causing me to break my hair. I usually play with the knot in my hand for a bit before tying a new one. I’ve tried fidget, string and finger guards but nothing seems to work. My hair is uneven and it makes me extremely self conscious.

Hi all! I have suffered with trich for a while, and randomly whilst scrolling I came across this product - I had no idea it existed until today and in case anyone else hadn’t also seen, this could be very useful for some of us. Just wanted to share! 😊✨

What is one piece of advice you’d give to someone who is at the beginning of their BFRB (body-focused repetitive behavior) journey? I’ve been pulling out hair since I was twelve, so I’ve been dealing with this for a really long time. Once I understood what was going on with it a few years later, I wished that someone who had been in my shoes could have shared some words of wisdom with me. I didn’t get that. But since I’m an adult now, I have my own words of wisdom. My message is this: There is nothing wrong with you. You are not alone in this. You are not dumb or stupid or incapable. There is something in your brain that makes it feel impossible to stop, like it’s completely out of your control, but with the right tools, you can manage it and sometimes even stop completely. However, that takes hard work and dedication, so you’ll have to push yourself. However, you are stronger than this. Have faith that you will be fine no matter what and can make a great life for yourself as you heal. Stay strong, lovely soul.

ive been pulling my hair (scalp) for 7ish years. i cannot seem to stop, i feel very hopeless and defeated. what are some ways that can help? thank you

I’m 28F and I started pulling at 11. I stopped in 2014 after finally being medicated for bipolar. And now I’m a whole adult and I’m in such a good place in my life. But tonight, I noticed that familiar feeling of one single hair being out of place. Then I felt my head and there a small circle of hair that is so PAINFUL and it feels like my only relief would be ripping the spot out. It actually feels swollen even tho I got someone to look and they said the hair looks normal and healthy. Am I the only one who can feel a texture difference from the healthy side of my head to the pulling burning section. This is a feeling that has become strange over the years. I need to feel the dopamine rush from getting the exact right hair out. I’m currently holding an ice cube to the spot I want to pull. Anyone got solutions to stop a relapse before it begins fully?

i am new to this sub, having found it in the comments of a different post, but it instantly caught my interest.

since i was a baby (i have a favorite photo of 2 year old me in my twirling pose) i have twisted my hair into knots and pulled the knots out after being formed. my friends joke they know i’ve slept over when they find “hairy souvenirs” on the ground. while forming the knot, i like to intermittently flick my hair with my fingernails so i can hear the ‘chickchick’ and scraping sounds it makes. i have 4c hair, so the texture adds to the experience but makes knots inevitable. i cut my hair short two years ago, but beforehand i sometimes liked to smell and chew on the hairknots when it was long enough to span my face. i don’t like to fall asleep without picking out the knots i’ve twisted.

it has resulted in lifelong hair loss. i’ve accumulated 3 large balls of knotted hair which i imagine would be larger if the hair was unknotted, my hair is breakage-prone and weak in places because of the strain from pulling, and paired with my curl shrinkage, it makes for an very uneven afro.

i hesitate to call this trichotillomania because from what i gather that typically involves hair being plucked and targeted rather than knotted and torn off, but is that what this behavior is?

Hello, lovely souls, and happy Friday! I just wanted to share a short quote with you.

John Green says, "There is hope, even when your brain tells you there isn’t." I know life gets really frustrating at times and it feels like our struggles aren't going to end. It's hard to see that light at the end of the tunnel, to see ourselves in our true potential. No matter what you're going through right now, there's hope. If you want to write that down on a piece of paper and post it where you'll see it every day, do it.

Know that there are good things that are coming and that you have all you need. Yes, life is hard, but it doesn't have to be that way. Give yourself a hug, play with a pet, go outside for some sunshine, read a book, or do anything else that makes you happy and get your mind out of that gutter we all get to sometimes. Do this when you notice yourself picking or pulling and get out of that trance for a while (I know that's easier said than done, but the more you do it, the easier it becomes). Get outside of yourself for a while so you can get a new perspective. Start looking for solutions instead of more problems. You have nothing to lose, so get that body in gear!

Today, I woke up with a headache that I had yesterday. I have this lingering pain on my right eyebrow and cheek. But I'm working through the pain by focusing on something that makes me happy - my Skool community. I'm transforming this ickiness into something that can help others, and as I do, I notice the pain is dissipating. Sometimes a positive distraction is just what you need to give yourself some hope that things can get better, and eventually it will.

If you need to rant or rave, my inbox is always open, and you have this thread too. Let's go through this together. You are not alone.

Researchers at the University of Oxford are looking for young people (aged 13-18) all over the world who pull hair from anywhere on their body to complete a short (~15min) online study. Taking part in this research will help us learn more about the way that young people who hair-pull feel.  If you complete this survey, you can enter a prize draw to win an Amazon voucher. To begin, scan the QR code or follow this link: https://oxfordxpsy.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9ouNMxZ7vg7ot82.

I feel the need to share this because it’s the only thing that has helped me and alleviated a good portion of my symptoms.

I’ve suffered with trich since 2009, it got the point I’d pull out so much hair there would be a pile on my bed. I had bald patch the size of my palm on the top back of my head where I pulled resulting in loss of confidence and the need to always wear a hat, which made it worse really.

I also have a habit of playing with or twisting/ breaking off ends of my hair, resulting in loss of length. My natural hair very fine so this was detrimental.

Two years ago I made the decision to get hand tied hair extensions and two years in I can confidently say it changed my life. It improved my self confidence which in turn helped reduce pulling. Though my hair regrowth has been obvious and still hard to hide the last two years it’s finally long enough that they sit flat and don’t stick up.

Extensions are extremely expensive but this disease is debilitating and I can confidently say with 100% certainty it’s changed my life. Now my natural hair is the longest it’s been in years and I am shocked. It’s still a journey and work in progress but I highly recommend anyone struggling to consider hand tied hair extensions. Adding length to my hair (18-22 inches) also helped stop me from playing with the ends or pulling it and if I did it was the extension hair and not my own, which doesn’t really matter. I feel the combination of having more length and weaning myself down from my constant fiddling and pulling of my own hair and instead the extensions helps my hair growth dramatically. I’m still not perfect but I see a huge change. I feel less desire to pull now that my regrowth is long enough that I don’t feel the wind on my bald patch anymore which seemed to only increase my desire to pull. Also highly recommend toppik hair building fibre to help hide any patches. This combination has changed my life. I also have been using Rogaine and see an improvement you can get it at Costco for cheap

Feel free to ask any questions below.

Do you pull your hair? Researchers at the University of Oxford are looking for young people (aged 13-18) all over the world who pull hair from anywhere on their body to complete a short (~15min) online study. Taking part in this research will help us learn more about the way that young people who hair-pull feel.  If you complete this survey, you can enter a prize draw to win an Amazon voucher. To begin, scan the QR code or follow this link: https://oxfordxpsy.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9ouNMxZ7vg7ot82.

Hello, beautiful souls! I’m Kristin and I’m a forty-something who has had trichotillomania since the age of twelve. I would like to share my story about trichotillomania, dermatillomania, anxiety and depression and how it all came to play into my life. I hope you are in a comfortable seat! It's a long one!

It started because I was bullied from second grade on, and pulling my eyelashes, eyebrows and body hair became a coping mechanism. The worst of my bullies were in elementary school and ninth grade. At twelve years old, I grabbed my mom’s tweezers one day and yanked away at my eyebrows. I don’t remember now the exact damage I did. I do remember my parents’ anger and disbelief, though. I had no idea the seriousness of what I had done or that it would spiral that would haunt me all the way into my adult years.

Sadly, my parents didn’t know how to deal with my hair pulling disorder and so I got into trouble all the time. They seemed to think I was pulling and picking as a sort of misbehavior. I even tried explaining it in a letter to my mother to no avail. She acted like she never saw it. Instead, I continued to get in trouble every time I pulled. I was constantly punished by being made to stay at home and clean whatever they asked of me, and I regularly got yelled and cursed at by my dad. I hated the dining room because my parents would take me in there to “talk” about the pulling.

When we moved, our “talks” changed to a different room but I don’t remember now which one. I used to call my dad the enforcer and my mom the cowardly lion because she’d go straight to my dad if she noticed I’d pulled out my eyelashes and eyebrows again. Then my dad would crack down on me with another punishment and more yelling. I lost count of how many times my mom would stare at my face instead of looking me in the eye when she talked to me. 

Of course, I ended up developing anxiety and depression from dealing with the bullying by my classmates, abuse by my parents and my hair pulling disorder. But regardless, I put myself through college and earned a bachelor’s degree in elementary education to become a teacher. I was the first to graduate college between my sisters and me. If only I could have “graduated” from my mental health adversities. 

For years, I thought that moving out of my parents’ home would solve the problem of pulling and picking, but that wasn’t the case. Independence only made it more difficult than I could have ever imagined. I was completely on my own and I didn’t have the skills I needed to survive in the real world. I barely knew the basics. I think my life revolved around my mental adversities and I didn’t see much outside of that. The importance of working a consistent job with good pay didn’t even occur to me, my mindset was THAT bad.

However, I joined the Navy, as I felt it was the only way to get out of my hometown, away from my parents and away from the mental health crap. I was wrong. I got out after a year and three months because of my anxiety and depression. Then I began to spiral as I worked my way out of a toxic relationship, bounced around homes and then finally went down the rabbit hole of homelessness. No, I was never an addict of any sort, but it felt like it with the way my parents treated me. Everything I did was wrong. I didn’t know how to move forward and be a hard-working member of society. The Navy was the closest I had ever gotten up to that point. 

I’d like to stop here and say that at this point, my mental health adversities were all I knew. Therapy could have probably helped, but it was sketchy from my point of view. I didn’t trust myself, let alone other people. Not with the way my parents talked to me and the rest of my family too. I’d talked to a couple of psychologists and a therapist to no avail. Maybe it just didn’t make sense then but I felt as helpless in their office as I did outside of it, and I didn’t stick with it. So nothing changed. I knew nothing about how to help myself. If I talked about it, I was told all sorts of discouraging things like I wasn’t trying hard enough, etc. That’s definitely not how you talk to someone with mental health stuff. Their words didn’t help. It pulled me deeper in the abyss.

Sidenote: In August 2013, I had my daughter. I gave birth to her in the midst of the homelessness. I tried my hardest to get out of it, but I just couldn’t manage it. Eventually, I moved to a shelter with my daughter. My social worker there talked me into getting help for my depression while my parents watched her, but they were in Florida while I was in Virginia. He actually lied to them to make the situation seem worse than it had been. They were supposed to give my daughter back to me, but because they thought I was a bad person, they ended up keeping her. Eventually they got custody (which was supposed to be guardianship), then moved to terminate my rights and adopt her after years of expressing I wanted her back. That was all finalized in November 2022, but I didn’t find out until February of the following year. The situation with my daughter has been a hellish journey of its own. Add that to my depression, anxiety and depression and it makes for a lot of heartache I never saw coming.

But let’s back up a bit. At the tail end of 2017, I moved to Virginia from Florida while I was in the Navy, but after five years, I moved to Ohio. Finally things began to change for the better. My first several months were not the best, but at this point, I’d been dabbling in mindfulness techniques since I had been pregnant with my daughter. It was a small help but it helped regardless. Meditating, yoga, journaling, hypnosis, the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) or tapping were the most helpful ones. I started to dig myself out little by little by leaning on these techniques.

After a year or so in Ohio, after I met my current fiance, I was finally experiencing life on a more normal level. And in the past few years, I have successfully addressed some of the root causes of my anxiety and depression that led to the hair pulling and skin picking. It all started to diminish to a point where I wasn’t pulling nearly as much and my eyelashes and eyebrows had (mostly) grown back. Hallelujah!

Excitingly, I discovered a three step process that leans on some of the mindfulness techniques I mentioned above. This process has helped me to stop the pulling and picking and has given my anxiety and depression the boot to you-know-where. Now I’m sharing this beautiful process in my own online community called Beacon of Light Wellness, where I have free resources in the form of learning modules, a discussion board, live question and answer sessions, and one on one coaching options. Soon there will be a program to teach this process in more detail.

This community is free to join! If you’d like to be added, the link is at the bottom of this post. You’ll be added to the community within twenty four hours, and new content is added regularly. Feel free to share the link with others who may also benefit from being a member. I look forward to being of service to you, lovely soul! Let’s stop pulling and picking together! They say it takes a village and Beacon of Light Wellness is that village!

Beacon of Light Wellness link: https://www.skool.com/kristin-harrison-7350 

Hello, My daughter has been managing trichotillomania for a couple of years. She’s going in to high school and seems extremely worried. I haven’t been very helpful and don’t know what to do because I don’t understand it. I have been in denial. I’m writing to ask if there are any decent books, websites, anything that gives insight to help rather than be another stressor? She is in therapy and trying medication but so far she’s been pulling even more. Her eyebrows are gone, no eyelashes and scabs on her leg. Eyelashes are hidden with lashes but when there are no eyebrows it’s hard to get that makeup right. I’m really worried and am not sure how to help. The articles on line are informative but don’t go in to how to support. Thank you very much.

I've pulled my top and bottom row of eyelashes, my eyebrows, my privates, a few of my leg hairs, and the hairline of my scalp which now has a bald spot underneath my bangs (all parts mentioned have bald spots if not completely bald). I only pull usually at the end of the day but the session goes on for at least and hour or until I'm tired out either physically with my arms hurting, or just mentally wanting to rest. I've been pulling these spots for around 4 months almost everyday and I just can't get myself to stop. the longest I've gone without pulling is 6 days and I always manage to end up doing it. I've pulled to the point where i think some hairs aren't growing back or are seriously ingrown because the black bulb part can be there but doesn't end up growing until I squish it out. and what makes it worse is I like pulling shorter hairs best so whenever the hair grows back I just pull it out again. where i pull i have small bumps from pulling the hair out (assuming it's caused by the skin raising with the hair coming out) and some hyperpigmentation along with scaring you would get from popping a pimple. I've tried stress toys, a stress toy specifically that pulls hair out, watching hair plucking videos, even plucking my moms unwanted hair, but none of them make that physical feeling of needing to pull something out of my skin go away. I just want my hair to be normal again and have the feeling of needing to pull stop please help!!!!!

For anyone on the east coast and wherever else pine saplings are sprouting by the thousands, what a wonderful sensory strategy 😂 pulling the saplings out is similar input that I crave due to the trich. Five stars, highly recommend.