Trichotillomania
Hi, I'm new here! I'm just wondering if anyone has had any experience with trichotillomania. I'm 28 and have been pulling my hair out since I was about 13.
I've had depression & anxiety most of my life, so I know the pulling goes hand-in-hand with that. I've been to numerous counsellors/hypnotherapists about my depression & anxiety, but only really mentioned the hair pulling to a few - probably out of shame I've never really spoken properly about it. My boyfriend knows about it, but apart from him I've never really told anybody about it. I think there's definitely a lot of shame that goes with pulling as it doesn't really feel like a widely recognised disorder.
I pull from all over my head, not in any specific place on my head, so it's even if that makes sense - if you saw me you probably wouldn't think I did it, but my hair used to be really thick and would take me a long time to dry, now it barely takes any time at all - I can see the difference and to me it's massive, which really affects my self-esteem.
Last year I started a chart where I would make a tally chart whenever I pulled. Whenever there were days that I didn't pull I'd draw a star. It seems very simple but it definitely worked - however I didn't keep it up and started doing it again after a month or two.
I know the most important thing is to treat the cause itself rather than treating the effect (Trich) - does that make sense? I'm just really finding it difficult to know where to go from here, because if I continue to pull it's really going to get much worse. It's really hard to imagine living a life without pulling at the moment.
Any advice/experience would be greatly appreciated, thank you!
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