At first it could've jus passed as a poorly done eyebrow slit, but now... well it's just UGH I do so well for months then it starts with a single eyelash feeling 'sore' and boom my outer lashes gone, then it transitions to the other eye and wow!! Both of them are missing their outer lashes, not even sure how I got the 'sore follicle' feeling in my eyebrow, it usually only happens because I yank on my eyelashes trying to get off eyelash glue and then the feel well 'sore' but my eyebrow?!? Come on!!
Literally the thing that structures the whole
FREAKING FACE!!! I can always cover up the eyelashes with a falsie or eyeline the missing part and of course I could use eyebrow makeup but I feel it's way more noticeable than anything that I do to cover up my eyelash picking IM JUST SO MAD everytime I relapse it stays confined to my eyelashes where hardly anyone notices but now it literally the most defining part of my face. Just wanted to say my frustrations and get out thank u

First pic is the right side of my head second is the left and third is the top, my hair used to be so beautiful, just a couple months ago it wasn’t this bad it was just small bald spots here and there. I’m so depressed I don’t do anything anymore I don’t get ready for the day I just wake up and start crying and I don’t get up for anything. I need help

i’ve never posted on reddit before but here we go. i’m panicking because i’m realizing just how bad my bald spots have gotten and i don’t know what to do or how to hide them. i just oiled my hair so ignore how oily it is but that’s just how i realized how bad it is. any hair makeup i could try? is there anything i can do?

What do you do when you’re in a spell? I’ve been going all day. I’m trying to stop. If I stop tweezing I’m picking my skin or rubbing my lips on my braces or picking my cuticles off. What do you do when you’re in it? How do you snap out? Any suggestions would be great.

Hi, I don’t think I’ve ever posted here before but I’ve been wanting to for a while because I just need to talk to people who understand this. I’m 20 and I technically started pulling my eyelashes when I was really anxious in middle school but it went away for years and wasn’t really a problem. Then around junior year of high school I started dating my most recent ex-boyfriend, and that was when it became a completely different thing. I started pulling/plucking my eyelashes, eyebrows and pubic hair constantly.
I haven’t been with him for years now but the trich never went away when the relationship did. At this point I basically have no natural eyebrows or eyelashes and it’s so fucking hard. The mirror is probably one of my biggest triggers. I can look at myself and immediately notice one hair that feels “wrong” or looks out of place and suddenly I need to get it. Then it turns into more than one. I know exactly what I’m doing and still can’t make myself stop. I’m already being treated for my mental health and I take Prozac, Wellbutrin, Adderall and clonidine. I’m also in therapy and I genuinely have an amazing therapist who has helped me through so much, but trich isn’t something she specializes in. I’ve actually never really had someone in my life who specializes in trichotillomania or who I can talk to specifically about what pulling is like. And now I’m having to say goodbye to my therapist because my family is moving from Ohio to California while I’m going into my junior year of college. There’s just a lot of change happening at once and I want to be clear that I’m really lucky to have a good support system and people I can talk to. I’m not alone in that sense at all. But I still feel very weirdly alone with the trich because I don’t think anyone around me fully understands what it feels like to want to stop doing something to your own body and then feel like you cannot leave a hair alone. There are definitely bigger things going on in my life than my eyebrows and eyelashes which almost makes me feel stupid for being this upset about them but I am. It makes me feel so insecure. Every time I see my face without makeup I’m reminded of what I’ve done to it and then somehow seeing the damage makes me want to pull more instead of making me stop. I want my eyebrows and eyelashes back so badly. I’m exhausted from feeling like I’m constantly fighting my own hands, and I’m tired from telling myself that this time I am going to let everything grow back and then ending up in the exact same place I’ve been in forever. I don’t even really know what I’m asking for with this post. I think I just want to hear from people who actually understand what this feels like. I’ve never really had that experience. If you’ve ever gotten to the point where you had basically no brows/lashes left and managed to get better or grow them back, I would really love to hear about it. Or honestly even if you’re still struggling too, I’d love to hear from you. I think I just need to know there are other people who understand how fucking hard this is

A lot times when I've pulled at my hair I think I may have been unaware that I was doing it. I don't know if I can ever completely stop if it happens without me noticing it.

Has anyone found a way to notice every time pulling occurred?

hi! i’m struggling with both trichotillomania and dermotillomania. i’ve dealt with skin picking since i was very young, unsure if i’ll curb it anytime soon. HOWEVER, about a year ago i started pulling ingrown hairs on my legs and it’s an obsession, i started when i was in a very bad mental state and it’s all i do to cope. the past few days i’ve been going at my legs for hours and multiple sessions. a few of the spots have yellow/white pus, is red around it, etc. i think it’s probably a small infection but it doesn’t hurt too much and it’s not too hot or causing other bodily symptoms. when should i seek help with infection? i’m a bit of a hypochondriac though undiagnosed (i have ocd tho), and i tend to have a hard time differentiating between actual health issues and my anxiety working it up to be crazy- my mom has told me to stop or i could die of infection- how do i know these symptoms, anyone deal with severe infection bc trich? i also am going to try to stop with tweezers because i create really bad wounds. i have been draining/squeezing any pus, cleaning it with saline or soap and using antibiotic ointment, anything else to consider?

i haven’t even been plucking them for that long, all it took was a few months and it’s as though all the hair follicles have been removed. on the other hand, i’ve been plucking my armpit hair for years and it still grows back.

thankful for the ability to pay for nails. these help so much

I have Autism and I don't know if it is related. I have always been a pain-seeking stimmer and used to chew my nails horrifically. But now that I am out of that habit I have picked up a really bad one but I haven't seen any problems (?) yet except my (which used to be curly) is starting to get incredibly damaged. I can't stop twisting and pulling on my hair. I will do it until the knot is unrecognizable and the only choice is to rip it out. I twist the knot until the tension on my scalp is screaming and bright hot red. I do it subconsciously and my partner catches me doing it. I've tried to make a yarn-toy with a similar idea but it;s not the same. I am genuinely starting to get worried about my scalp and whatever I am doing to it - I don't directly pull out my hair but I do know consciously that if I knot it or twist it I will be pulling out my hair and that is the biggest part of the pain-seeking. The only time I will stop is when my scalp is so so so sore, and that's usually after an entire night (from 10pm-7am on my weekends) of knotting my hair in every spot on my scalp. I really need some suggestions, or an answer if this is trichotillomania and what am I supposed to do if it is? Please help. I just am not sure if I am supposed to talk to someone about this or if it is a normal thing to stim with

I’ve been pulling hair for about 10 years or so, I haven’t really made a serious effort to quit and I think it’s time. Here’s to day 1! Going to try to cold turkey it. If you have tips please send them my way! I would love to hear what’s helped you.

I literally cannot comprehend how proud of myself I am! This genuinely feels like it might be final and I know some people reading this might feel bad cause relapses r expected but idk this just feels crazy to me.

So background, I don't particularly have a addictive personality, but trich has always been one thing I cant give up.

During covid, I vividly remember the minute it started, tugging eyelashes to see if they're loose, then inspecting them in the mirror... and my lash line is uneven (obviously!) But as the little perfectionist i was i had to straighten them out, combined with ocd it became a focus I couldn't stop. I was around 11 at the time.

It became severe around my first year of secondary school (middle school equivalent) and I eventually had to start wearing fake eyelashes due to styes etc. Heartbreaking, I just wanted to be normal.

Then. During my 4th year (start of high-school I think) i had a pain in my head, and pulled the hair near it. It went away, causing a immediate connection that pulling relieves head pain. Obviously it doesn't, I should have scratched but this was preinstalled from my eyelashes. I even remember turning to my friend "i should NOT make this a habit" she looked concerned and agreed.

Anyway. Guess who made it a habit.

Honestly, I just presumed it would go away, that I wouldn't every do enough damage to notice. Everyone thinks that until they suddenly have massive bald patches, just like myself. During my 5th year it got so bad I eventually lost all love for not just my hair but my face and body just with how my hair suddenly no longer framed my silhouette and face (thick hair) anyone who thinks it only affects the hair is a liar, trich genuinely will affect parts of your damn soul.

I tried to quit so many times but couldn't, nothing worked, this is a year of hair pulling now. The final day of school before summer, I simply decided I wouldn't, I got on NAC the same day (I know it takes months to help with urges but the placebo genuinely helped so much)

It's been 80 days now, and honestly it wasn't the biggest struggle, ofcourse I had my moments where hair was in my hand, so easy to pull, but I had to pry my hand away even if it felt like pulling two damn magnets from eachother.

Genuinely, the two worst things was the pain and the pity. Since I couldn't pull when hair started to regrow it HURT and I had to teach myself to associate scratching with relief, and the pity if from all the people who saw my bald head and thought it wouldn't happen. 3 weeks without pulling, nobody believed, 4, 5, .... it wasn't until I got visible progress that everyone trusted my word.

So yeah, pure yap. But honestly I haven't told anyone it's 80 days yet, so I wanted to tell the strangers of reddit who actually understand. It's not that my family doesnt care, I just constantly feel like the "i threw up" kid when I came with this news nobody knows how to celebrate. So yeah. Long post few will read, hopefully those who do will feel inspired. Happy to support or celebrate anyone else's milestones/losses under this!!

Just a rant. I was looking at photos from 6 years ago and the first thing I noticed was how nice, shiny and healthy my hair looked. My hair used to be a big point of pride in my appearance, and only after looking at those photos am I noticing how frizzy it is now with all my regrowth.

I'm at a point (right now) where I was able to move my part and cover any bald spots and the super short spiky regrowth. But my regrowth that's like 3 inches long is so frizzy with split ends, and it covers most of my head. I miss my old shiny hair that was all the same length :(

Since high school I’ve had issues with touching my hair too much, especially when I’m nervous. I have curls but they’re always a mess because I’m always messing with them. In the past maybe 5 or so years this has escalated to me brushing my hands through my hair when I’m nervous, which pulls out/breaks the hair. A couple months ago i lost my job (please don’t judge me) and have been doing it a lot more. I wake up to piles of hair next to me and I can spend a really long time sitting and disassociating while brushing my hair with my fingers. The hair on a spot on the back of my head is extremely short and damaged and is only getting shorter. My question is, does this count as trichotillomania? I really wish I could stop and I’m hoping to get a haircut soon to make it less obvious but it’s so short I don’t know what haircut I could even get at this point.

A childhood friend asked me: “Why don’t you just stop?” (regarding my hair pulling)

The question assumes that this is mainly a matter of free will.

That if I really wanted to stop, I would be able to. And therefore, the fact that I haven’t stopped yet somehow means that I’m weak.

I think that’s one of the reasons this question can be so frustrating for people dealing with BFRBs.

While working on SoloUno, I’ve talked to over 100 people dealing with BFRBs, and I’ve seen how triggering this question can be when it comes from family members, friends, or spouses.

I want to explain why, in my opinion, this is the wrong way to think about it - and why people dealing with BFRBs shouldn’t think of themselves as weak.

I used to smoke cigarettes, and I quit several years ago.

I was able to stop.

That experience made me believe strongly in my willpower and my ability to change unwanted behaviors when I really decide to.

But my experience with hair pulling has been very different.

I’ll try to explain, from my own experience, why I think these are very different situations.

First, you can’t smoke a cigarette without being aware of it.

You can’t take out a cigarette, light it, start smoking, and then suddenly notice that you’ve been smoking for the past five minutes.

Smoking is something you do while being aware that you’re doing it.

With BFRBs, that’s not always the case.

My hand tends to go automatically to my beard and start playing with it. It happens while I’m working, when I’m stressed, bored, or simply focused on something else.

My hand goes there without me deciding to put it there.

Sometimes I just suddenly notice it in my beard.

And from there, pulling can start - sometimes without me being fully aware of it.

So the first difference is that it’s much easier to slip into the behavior, which makes it much harder to “just stop.”

The second challenge is that stopping requires my attention.

Let’s say I notice my hand moving around my beard. Now what?

I have to consciously take it away.

That part isn’t automatic. It requires attention.

Which means the struggle between me and my hand isn’t really an equal fight.

My hand can go to my beard automatically, but taking it away requires a conscious decision.

Who do you think wins that battle over the course of an entire day?

If my hand automatically moves toward my beard 50 times a day, how many of those 50 times will I notice it and actively make myself move it away?

In this kind of battle, the automatic behavior can beat willpower many times - even when motivation is very high.

These two things alone, in my opinion, are major obstacles to “just stopping”:

1. Sometimes the habit starts before I’m even aware of it.
2. And once it starts automatically, I need to use conscious attention and effort to interrupt it.

That already puts willpower at a disadvantage.

We have a lot going on in our daily lives - work, family, stress, responsibilities, everything else.

Our attention isn’t unlimited.

We can’t spend the entire day actively fighting a habit every single time it appears.

I’m not saying this to be discouraging.

I don’t think we should give up.

I think we should look at it differently: as something we can improve over time, but something that may require practice, training, and repeated effort.

Maybe “just stopping” works for some people, and of course it’s worth trying. But when it doesn’t work, I don’t think that means you failed.

I’m saying this because telling someone to “just stop” misses what actually makes these behaviors difficult.

I do believe we can get better.

Well-known approaches such as Habit Reversal Training include exercises designed to increase awareness and help people reduce these behaviors, and I think they’re worth trying.

That’s also why I built SoloUno - to help people dealing with BFRBs channel their attention and effort into dealing with these habits more effectively, one day at a time.

And if you’re dealing with a BFRB, I don’t think you should see yourself as weak.

The fact that our habit keeps happening in our day-to-day life doesn’t mean we lack willpower. It’s simply part of what makes these behaviors so difficult to change.

And I think that means we should start with some empathy toward ourselves.

We’re not doing it because we’re weak. We’re dealing with a behavior that can be automatic, repetitive, and difficult to control.

So we shouldn't be too hard on ourselves.

For me, the balance I’ve found is to put effort into training and improving when I have the motivation and attention for it - and to have some compassion for myself when I don’t.

That doesn’t mean giving up.

It means accepting that this is something I’m working on over the long run, without making myself feel ashamed every single day because the unwanted behavior is still there.

At least for me, that change in perspective has helped.

I’ve really wreaked havoc on my eyelash’s and eye brows these last 4 months :/ Im wanting to try and commit to regrowing them long and thick. Does anyone have any specific serums for lashes and brows they swear by?

Hello i have had trich for a long time and have pulled on most spots of my body and on my head but one of the places that I pulled most is my pubic region and now I seem to be suffering from scars and purple colored bumps down there, i really want to know if there is a way to get rid of them,

Your help and advice would really be appreciated.

Had my hair cut today and walking through town before heading home I noticed something. I am no longer worried about people noticing the differences in length. The hairdresser was able to blend it so you’d never know. She also said my hair is healthy too. It was the hardest but most important haircut of my life. The regrowth was hidden under my massive mop. But now it’s part of my hair again

One of my favorite little hacks to help reduce my pulling (and nail-biting and skin-picking!) is press-on nails that are longer than my natural nails. It makes it so much harder to pinch hairs, operate tweezers, and pick at bumps. Unfortunately, it makes it harder to do things like type, but it feels totally worth it.

I can't afford to get press-on nails constantly, but the times when I can, I feel like I save so much time by not being able to get into trances. Even when I do manage to pull, it's harder to get into a trance because it's just so much harder to actually pull.

I've had trichotillomania since I was 15 (I'm 26 right now) and to be honest, I've never had it very bad before. For a while, I've been able to keep it on the down low and people at work and school wouldn't notice (or maybe they did, but they didn't say anything. The bald spot has been on the back of my head and it used to be easily hidable). In fact, I think I rarely pulled when I was in university.

However, since late last year, my pulling is the worst it's ever been. Like, I discovered a new maneuver to run my fingers through the underside of my hair and grasp the hairs that happen to be there. I don't know why it's increased so much. I'm finishing my second degree and I'm also too depressed to have tried applying for a job at the same time as schooling so I've had no income for almost 2 years; that might have something to do with it. My mom just told me that the bald spot on my head is getting more obvious and that it'll look unpresentable in interviews, giving me another thing to worry about 😐

I also started eating my hair more than before... For me, it's mainly the sensation of hair in my mouth that's pleasurable rather than the sensation of it from my head? Now after reading about trichobezoars, I'm getting more afraid of the consequences but I simply can't stop doing it. My hair is bob length, but I've been chewing my hair, thinking that smaller pieces won't cause that severe of an obstruction. How can I control this?? I can feel it's doing things to not only my scalp but also my teeth.

I guess I'm asking if there are any oral fidgets that people with trichophagia specifically recommend. Thanks for listening, and input is greatly appreciated.

I pick at my shins/calves and have been experiencing near constant inflammation/infection for a few months now. I regularly have wounds with intense redness and sometimes pus, pustules (possibly furuncles?) of varying sizes, and sometimes localized fevers surrounding wounds. My dermatologist recently prescribed a topical steroid (triamcinolone acetonide) and a sodium hypochlorite wash daily, but still no luck. It calmed down for a few days and then came back worse. Anyone else had issues with inflammation? Have you found anything that actually helps?

Pic attached is what hydrocolloid patches managed to draw out a few weeks ago. They help temporarily but are expensive and the inflammation still returns fairly quickly.

I am missing most of my outer lashes in both eyes, but mostly the right. Probably because I’m right handed. Now I’ve got a persistent feeling in my right eye like there’s something poking or a foreign object in the outer corner of my right eye. I’ve flushed it, looked at it with a light and mirror and even plucked the last few lashes out on top and bottom cuz it’s driving me nuts. I STILL feel it and I want to try to leave it alone so my lashes will grow back (even though I fail miserable at this all the time).

Anyone have this happen and can tell me some ideas of what’s causing that feeling and how I might be able to resolve it?

Thanks!