I was 10 years old when I started pulling my hair. I would absent-mindedly twirl the front pieces of hair in my face. Strand by strand, I would run my finger tips down the length on the hair shaft feeling for my favorite crinkly piece. Once I found it, this strong urge to pull it out would come over me, and with great relief and satisfaction, I would pull each hair strand out one by one.
I didn’t have the language for it yet. I just knew I was pulling my hair. Not in a dramatic way, in quiet moments like when I read books in my bedroom. I'd fall into a trance-like state trying to soothe myself without even realizing that’s what I was doing.
At first, it felt like a bad habit. Something I should be able to stop if I just paid more attention. My mom would catch me and say “Get your hands out of your hair!” or “nemoj čupati kosu!”, that's Montenegrin for “don’t pull your hair!”. Her voice would startle me and I would try to play it off like I was being silly… but it wasn't funny.
Because I couldn’t stop.
Stopping felt impossible. Being told to stop only made me feel worse, or even angry. I felt there was something wrong with me that I couldn’t explain or defend.
The shame came quickly. First, I learned how to hide it. How to part my hair just right, how to avoid certain styles, how to avoid wearing my hair down when I went swimming. I would dread any scenario where my girlfriends would play with each other's hair, for fear of being found out. I would quickly volunteer to be the hair doer, and take any attention off of me.
Like most things in adolescence, I didn’t know what the heck was happening. I didn’t know why I was doing it. I would pray to god and bargain with him to stop my compulsion to pull. I would make wishes on birthday candles that I would stop pulling my hair. But trying harder wasn’t working, and that made the shame heavier.
Fast forward to 2003, I’m 17 years old. We had a family computer in the foyer, where you entered the house. Early Google, late night, slow internet. The kind of googling where I felt like I was a vigilante trying to crack the code of a thing unknown.
I remember typing something like:
Why do I pull my hair?
Why can’t I stop pulling my hair out?
And then I saw a word I had never seen before: trichotillomania.
It was surreal. Reading descriptions that sounded like my own inner life. The same behaviors I did.... The secrecy. The shame. The compulsive pull. The relief and regret tangled together.
That moment didn’t fix me. It didn’t stop the behavior. But it cracked something open. For the first time, I understood that this wasn’t just a personal failure or a lack of willpower. It was something other people experienced too; It affected people across all ages, genders, races, classes, and abilities.
I didn’t know then that this would be a lifelong relationship. I didn’t know how many phases and relapses I would have, how much compassion I’d have to learn, or how often I’d have to meet myself where I was instead of where I thought I should be.
What I did know for the first time was that I wasn’t alone.
I’m telling this story now because I know someone else is still out there, sitting in front of a screen, typing the same questions I did. Still hiding. Still ashamed. Still thinking they’re the only one. Statistics say that 1-2 out of every 50 people will experience this in their lifetime.
If that’s you: there is a word for what you’re going through. And more importantly, there is nothing wrong with you.
