Would love to share

Today, on a whim, I decided to google a trich chat, to see if maybe there were other people out there willing to talk. I was relieved to find that there were. I am a very open person, but it is hard to talk to someone about something that they can in no way relate to.
I started pulling enough for it to be noticeable December or 2003. I had pulled for a few years before, but nothing serious, more gently pulling to get rid of any loose eyelashes. I never pulled more then three or four at a time, but since 2000 I wondered if what I did was part of an obsessive compulsive disorder. I went to a small private school that preached tolerance, and because some other students had OCD we learned about it. None of my classmates had trich specifically, but our teacher had worked with some other children with it and brought it to our attention that it existed and that it deserved the same understanding as other forms of OCD. At the age of 11, however, I could not fully understand the disorder, and at the age of 19 I still don't.
The first time I ever pulled was at Disney World at a show later at night. The show was amazing, even though I was older I loved being in a place that I could just let go and be a young kid again. I was with my mom and sister, and it was the first time in a long time that I felt like we were a family. My mom and I had hardly fought, a rare treat, and my sister and I were getting along as well. For years it ate away at me that this struggle started at a happy point in my life. I couldn't put my head around why it started just then, right when I got an escape, but then again, maybe that's why.
I know what triggered it, and thinking back it seems so stupid and juvenile, but maybe with some background it will make more sense. All my early memories are of my parents fighting, what else is new? I know a lot of people go through that, and I am not expecting any sympathy. One day my dad split, we came home from school and all his belonging were gone, just like that. A lot of it is a blur, my self defense mechanism against bad memories, to just forget. What I do remember isn't pretty. I've never really felt that I could really trust my parents, and I still don't. My friends have always been really important to me because they were my support system, even when I was really young, so to be uprooted from the place I had called home my entire life so that my mom could start over was inopportune. It was not sad or devastating, I was actually excited to see a new place and start a new chapter in my life. I say inopportune because it was not a good time in my life to come across bad people. At first I was thrilled to meet new people and make new friends, something I had never had a problem with before. The kids at my new school, however, were not at all kind. I had never been rejected, I had always had a lot of friends, so to all of the sudden feel so alone, to have no one to talk to, and to worst of all not understand why no one liked me was one of the hardest things I ever had to deal with and it effected me negatively for a long time afterward. Eventually I did make friends in that school, not lifelong friends, but genuine friends for the time being. After two years of begging my parents let me enter public school for the first time in my life two years later for 8th grade. Because I had such a bad time the two years prior simply because the kids did not like me, I did everything I could in my new school to fit in, some things I regret to this day. I have actually gone back and apologized to a few people for my behavior. I was doing to others what people had done to me so I could fit in, and I didn't even realize it until years later. I had made a few really good friends though, and things seemed to be going well, until one decision I made when I thirteen destroyed everything. Not to say that I would not have started pulling later for some other reason, but you never know.
My trigger was telling who I thought was my first true friend in a long time that I had gotten drunk. Nothing had happened, I didn't black out or pass out, I had never done it before and I had no plan on doing it again, but it was a strange and new experience for me and I choose to share it with her. My friend decided that because her mom was an alcoholic that everyone who drank would become one, and she thought that something worse had happened then I had originally told her about, though it was not true. She took it upon herself to tell the school guidance counselor who twisted it into saying I was raped and then told my mom. I unwillingly explained everything to my mom, and assured her that nothing more then me drinking too much and falling asleep had occurred, and yes, I got in trouble, but that was the end of it. It was as school that I had problems. The one friend I told spread it around school, but no one knew the true story, all the kids exaggerated it and made me feel awful and alone. After trying so hard to fit it, thinking I had true friends just for them to betray me was too much to take. I had to leave class and cry because the teasing was so bad, and I would not let anyone see me cry. That was my trigger, that is what tipped my scale and caused me to pull out eyelash after eyelash until my lids were puffy, red, and bald.
The pulling only got worse as time passed, and for two years I begged my mom to let me take medication. I knew I had a real disorder that I needed professional help to fix it, but she did not believe me, and told me to just stop. I am forever scarred with the memories of her calling me thor (the alien from stargate with no hair whatsoever), a monster, telling me that I was mutilating myself like a cutter, that I could just stop. Even when I had a name to give her for what I had she didn't believe me. I knew I was not crazy though, I just didn't know how to prove it.
It was almost 6 months before I started wearing eyeliner to cover up my habit. And I did it so well that hardly anyone noticed, other then the people that already knew. For years I made up excuses for why I was touching my eyes so much, "my eyes itched, there what something in my eye" and when someone asked if I was playing with my contact I said yes, even though I have never worn contacts a day in my life. It took a long time to figure out a good way to explain why I did it, probably because for a long time I myself didn't even know. For years I would not were eyeshadow, not wanting to draw attention to my eyes. Then when I started to pull my eyebrows too I wore bang and eyebrow pencil to hide it. I dreaded the wind, and swimming, scared it would reveal my true features. Hardly anybody saw me with no make up on. And to this day I have not been outside my home without makeup on since 2003.
I was lucky to have an above average high school experience with really incredible friends who understood my condition as much as possible. Some ignored it, some sympathized, some tried to stop me, but all were Ok with who I was.
Today I still have no eyebrows or eyelashes, and I pull in every place imaginable except for on top of my head. I am also a lot more open with my condition. I know how to explain it, and even though I will not show everyone my naked face, I will talk about it to anyone that is curious. I also have a woman in my life that is supportive of me and loves me even though my face is bare.
Its really refreshing to know there are other people out there who understand what I feel everyday. Like I am out of control, the constant battle with myself. I know I wrote a lot, but the truth is I could write a book on the subject, but I hope by not writing all that much that whoever was willing to read this won't get bored. There is so much more I would like to talk about, to learn about, and I want to hear other people's stories. I read a lot of the other posts, and it breaks my heart that there are others like me or worse then me, because this is a curse I would not with on my worst enemy.
For anyone and everyone, thank you for listening