New to TrichStars

I am 28 and have been pulling my eyelashes out since I was about 5 years old. I didn't know what was wrong with me until I saw Oprah do a special on Trich when I was 18. Since then I have tried countless time to stop myself from pulling but nothing seems to work. I seem to do well for awhile but as soon as all my eyelashes grow back, I pull them again. I feel like I will never beat this. I feel ugly. I feel like an outsider and I feel insecure around beautiful girls with long lashes. In the last year I have started to pull my eyebrows quite a bit and a little bit on my scalp. This devastates me. I am upset with the lashes but moving on to other areas just makes it worse. I have no idea how to make myself stop and I've tried just about everything I can think of. Right now I'm just looking for someone who knows what I'm going through to maybe be a little support to me.

Hi My name is Maree. I have been pulling my hair since I was 8, I'm now 31. No-one in my family that I know about has OCD, and I have no idea why I originally started. When I was a kid and a teenager no-one, not even the doctors knew why I was pulling out my hair, many attributed to attention-seeking, I knew that it wasn't (hell I did't want attention, I wanted to be invisible) For a long time I thought that I was insane, and I didn't know how to stop ( I was convinced that I was going to be hurled off to the 'funnyfarm'. I still don't know how to stop, and but I do know that stress seems to trigger it, and that I have my good periods when I don't pull as much or as often and my hair grows back and looks fairly normal, and then I have my bad periods when I pull out a lot and my hair looks patchy and moth eaten. Luckily I haven't had any health issues from it such as what Miscie talked about.
My confidence isn't that great and neither is my self esteem, I think in many ways this has been affected by my hairpulling and my shame about this. I'm good at making acquaintances but not getting close to people (this has seriously hampered my love life!) I don't have many friends, and I have difficulty getting into the career that I want (the library industry) possibly hampered because of my lack of self-esteem and confidence. My parents also took me to counselling when I was a teenager I didn't really about anything because I didn't think I was worth it and I was undergoing some serious trust issues at the time with counsellor/psychologist. When I was 8 or 9 because of my hair-pulling my parents took me to a psychologist over a period of several months and by the time they finished the only conclusion that they could up with was that they didn't think think that I was being sexually abused. To me that was pretty obvious, but I didn't exactly have a high regard for psychologists etc after that.
I mainly scalp pull but I do sometimes skin pick as well, I don't know any others who have Trichotillomania, (or maybe I do but don't know it, as we seem to learn to hide it so well) I actually found the name of it sort of by accident a school-friend of mine (when I was in highschool) was looking through her fathers medical books and found something about hair-pulling called Trichotillomania, there wasn't much information about but I was so relieved that what I was doing to myself actually had a name. Since then I have found a few magazine articles and things on TV about Trichotillomania but they seem rather dismissive and perfunctory.
I know that this is rather long and rambling but maybe this helped someone or maybe someone can help me. I really want to stop but the only medication that my doctor gave me was called fluox (I wasn't depressed) and although it may stopped me for a while (not entirely sure) it made also made me high as a kite, unable to concentrate on anything and totally hyper, I eventually gave up after deciding it was safer to not take them them. Does anybody have any other ideas, I've heard mixed things about hypnotism.
PS What countries are people from?

Hi my name is Niki and i have been pulling out my hair since i was 12. i pull from my scalp mostly and all my effort goes into not pulling on my eyebrows, eyelashes and leg hairs. i want to know how people have been successful in stopping or temporary things to help while watching tv ect. its so good to know that there is this kind of thing out there, because the people that i have told that i have this condition, dont believe me and think that i am trying to get attention by self mutiliating myself. i do other things too like crack my knuckles, bite my nails, and such, is this related to trich? i heard that trich is also like, an addiction to drama, is that true? because that is me...and i feel like i wont ever be able to stop because this has become a part of me, who am i if i dont have this disorder? i cant imagine myself not being anxious or worried? anyways im always open to chat and hopefully this will help somehow :)

Hello!!!! I am new here too. I am a 41 year old female and I live in VA. I have been pulling for years!!!! My eye brows finally grew back but now I pull from my scalp. I have to wear a wig when I go out. I also tweeze my leg hairs. I feel crazy and cant explain why I do it. I hope this website can help us. Best of luck to you!!!

Take care,
Puller