Tw// trichotillomania (hair pulling disorder)

I don’t usually talk about stuff like this but it’s been an issue for me since elementary school.

I’ve never felt like I was in control and sometimes I start doing it without even realizing it

Basically, hair pulling has been a self soothing behavior of mine since I was young and it usually gets pretty bad when I’m stressed out or anxious, usually around the start of the school year (in this case, the spring semester)

To be honest I always thought I was a bit of a freak for doing it and didn’t know it was an actual disorder until about a year and a half ago. I feel like I can’t control it sometimes. I’ll be doing something and out of habit I’ll just start messing with my hair absentmindedly

It’s a bit of a problem and it’s actually one of the reasons I try to keep my hair really short, so I won’t be tempted.

I haven’t really talked about this before so I feel a little bit vulnerable and I don’t want to be judged, but I thought it would be a good idea to open up about it.

If any of my followers have it and you know some ways thar help you cope with it, I’d love to hear about it!

My relapses are very scattered, sometimes I can’t go more than a day without doing it (it’s not usually a significant amount of pulling when it’s consecutive days) other times I don’t do it for a month, maybe even more

A lot of the time it happens I always tell myself that it’s too frequent for me to have the motivation to use an addiction/sobriety tracker app but I really want to stop...it’s just extremely difficult because I’ve been using it as a self soothing mechanism for years