Amanda (no2)'s story

I don't know if you want to add my story somewhere on your page, but I think it might do me some good to write about it to someone. It is only about four months ago that I finally confessed to my therapist - the first person ever - but I haven't really started to address this emotionally yet as I have been facing a long year of emotional termoil - this is only the tip of the very large and cold iceberg.

I remember as a child, I was in grade 2 (in Canada, I think that would have made me around 6-7 yrs old) and I read a children's book which said that anytime an eyelash falls out you should put it on the palm of your hand and blow and make a wish. I would eagerly look for eyelashes to fall out, and then when that didn't happen enough, I started pulling them out.

This progressed over the years to pulling hairs from my legs, underarms and pubic area as I got older and they started coming through in puberty. I also have quite dry skin and I would pick at my skin at night between reading books. My parents either never noticed that I had no eyelashes or they just didn't think to ask...or maybe they didn't really care that their child ground her teeth constantly and had no eyelashes!

I was not a typical trichster in that I didn't pull out the hair on my head. I have since been able to control my underarm, eyelash and leg pulling and now focus solely on my pubic area and grey hairs on my head. I have to constantly dye my hair so that the impulse is not there. I used to shave my pubic area so that I could try and control my urge, but this really just made it worse as I then had to explain to any lovers why I did this strange thing! Sometimes I can control it, when I think that I might h Over the past 2 years I have sought counselling help for depression, and finally agreed to try Zoloft this time last year to see if it would help my depression. I had resisted it for so long (I was 31) because as a student studying
both psychology and biology, and believing that I had a very strong inner strength, by taking the anti-depressant drugs meant that I was mentally ill. I have spent the last year in cognitive therapy coming to terms with the social stigma and my own pre-conceived ideas of what it! ble to deal with verbally and by yourself.

At any rate, as I began to feel better (actually, as I began to understand what everyone else experienced in a normal range of emotions) and stronger, I accidentally looked up trichotillomania in the DSM-IV - and had an ephiphany that this has been what I have suffered from all my life. I told my counsellor the next day and that was the start to accepting myself fully.

I now know that my I have always operated in a triangle of behaviours: depression, anxiety, trichotillomania. All of these inter-relate to one another and each triggers the other. I have begun to address my depression which in part looks after some of the anxiety, but the trichotillomania has become so much a part of my existence that it will take me all my life to sort these negative thought pathways that lead to this self destructive behaviour. It has also prevented me from allowing
any man to love me, Thank you for having the courage to start this web page and to open doors for millions of others around the world who suffer the human condition.

Amanda No 2.

25/10/99

Update:

Anyway, just a tiny update on my story. I hung out at the Fairlite BB for about a month as I had time in the fall to do this on a daily basis. Reading other people's everyday struggle really helped and I briefly was in touch with a couple of other people like me. I have not got as much time or engery to go to the BB at the moment, and I don't actually feel a need. I know it is there if I need it. The best thing about finally admitting to my secret is that I do not think poorly of myself anymore .