An eyelash takes six weeks to grow back. I learned this when I was
9 years old, and to me, it was the world's most important lesson. For
months, I had been pulling out my eyelashes and playing with them. I
don't know why I started; it just felt good. Each one was interesting:
There was a root, and sometimes pigment on the tip. I stared at them,
lining them up in a row. Soon my eyelids were bare. Six weeks later, when
I saw the tiny black dot of an emerging eyelash magnified in the mirror,
my relief was intense: I hadn't permanently disfigured myself. But that
little lash didn't stand a chance. I pulled it out before leaving the
bathroom.
I spent the rest of my childhood battling this urge, trying
everything I could fathom to stop. I smeared Vaseline on my lashes to
make them harder to grasp, wore mittens while reading, even tied my
wrists to my belt. My mind swirled with pep talks and admonitions.
Despite daily—even hourly—resolutions to quit, my hand always sneaked
back up the moment I let my guard down. Every year, I blew out my
birthday candles with a wish to stop pulling. Instead, the problem spread
to my eyebrows. I looked like a ghost. And I wanted to be
invisible.
My parents did their best to help, consulting numerous doctors and
therapists, but none had ever heard of my problem. My sixth-grade teacher
drew a thickly lashed eye on my bookmark as a reminder, and only a few
children mocked my naked eyes. Still, the self-consciousness and
relentless sense of failure were exhausting. I had good self-discipline
in general; why couldn't I control this one strange behavior?
I began to notice patterns in the pulling that persist to this day.
I pull most often during passive, mentally absorbing activities such as
reading, writing and watching television. The passivity fosters a sort of
split consciousness. The rhythm of running my fingers over my eyebrows is
soothing. One half of my mind is attuned to the texture of each hair, the
tickle against my thumb. My thoughts churn with familiar dialogue: This
hair feels out of place; it's too thick, too coarse. I need to get it
out. Pinching index finger to thumb, I tug. The hair slips through my
fingers, but I grip and pull again. In a moment of satisfaction, the hair
is out. I roll it between my fingers and feel the sticky root. I bend it
in an arc, testing its strength, and run it against my lips.
Despite the fact that half of my mind is absorbed in reading, my
eyes focus on the little eyebrow hair I'm holding; I'm completely
captivated by the filmy white casing of the root. Then, as my teeth click
together, I snap awake. I've done it again. I flick the hair aside and
shove my hand under my thigh. "Stop it!" I berate myself. "You can't
afford to lose another one. You'll look like hell. Just read." But no
sooner am I absorbed in the story, then my hand pops back up to my
brow.
This urge waxed and waned like a primal tide throughout high
school. I hid my eyes beneath long bangs and heavy eyeliner. Every
morning, I awoke and ran a finger over the rim of my eyelid, gauging the
extent of the night's damage. Scared to death that I was crazy, I would
lie in bed and think of tests to determine my sanity. Even when my
younger sister started pulling her own eyebrows, I felt isolated. We
didn't talk about it much. Mostly, we argued about who had borrowed the
other's eye makeup. The fact that we were both using the disputed
eyeliner to hide the same habit was not a uniting force. And I was
guilt-stricken with the notion that I had unwittingly taught her my
behavior.
It wasn't until college that I truly realized I wasn't alone. My
mother mailed me a newspaper clipping about a new organization, the
Trichotillomania Learning Center (TLC). It was a relief to learn that my
behavior had a name. Even so, it was years before I found the courage to
contact TLC. When I finally did, I experienced one of the eeriest moments
of my life. The group sent me an essay in which a woman described
searching for the "right" strand of hair to pull: She even imagined the
color and texture of the root. How was it that we shared such bizarre
behavior? Immediately, I was hooked on learning about my disorder.
That was eight years ago, and I've since read everything I can find
about trichotillomania. Hippocrates urged doctors to note whether a
patient "plucks his hair," but the disorder has been almost entirely
ignored by the medical community for centuries. Today, one in 50
Americans is thought to suffer from trichotillomania. It's considered an
impulse-control disorder and can start as early as infancy, but it
strikes most often in adolescence. Young boys and girls are afflicted
about equally, but adolescent and adult women are about nine times more
susceptible than their male counterparts. Trichotillomania tends to be
chronic and manifests slightly differently in each of us. Some people
pull from their scalp until they've created bare patches or made
themselves entirely bald. Men often pull their beards. Eyebrows,
eyelashes, pubic hair—any hair—is a target. But the fact that it feels
good to pull certain hairs is one of the greatest mysteries.
Tags:
admonitions,
anxiety,
birthday candles,
black dot,
disorder,
eyebrows,
eyelash,
eyelashes,
eyelids,
impulse,
lash,
lashes,
mittens,
naked eyes,
ocd,
pep talks,
pigment,
self consciousness,
self discipline,
sixth grade teacher,
strange behavior,
Trichotillomania,
vaseline,
watching television
