Trichotillomania

I suffer from a form of OCD called Trichotillomania, which is a disorder that involves recurrent, irresistible urges to pull out body hair. My body hair of choice are my eyebrows and eyelashes. I know exactly when it started. Relaxing with my sister and mom talking about life, Mom and my sister were grooming me, picking at my acne and talking about cleaning my face when all of a sudden my sister suggested plucking a few eyebrow hairs to give my brows some “shape”. So many times I’ve wished I could go back to that day. Poor little me, no clue what age I was. Had no idea what was starting. By my sophomore year I had very few eyelashes, but when someone pointed it out I gave up on eyelashes for a while and started on my brows. By my freshman year of senior high school, filling them in was necessary. I was totally drawing them on by the time I was at least 20. I used to avoid the term, “suffer from” when talking about my OCD because even though it’s not something I can control, I’ve always felt like I should be able to control it. So if there was any suffering involved, I blamed myself for it. And I hated myself for making me suffer, which if you know anything about OCD's of this nature, that stress and self-hatred can just make the OCD worse. So then it just becomes a terrible cycle... I pull hairs, then get mad at myself, then pull because I’m mad at myself. That brings us to today. I have no natural hairs left. I didn’t accept the phrase, “suffer from” until today. Today I realize how much I’ve truly gone through as I reflect on how far I’ve come. Anytime someone would comment that they liked my brows an internal voice would say, “They would think I’m ugly without it.” But in reality, that isn't true. However I believed it to be. To this day it is a working progress on my eyebrows and eyelashes and if it weren't for my family and friends helping me, who knows how I'd look today.