Tearing our hair out: learning to treat compulsive hair-pulling

Trichotillomania is a blight on many people’s lives – and until now there has been very little understanding of how to tackle this distressing condition. By Sara Talpos

Christina Pearson was 14 years old when she started pulling out her hair, creating bald patches on her head. She was taken to a psychiatrist, but in 1970 there was no name for her disorder, and certainly no treatment. The doctor issued a psychiatric discharge that removed Pearson from high school. At first, she felt relief. At school she had lived in dread that somebody might pull off her hat and reveal that her head was mostly bare – a possibility she found “so frightening that anything was better than that”.

In the ensuing months Pearson holed up at home, pulling out her hair and feeling, she told me, like a monster. Scared and searching for relief, she eventually decided to leave. “I hitchhiked across Mexico at 14 and was doing peyote out in the desert, all kinds of things,” she said. “I really lived a very fringe life.” At 15, she started picking her skin, until her body was covered with open sores. By 20, she was addicted to drugs and alcohol.

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from Children | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2Lhk3pb