Recently, a story about a young girl appeared on social media. Due to stress, she continuously pulls out her own hair. It all started with pulling out a few strands, gradually she considered it a way to relieve stress and couldn’t stop.
“Today I want to vent my anger on myself, even though I do it every day after this crazy act of pulling my own hair. This act is pulling out hair. It’s not just a few strands or a small habit, it’s pulling out the entire head, making it bald. Because it’s a crazy mental illness called Hair Pulling Disorder, also known as ‘Trichotillomania’.
Five years, five years already. Every day is like the last, I pull without stopping. Each time I pull, it lasts up to 4 hours, repeating every day, like a mad person, pulling frantically.
The reason is that at first, an older sister guided me to pull out grey hair, and it was less itchy. I didn’t pull until I went to school, got moved to a seat right next to a girl who was also bald, but she was just a little bald.
I asked her to pull out deep hair while sitting in class because we were both so bored, and she showed me to pull at the root, where there’s white at the base of the hair. You should try pulling one strand and see, she called it dandruff and said it’s the dandruff that accumulates at the hair roots that makes me itch.
I believed her and argued with my parents, my grandfather, my brother, and told her that dandruff is not the hair root. Since then, whenever I had free time, I would put my hand on my head and pull, when I pulled out the hair root and I always believed it was dandruff, the feeling was very joyful, like finding gold in the ground.
And you all understand, when I pull out all my hair, every strand has that root. And from there I also understand why my friend is bald.
Eventually, it became a habit, giving me a sense of relief when pulling hair, feeling comfortable when forming in my mind that I was pulling out that dandruff. It even created an obsession with that action in my head. And especially every time I finished pulling, I would immediately look at that hair to see if there was that so-called dandruff. I felt pleased and pulled even more frequently.
Especially when I’m free or under pressure, feeling uncomfortable, like stressed, pulling hair makes me feel comfortable, reduces stress, but after a few hours of pulling, looking back at my head and the hair stuck on the wall, on the pillow, on the floor makes me want to stress twice or three times more. It sounds funny, doesn’t it? But it’s true!
My life has too much pressure, so I always isolate myself in my room, so the opportunity to pull hair is frequent.
I always live with wigs, day by day, month by month, from the time I went to school until I started working, going out, dating. Taking advantage of wearing wigs only makes it harder for me to get rid of this crazy habit.
I have dreams and many aspirations. After going through a lot of family and life pressures, I became more negative, feeling worse about myself and this bad habit of mine.
I scold myself a lot, blame myself a lot but still can’t overcome it. Being as weak as I am, I can only talk but cannot do anything. It’s terrible! Because of this bad habit, I find it hard to achieve the things I want. Ah, my dream is to be an actress.
If it were as simple as just saying, ‘Just put your hands down,’ that would be easy, then I wouldn’t be like this now, it’s a medical condition, besides being a habit, it’s also because of too much pressure, so I pull even more, and the biggest reason is me, I have no willpower.
I can’t stop even though I just pulled while arguing with myself in my head, I still can’t stop my hands. It feels like being cursed!
Is anyone here like me? Can you give me some motivation? You can scold me a lot, even harshly, so I can wake up and become smarter.”
Reading the story and looking at the attached images of her makes people horrified. The girl has pulled out all her hair, and the new hair is barely growing back. Therefore, she confides that every time she goes out, she has to wear a wig.
Looking at her images makes netizens feel shocked. They quickly advised the girl to go get checked and treated for herself. In the long run, clearly, the act of pulling hair is not a good way to relieve stress at all.
“This is a psychological disorder, you should go get examined and treated for the better. If you let it go on for too long, the one who suffers will be you. It’s not just about beauty and appearance, there are a lot of related issues too,” a netizen suggested.