a healthier life

What Makes Me Like Pulling My Hair Out?

Asking yourself the question ‘why am I always pulling my hair out?’ is more common than you might think. You might pull this hair from your head, from your eyelashes, eybrows or anywhere else in the body – and you might think you’re the only one. Is it just you? And is it weird?

The truth is that YES you are a lot more normal than you recognise! There are so many people who are constantly asking the question ‘why am I always pulling my hair out?’, just like you, and the answer is that it is because of a disorder called ‘trichotillomania’.

Trichotillomania – What Is It?

Trichotillomania basically means that you pull your hair out compulsively. It isn’t as scary as you might think. In fact, I had this for years before I had even heard of the word! It is a bit like a habit, but hair pullers will also do it at times without realising, which can make it hard to stop.

What Causes People to Pull Out Their Hair?

There are so many potential causes, and nobody has a definitive answer. In my case I always had something inside of me that made me want to twiddle with my hair, which later developed into pulling around the age of 10. This is different for everyone.

There are many other causes of hair pulling. This can include: childhood trauma, diet, OCD, ADHD, even genetics!

If you pull out your hair then you may never know exactly what it was that caused the condition. It also takes a long time to come to terms with it, and you may not be ready just yet to understand why you still do it and why you can’t stop.

Getting Support

In my journey I found that I needed to give myself time before I even looked for support. Eventually I started to participate in online forums, and eventually documented my chronicles in a blog. However, I am still not ready to tell people in real life about my troubles.

Always just do what feels right in a way that helps you accept pulling out hair as a part of who you are.

The Most Significant Thing to Take Away from all this? You are not weird! There are so many people who ask themselves ‘why am I always pulling my hair out?!’ – and you can find comfort in connecting with them when you are ready.