Trichotillomania

Trichotillomania also known as “trick” is a rare physiological disorder, also categorized as a impulse control disorder. It is a condition where you have extreme repeated urges to pull out hair to relieve anxiety, whether it is from the scalp or any other party of the body with hair, but most commonly it starts on the scalp. The hair pulling leaves bald patches and scars. The process of hair pulling is a slow one and most people with the disorder will pull the hair one by one over several hours until they feel relief from their anxiety, but in rarer cases some will pull whole handfuls of hair out at a time. Half of the people with Trichotillomania also have trichophagia, the swallowing of external hair (Sally Foster). To date there are 2.5 million known cases of people with Trichotillomania in the United States, and it affects twice as many girls as it does boys.

Symptoms begin to show at adolescence, around the ages of 12-13, frequently triggered by puberty, but it can start at any age. Other triggers are abuse or change; stress is a major factor in the trigger of the disorder (Sally Foster). Many feel it is a genetic disorder that can be passed down, but there is no solid proof.

The direct cause of Trichotillomania is still unknown to us, because it is a very rare disorder and there hasn’t been much research on the disorder. Many who suffer from Trichotillomania also suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorder and depression. Researchers feel that Trichotillomania is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain that can trigger the disorder (Sally Foster). There are cases of misdiagnoses of Trichotillomania due to a chemical imbalance that are actually cases of depression or obsessive-compulsive disorder, and when put on the medication to help, the depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder improved. It is also thought that sometimes some medication causes a chemical imbalance in the brain, which triggered Trichotillomania.

The major symptom of Trichotillomania is the reoccurrence of hair loss, and in most cases it is a major amount of hair loss. Most people who have Trichotillomania try to hide any bald patches; they may use hair clips, clothes, scarves and make-up. Most people with the disorder hide the process of the hair pulling as well, and always do it in private. Most people with this disorder are aware of what is going on and are ashamed of the process and so are very defensive and insecure when asked about the missing hair. Because it being something that they have to hide, it causes even more anxiety, and as the disorder progresses it causes even more hair loss. This is because to relieve the anxiety they resort to hair pulling.