my trich story

Hi, this is my first ever post on reddit so im a little bit nervous about writing this. I just wanted to vent about my trichotillomania experience..

I've been dealing with trichotillomania for 3 years and honestly it has make me even more insecure that what i already was. It all started when i was talking to a friend in school, i noticed that i had a lot of split ends and she told me that i should split them, because she found it relaxing. I started doing it and became addicted, i'll always regret not cutting my hair that day. Since that day i couldnt pay attention in class anymore, because i was so focused on finding new split ends and pulling them, and if i didnt find one id start breaking my hair to create new ones and continue doing it. This impacted me in such a negative way.. my grades dropped, cuz i couldnt focus anymore , i spent my nights pulling my hair and so on.

My parents didnt understand why i was doing this so their only response was yelling at me in public or at home, saying that if i didnt stop i was gonna be bald. Every time this happened i just got upset and wanted to cry, i really wanted to stop but i couldnt and instead of giving me help the response they gave me just triggered me more. But luckily after 3 years and a lot of crying and arguing i was confident enough to tell them that i needed to go to a psychologist for help. (btw i already told them like a year ago and my mom got super upset at me)

At school i was really self concious of what i was doing ik it was wrong but i couldnt stop myself. After the classes were over i could see my clothes and floor covered in hair and got super embarrassed and anxious i felt disgusted with myself, i thought and still think that people view me as disgusting and weird for pulling my hair. "One of my friends" sometimes laughed at me and pointed to the ground saying that my hair falls a lot and id be bald, one time another "friend" pointed out how i have different lenght hair saying that it was really funny. Every time something like this happened i wanted to dissapear it was really heartbreaking if my "friends" thought about me like that what would other people think? For instance, as much as i love my bf and i believe hes the sweetest guy on earth, he has said on some occassions that im gonna be bald before him and that he can see my bald spots.. It breaks my hearts every time he says smth like that it hurts so bad, i havent told him about me having trichotillomania so he doesnt know but its so painful to hear words like this from people you love and care about.

In other occassions, my teacher have also pointed out in their classes that i dont pay attention today cuz im always pulling and playing with my hair. Mimicking my gestures and moking me in the middle of class bringing all my classmates attentions to me. Ngl, all these events have made me really depressed, worsening my mental health that was never even in a good place to begin with.

The last thing i wanna talk about its how it has affected me as how i see myself. i always been really anxious about going outside, but since my hair has lost all its density and volume and you cann see how weak it is and also the different lenghts of hair, it has worsen up so much. Before ll of this began i used to be praised by hairstylist and people in general on hos beautiful and how much volume my hair had, and seeing myself in the mirror now its just feels like a humiliation ritual. When i go outside and see girls with such beautiful and healthy hairs i get super jealous and ashamed of myself because i think they are gonna see me and laugh at me. I really eanted to shave my hair 2 years ago but every time i tell my mom she gets super mad and tell me shes gonna do it rn (like i tell her i wanna shave it on summer but she threatens me to do it in the moment) and those comments hurt so much. I also tried to tell my bf that i wanted to shaved it and he hated the idea, he says that he likes my hair but i dont. id do it but... i need validation..

i would love to talk more about this but its already too long and i suck at writing :c also my english is not that good so i apologize!!! as i mentioned before this is my ever reddit post and i dont know if writing this is okay, pls if someone reads this tell me if its okay and if its not id take the post down!!!

i dont know how reddit works, i've been just using it to find about this subreddit (i thimk thats how its called) and it has helped me a lot seeing me people struggle with thrich!! finally for once in my life i feel seen,, 🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷