Does anyone here pull out their hair?

[Rachel]

It's called trichotillomania. I usually hang out in the bulimia forum, but I knew this site had a SI section so I thought I'd most likely find other ppl w/ trich here.

I don't even realize I'm doing it half the time, and the other half it's sooo hard not to. I don't know how to stop

I read that it's pretty rare, so I hope I'm not the only one x[
I've been pulling since I was 13. I've pulled out the entire crown of my head before, stopped when I started starving myself. I went back to binging & purging and I've started pulling again. So my hair's all thin & weird lengths. People comment on it, my family keeps bothering me about it.

So does anyone else here do the same or...?

[barely_there]

If I'm in panic mode, right before I cut, I yank on my hair. Big fistfuls, almost like you'd grab in a fist fight. I guess that doesn't qualify as trichotillomania though, because I'm not pulling the hairs out. That being said, I suffer from a pretty bad case of dermatillomania. My lips are permanently raw and scarred, from pulling the skin off until it bleeds. I do it with acne too.

-L

[discobarbie]

I do this sometimes. Usually it's when I can't be sick for whatever reason or if I'm trying not to so I get why you stopped when your eating disorder kicked in. When I read about it before it always seems to say it's more of a habit but for me it's from anger and upset and frustration and because I want to hurt. When I pull my hair out it's the same relief I get from purging because I feel like I've got something out of me. My hair's gone brittle and split from ripping it, I'm thinking about cutting it shorter so it's healthier.