It began innocently and absentmindedly enough. A yanked-out hair here, another there. Six months later, I had pulled out enough hair to create a noticeably wider centre parting and thinning around my hairline. Whenever I had a quiet moment or a hand free, I would subconsciously rake through my scalp, searching for one particular type of hair. On successfully finding it, I would pluck it out, stretching the hair taut between my fingers to examine it.
From the outside, my actions likely resembled trichotillomania, a hair-pulling disorder that can manifest as the compulsive plucking out of hair, body hair and eyelashes. Linked with obsessive-compulsive behaviours, trichotillomania can cause extreme emotional distress and permanent damage to the hair follicle and scalp. But I didn’t feel that this described my situation, although, admittedly there were similarities. I wasn’t picking my hair out to assuage a feeling of anxiety or satisfy a compulsive tendency, I was doing it because, seemingly overnight, many of my hairs had changed from soft and fine to wiry, coarse and brittle.
