Pulling the Trigger

NOTICE: THIS POST MIGHT CHANGE YOUR VIEW OF ME FOREVER
I have trichotillomania. It's an impulse disorder where someone has an uncontrolable urge to pull out their hair. About 2 in 50 people have this disorder and will try anything to hide it. I've had this for about 4 years now, but it got really bad about 8 months ago. It all started in the 8th grade. I found a pimple or something on my scalp and my mom said that it might be an infected hair so I decided to pull out all the hairs around it in order to find the infected one. I never did. From then on whenever I found an abnormality on my scalp I pulled out the hair around it. That wasn't too bad and it didn't happen very often. Then about 9 months ago I got my first boyfriend. The relationship ended with him kissing his ex and me finding out. I felt like absolute crap, and needed to find a release. One night my mom and I were watching the tv show My Strange Addiction and the episode was about a girl who had trich, when I saw this I realized that that's what I would do when I found something on my scalp. I'm not positive when it happened exactly but ever since I saw that show I've been pulling. People ask why I do it, and to be honest it's because it's pleasurable. It's a thrill, finding a hair that's not perfect, plucking it, feeling the rush of pain, it's exciting and painful. A release. An addiction. An obsession. No one knows the exact cause and there hasn't been too many studdies to find out what it is. People will do whatever they can to stop pulling, some wear wigs, shave their heads, wear hats, or whatever. I always have little toys and trinkets with me, but sometimes those aren't enough. I recently got a wig and cut my hair really short, but that hasn't helped much. I still pull. I hate it and I love it at the same time. And I can't stand that. After I pull out the hair I examine it carefully, looking at all the little kinks. Whenever I pull out a hair with the root attached to it I get a feeling of pure excitement. I rub it between my fingers and lips, then chew on it. I know it sounds totally gross, but it's made out of cartiledge, so it's really no different that bitting your nails. It's weird I know and I feel like a freak everytime I look in the mirror. I have to watch my hair disappearing and falling to the floor while other girls have beautiful long hair they can style any way they want and don't have to worry about hidding the bald spots. I get a feeling of pure rage whenever I think of the night I watched that show. I think to my self every night "what if I never saw that show, if I never got that pimple, if I never dated that guy."

As of today this is what the right side of my head looks like. I hate it, but I have to accept that this is what I look like and that I did this to myself. I can't blame others for this. This is me. This is who I am, and I have to hide it from the world.