I am sharing this story not just for personal benefit. I am sharing this story to let people know that THEY ARE NOT ALONE. Ever since 5th grade, my life has been shadowed by a 16 letter word that no one can pronounce. Trichotillamania. Trich- Hair : Till- Pulling : Mania- ManiacHair pulling maniac. Hair puller. I pull out my hair from my own head. It puts a strange meaning behind the saying "I'm so nervous I'm going to pull out my hair" doesn't it. Well, the saying had to come from somewhere, didn't it. It started in 5th grade, with my eyelashes. I remember the day clearly in my mind. That day changed my life. I was staring in the mirror, and there was that one little lash above the lash line. Something in me didn't like it. I didn't want it there. I figured it was nothing different from plucking eyebrows to make them look pretty... I pulled it out. It felt good. I tried again. I still liked it. It became an obsession, it is actually and COD related disorder. I pulled everywhere. In school, at the dinner table, in front of the psychologist I was going to help out with my ADD. When people asked what I was doing, I quickly answered that I was fixing my contact. I was ashamed, I thought I was a monster. I finally admitted to my parents what I was doing. I knew I needed help. I needed to stop. My parents notified my teacher, who promptly embarrassed me overtime she saw me pulling and told me to stop in front of the class. It was torture. At that point, I had run out of eyelashes to pull. However, The Troche inside me needed release. I moved to my eyebrows. They quickly thinned. and I went off to sleep away camp for the summer. There, it got worse. My eyebrows thinned even more. On Visiting Day, when parents come visit the camp, my parents took me away from my brothers. They told me the words I needed to hear most... I was not alone. They did research, and they found my problem had a name. Trichotillamania, Troche for short. They found a doctor, I would start when I came home. Once I came home, I met My doctor. Lets call him Fred. He started me on HR., habit reversal training, what I now know to be as a sort of hypnosis. In 6th grade now, I was tortured by my classmates. I was the girl with no eyelashes, no eyebrows, no friends. In despair, I started pulling out my hair from the top of my head in excess. In no time, I had a large baldspot on the top of my head, and I was the only person in school allowed to wear a hat. My HR. was slowly starting to work, but not fast enough. I needed someone to talk to. I went online, and I did a search. I found Firelight Message Boards, which became a haven for me. I talked to people who shared my story and my pain. We cheered eachother thought the PPF and PPF days, which were pull free and partially pull free days, and helped each other though the bad ones. I believe it was this even more then the HR. that began my recovery. I found the Trichotilamania Learning Center, and I saw that they were having a retreat in Washington, DC. By this time with eyeliner and a headband I looked normal. Me and my dad flew to DC. I was sitting on a couch, alone. Everyone seemed to know eachother, and everyone was older then me. All the sudden, a girl a few years older then me walked over and asked if I wanted to take a walk. She introduced herself as Katie, and I promptly sat down to stop myself from fainting. Katie was one of my main contacts on Firelight, and I was sitting face to face with her. I told her who I was, and we hugged and cried. I met so many teens that day who shared my story. When I left that hotel, I cried. I did not want to leave the people that I felt I had known forever. They shared a part of my life that will never be taken from me. I shared one day I was one week Pull Free on Firelight. Two weeks Pull Free on Firelight. One month Pull Free on Fairligh, And so on untill 3 years passed. I stopped visiting the board that day. 1 years later, I visited the Firelight board to find that it was no longer in existence, the owner had run out of funds. I had stepped visiting Fred a year before. I am now 5 years pull free. Even though the Firelight board is gone, Fred has another patient in my weekly spot, and I rarely get the urge to pull, the brand it put into my life is still there. I still cry about it sometimes, remembering the pain I went though. I will wrap this up with a few websites. The Trichotillamania Learning Center

http://www.trich.org/ Amanda's Troche Site

http://home.intekom.com/jly2/ Brenda's Message Board

http://www.angelfire.com/bc2/trich/ -This page was made by Brenda, a friend of mine from Firelight. She made this message board after Fanlight went down. YOU ARE NOT ALONE!