Trichotillomaniac (or That One Time I Pulled Out All My Eyelashes)

When I was in the third grade I liked many things, but dancing and reading were my favorite things to do by far.

She’s A Maniac

The year was 1983, and I was eight years old. When I got home from the Catholic elementary school I attended each day I would run to my room, throw off my plaid jumper, and dance my ass off in my white Peter Pan collar uniform shirt and navy blue gym shorts. I LOVED to dance and by dance I mean I would shuffle sideways back and forth slowly to the music. My favorite dancing spot was in the corner behind my dresser away from the window where I was sure the neighbors wouldn’t see me. This corner was located by my closet where I could turn and casually open the closet door if my parents decided to suddenly bust in my room to see what I was up to. “Who me? I’m not dancing. I’m just looking in my closet for my legwarmers and workout headband for when I do a little Jane Fonda role play later.”

If I were in a happy mood I might dance to “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” by Cyndi Lauper or “Lucky Star” by Madonna. When I was sad I would play “Save A Prayer” by Duran Duran on my boom box and mournfully shuffle back and forth in the corner. My favorite angry music was “Maniac” from the Flashdance soundtrack.

Reading was my other favorite activity. I mostly read books. Sometimes I read Bop, Big Bopper, or Teen Beat. But when I read magazines I would mostly just stare longingly at pictures of Simon Le Bon in a speedo or Michael Jackson holding Bubbles. If only I could be that chimp! I would think to myself whilst shaking my fist.

When I was in the mood to read I typically read a Trixie Belden book. Trixie was the star of a mystery series by Kathryn Kenny. Trixie was a spitfire. She was brave and smart and had a lot of friends. They had a mystery solving club called the Bob Whites. At the ripe old age of eight years old I was highly impressed by Trixie. She was everything I wanted to be. Unless I was in a slutty mood. Then I wanted to be Jessica Wakefield from the Sweet Valley High series. Jessica drove a convertible and dated a lot of guys. She was pretty awesome too.

Most afternoons I would dance for thirty minutes or so. Then I would settle into the pillows on my bed and read a book.

Eee-eee Tee-eeee Think You a Freak

It was early in my third grade school year when a new nervous habit would accompany my reading. At first it was a relatively slow process. I’d be sitting in my room on my fuzzy, tan blanket that had a border of mallards marching across the bottom reading a Trixie Belden mystery. I would pick at my eyelashes while I read. A single eyelash here. A clump there. I’d pick and eat. (Yes, I ate those suckers!)

And if by chance there was a root still attached to the eyelash I got a funny feeling my eight year old self didn’t quite understand. A little flash. A tingle. A delicious sensation I would later in my twenties realize could be described as orgasmic.

This went on for a while – maybe a week- before I realized I had a bald spot. I was in my room checking myself out in the little mirror that hung above the bedside table. The mirror was next to a poster of Michael Jackson with his arm around E.T. I noticed there was a little space in the middle of my upper eyelashes where there should have been lashes. I panicked. I was in full on freak out mode.

At that moment I think it dawned on me that what I was doing was not normal. I was pretty sure the other girls at school weren’t pulling out their eyelashes and eating them. This might be the first time I realized there was something wrong with me. I had no way of knowing that there were terms for what I was going through: anxiety and trichotillomania among those terms.

So, I snuck into the bathroom in the hallway and got my mom’s tweezers. I’ll just even them out, I thought. Then I can put this weird slip up behind me. I started to slowly pull out the eyelashes in the mirror. This time with the tweezers almost all of them had roots and oh the tingles! It was just like the deli scene in When Harry Met Sally but with an eight year old and definitely no one wants what I’m having because it’s fucking weird!

I stood in front of that mirror dying a thousand tiny deaths. With each tingle came euphoria.

The euphoria was soothing. At eight years old I had many worries. My brother has severe autism and my parents were constantly reminding me that one day I would need to take care of him. I was only in third grade, and I already had a child. That’s a lot of weight to carry on such tiny shoulders.

I went into an eyelash pulling frenzy. Like Scarface diving face first in a tabletop mountain of cocaine, I was humming. Then I stopped. Both eyes were pretty much bald.
At that point I figured I better just pull them all out. I remember the last few were the hardest. Fine, barely visible lashes that it took all of my concentration to tweeze.

With every great high there comes a low.  A decline. A come down period. I looked at my bald eyes. They felt raw to the touch. Out of the corner of my eye I imagined Michael Jackson and E.T. shaking their heads. Judging me. There’s nothing worse than the simultaneous, disappointed Michael Jackson and E.T. head shake.

Dr. Mom

I was worried. My parents were strict and surely there would be some sort of punishment for this. They could possibly take away my TV, my Atari, or God forbid my boom box. Hmmm… What should I do? What would Punky Brewster do in this situation? What would Tina Yothers do ?

But really, I seriously doubted Tina or Soleil had ever pulled out all of their eyelashes. Their agents would probably get really pissed if they did that. My eight year old self figured I was the only freak who would do something that gross.

I was going through a phase where every time I did something I thought was bad or if I had an impure thought I would say a Rosary. I kept my Rosary beads, my Rosary coloring sheets, instructions, a prayer book, and my bible in a shoe box. I would lay each item in a straight line across my bed and say the prayers. I felt like this canceled out whatever fuck up I had recently committed. Saying the Rosary calmed me and made me feel better. But looking back I have always had only the vaguest belief in god. I feel like this was more of an OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) ritual. Only I didn’t understand that’s what it was at the time.  Even though my parents were fond of referring to any idiosyncrasy as OCD, I still wasn’t positive that’s what I was going through.

I put on music and danced around my room while I tried to come up with a solution.

My parents often referred to the dancing as self-stimming. Self-stimming is any repetitive act one does to soothe one’s self. This is often associated with autism. That’s why I never wanted them to catch me dancing. I knew they would comment about me “stimming” again, and make a crack about me being mildly autistic. I knew they thought it was weird. But I danced anyway, because I couldn’t stop myself from doing it. This time I didn’t just dance. I cried while I was dancing too. This wouldn’t be the last time I cried and danced in my little corner by the closet. While I danced and cried I listened to “Physical” by Olivia Newton John (one of my favorite thinking songs) ten or so times. I came up with two plans:

Plan A: I would play dumb. If anyone mentioned my missing eyelashes I would just act like I had no idea what happened. And my parents might not even notice my eyes were bald. I mean they had a lot going on with my brother and all.

Plan B. I would tell my parents my eyelashes hadn’t grown in yet and scream, “Don’t you ever pay attention to me”!

I went with plan A.

I tried to act as normal as possible for the next day or two. I went to school. I played the jump rope game Cinderella Dressed in Yella or Freeze Tag with my friends at recess. I lamented to my friends at lunch about how it sucked not to have a pair of kangaROOS shoes. All the cool kids kept their ice cream change in a little pocket on the side of the shoes, and I didn’t have a pair. I remember ranting about this particular topic a lot in third grade. If any of my friends looked at my face I would look away or put my hand above my eyes like I was shielding them from the sun. It seemed like I could go on like this for a long time. Maybe even until the eyelashes grew back in!

One side effect of pulling out all of your eyelashes is that your eyes become much more sensitive than normal. I was already suffering from seasonal allergies as usual, and without eyelashes my eyes were extra irritated. I began rubbing my eyes a lot and as a result, my eyes took on a red appearance. They looked the way a person looks after they’ve cried for a while. My mom finally noticed a couple of days after I pulled them out. She did not take it well. She asked me repeatedly what happened, and I stuck to my plan.

“I don’t know what happened. They’re just gone.” I said while looking at my mom with a stony expression. She wasn’t going to get the truth out of me. I wasn’t going to admit that I was the freak they were already pretty sure I was.

After undergoing a brutal interrogation from both of my parents, my mom finally relented. She retired to the living room where I noticed she was sitting on the couch reading the Medical Book with a serious expression on her face. The Medical Book was treated with great reverence in our household. It was a large white book with a maroon colored spine, and I’m pretty sure it just said Medical Book on the front. If any of us got a cold or a rash, Mom would consult the Medical Book and figure out what the problem was. Her initial diagnosis after reading the Medical Book and having a lengthy phone conversation with my Grandma was that allergies had caused my eyelashes to fall out. She figured I had simply rubbed my eyes too much, and that caused all of my eyelashes to fall out. My eyes seemed okay now so she reasoned a doctor visit wasn’t called for. I was relieved. However, my relief would only last a few days.

Later that week my mom asked me to go along with her to the beauty shop for her hair appointment. I was intrigued because my grandfather, a barber by trade, usually cut my hair. I was excited to see what went on at a proper salon. My excitement was short lived. When we got there my mom sat me in the stylist’s chair and started immediately asking her hairdresser questions about my lack of eyelashes.  I remember the hair stylist was a tiny woman with frizzy, highlighted brown hair. She peered into my face and squinted her eyes. We were nose to nose and she said, “Did you stick a bobby pin in a light socket?”

I looked at her with my trademark stony expression and said, “No. I woke up one morning, and they were gone.”

Just after I responded to the stylist my mom said, “That’s so funny. I was talking to Mandy’s friend’s mother about this the other day and she asked me the same thing.”

Cue the sound of screeching tires. What the fuck? She talked to my friend’s mom about this? I was mortified. This meant that more than likely at least one of my friends knew  I was rocking a pair of bald peepers. This was not good. I didn’t let on to my mom that I was upset. I couldn’t deviate from my normal routine. I just had to act like everything was okay. Much dancing and crying in the corner went on that night.

To the credit of my group of friends it didn’t really phase them that I was suddenly missing my eyelashes. It probably just amused them. I honestly don’t even remember their reactions. I was always one to proudly fly my freak flag as high as possible around my peers. I was impulsive not thinking about what others may say. But I certainly cried when I got made fun of. This tends to happen when you make no bones about who you are. I see this already in my oldest child. My best and worst trait. Fearlessness and utter paralysis rolled into one. I see the anxiety starting to manifest and all I can do is watch and be there for him to talk to.

My parents eventually let the mystery of my missing eyelashes drop. I don’t think I ever told them what actually happened. (*waves at Mom and Dad*) As time went on I managed the trichotillomania that I didn’t realize I had in different ways so that my parents wouldn’t notice.

Knowing what I know now if one of my boys were all of a sudden missing his eyelashes I would probably consult a child psychologist for tips regarding how to handle a child with trichotillomania. However, without the knowledge of my past experience with the disorder, I probably would have handled the situation the same way my parents did.

If anyone reading this thinks their child is having problems with anxiety, one of the best things you can do for your little one is to be a good listener. Listen to their worries and concerns without making any judgments and without giving too much advice. Also, seek outside help. The National Institute of Mental Health is a great resource and provides a wealth of information on a variety of disorders.

I want everyone reading this to know that having a mental disorder (or in my case having three) is not something I’m ashamed of. It’s not something I feel like I need to hide anymore. It’s something that is a part of me, but it doesn’t define all of who I am. The picture used with this post is my third grade class picture. If you look closely you can see that I only have a few eyelashes on each eye. To date it is one of the best pictures I have ever taken.

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