There are countless Anxiety based disorders. Anxiety is the core from where all these disorders sprout, but more about that later.
Trichotillomania is a medical condition in which an individual pulls out their own hair.
They feel compelled to do so, and usually it is the hair on their head that they pull out, but sometimes they also pull out hair from elsewhere on the body.
People with the condition also often pluck hair from their eyebrows and pull out their eyelashes.
The severity of the condition varies from mild to severe, and in bad cases can result in many bald spots on the head. This in turn leads to even more psychological distress.
What is Trichotillomania?
Patients with trichotillomania often feel a strong compulsion to pull out their hair and may feel relief and satisfied after doing so, they also may not even realize how often they are pulling out their hair.
Other mental illnesses are sometimes associated with trichotillomania, including anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, and depression.
The condition is more common in adolescents and young adults and seems to also be more prevalent in women than in men.
The exact causes of trichotillomania are not known but it is suspected that it involves many interacting factors including genetics and environment.
Fortunately, the condition is quite rare in the general population, but when it does occur it can cause significant hair loss which the person goes to great lengths to cover up and hide.
What can be done for people with trichotillomania?
Research suggests that habit reversal therapy is one of the more effective ways to treat people who have trichotillomania.
The idea is to break the person of the bad habit they have. In other cases, a more traditional approach using cognitive behavioral therapy is helpful.
A variety of approaches may be necessary especially for people who have more than one type of mental illness.
Various types of antidepressant medications have been tried for treating trichotillomania.
It is a difficult condition to treat, particularly in the case where people are less aware and seem to pull their hair out automatically.
However, it all comes down to a single emotion people struggling with OCD, trichotillomania, or anxiety try to escape, the emotion of uncertainty.
Because for these individuals it’s hard to sit with this unease feeling within their body, the feeling of uncertainty, they have developed coping ways to remove this feeling, these are the compulsions.
Whether it is trichotillomania, biting nails, or touching the door 3 times, these compulsions all help for individuals to feel less of this emotion of uncertainty.
The best way to heal all these disorders is to come to the core, to why these individuals have this feeling of uncertainty and why they cannot embrace it and accept it instead.
What can be done about the hair loss caused by the trichotillomania?
In some cases, the hair may grow back even after it has been pulled out. However, people can damage the hair follicles which may cause a problem with future hair growth.
Permanent hair loss and bald patches are possible, particularly if the condition is not diagnosed early on such that the problem persists for several years.
It may be necessary for a person with significant hair loss due to trichotillomania to consult with a specialist at a hair clinic.
Hair loss specialists can give suggestions on treatment options that can help with permanent alopecia.
Treatments that can help hair to regrow include low level laser light therapy, platelet rich plasma therapy, various medicated creams and foams, and hair transplant surgery.
It is important that the person receive treatment for the underlying trichotillomania as well though so that they do not continue to pull their hair out.
If you want to know how to get rid of these feelings of uncertainty once and for all, how to overcome anxiety, depression, OCD, panic attacks even trichotillomania and similar mental disorders, apply here to get the early access to our upcoming special program Emotional Mastery. Places are limited. If the link still works it means there are still spots available.
