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Pulling Out Eyelashes – Why Do I Do It?

Dec 25th, 2009 by Cari Webbe

Pulling out eyelashes can seem strange, making you think you’re the only one that does it. However, this is probably more common than you might think. It’s simply a symptom of a condition known as trichotillomania – this is what causes you to pull out hair from any area of the body, including eyelashes.

People of all ages can develop this hair pulling habit at any time, and the hair is most commonly pulled from the scalp. However, eyebrows, eyelashes and just about any other kind of hair can also be pulled out, though different individuals show different signs.

What Eyelash Pulling Can Do

The damage from pulling out any kind of hair is often more emotional than it is physical. The most noticable sign is that you will have bald patches, and this can happen on the eyelashes as well as on the head.

If you’re finding that eyelash pulling is getting bad then there are ways in which you can try to cover up, including the use of makeup and false eyelashes. However, you can also try a number of treatment options.

Treatment for Eyelash Pulling

These treatments can help the condition of trichotillomania:

Making sure that your hands are always kept busy, putting something like Vaseline on your eyelashes to make them harder to pull out, using relaxation techniques, taking medication and getting psychotherapy.

Not all doctors will have heard of trichotillomania, despite the fact that literally millions of people do suffer from this condition. This is why it’s essential you try to understand it yourself, as well as take any measures you can to help.

Getting Help

Pulling out eyelashes might not be easy to stop, but people usually find that they can come up with their own ways of dealing with the problem. No one cure will work for absolutely everyone, so you may need to try a number of techniques.

Try chatting to others online who do the same as you. They may be able to suggest a tactic you haven’t yet tried. Even if they can’t, they will be there for you and give you strength in knowing that you are not alone.

I’m a 20 something girl who has suffered with trichotillomania since I was 10. One thing that’s helped me the most is to blog about pulling out hair, by which I try to raise awareness, finding different things that might help trichotillomania, and chatting with other people as I go.

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