The
ABC's of Compulsive Hair Pulling and Trichotillomania
As
a former twenty-seven year hair puller, now healed for more than twelve,
I've had lots of time to think about what led me into compulsive hair
pulling and what led me beyond it. I now teach chronic, longstanding
compulsive hair pullers how to heal themselves.
Here
are a few facts before we begin. I came from a family of five
children. I was the youngest girl and the only hairpuller
in the bunch. My oldest sister was a skin picker. None of my other
siblings nor my parents exhibited any behavior connected to trichotillomania
that I am aware of.
Rather
than viewing obsessive hair pulling as an illness I now believe that, for me,
it was a normal way to cope given my beliefs, feelings and perceptions. about
myself within my family and my culture.
These
ABC's are my perceptions about my upbringing and my healing. I
share them with you in the hope that they will help you to connect
more deeply with yourself or your hair pulling loved one.
Internally I felt isolated, misunderstood, and alone growing up as a child in
my own family of origin and within my wider community. I felt
extremely out of place.
Many of my adult hair pulling students have reported similar intense feelings
of isolation from their families of origin and society. We found
it difficult to connect with and feel as if we belonged, though we
were very good at adapting and making it look on the surface as if
everything was fine.
- B is for feeling Betrayed:
I felt emotionally abandoned and frequently betrayed by both of my parents. Though
he rarely got physical, my father was chronically angry and controlling. I
now know that his anger was usually unjustified and the result
of his own emotional issues. My mother, who suffered from
chronic depression, remained silent and did not defend me in the face
of my father's attacks of repeated rage. In fact, she often defended
or made excuses for my father's behavior.
Again, many of my students share a similar perception. We felt emotionally
abandoned by our parents. Sometimes, we felt this way because
one parent was angry or controlling, while the other parent was cowed
or coerced into remaining quiet and did not defend us in the face of
the stronger parent's personality.
Sometimes
the circumstance was not because of an angry parent but because one
of our parents was chronically emotionally or physically ill. Regardless,
we viewed this chronic acquiescence as a repeated betrayal of
us. While I cannot say that all of our families had a classically recognizable
(emotionally) abusive quality like my own, we frequently felt abused.
- C is for feeling Cut-off and Captive:
Because of my father's rage and my mother's chronic emotional illness, we had
a closed family system. There was an unspoken rule
that I was too timid to break, and this stopped me from speaking about
my situation or going outside of my family for help. I also did
not have any perspective about a life beyond what was "normal" for
me and my family. I felt cut-off and captive; there was no escape
and I felt powerless to help or change anything.
For me, hair pulling was a beacon signaling just how powerless and alone I
felt. It allowed me to remain in the family and to cope without
significantly increasing the volatility of my family.
My adult students also report having felt trapped in untenable family
situations in which they believed they were powerless to escape. Hair
pulling also became their way of coping.
Hair as a Metaphor for Personal Power and Spiritual Connection.
The main compliment I remember about my worth as a child was connected
to my hair. People always commented on my beautiful curly brown
ringlets. It was my one claim to fame as the last child of five.
Having grown up with the Old Testament, I learned from the story of
Samson and Delilah that hair is a Western cultural metaphor for personal
power. (I once read a survey in O Magazine that a majority of men said
that they would prefer impotence over baldness!). So my own self-worth
and personal power was definitely tied to my hair as a child/teen.
I don't recall anyone ever positively commenting on my intelligence or
perceptiveness of which I had a great deal. I had at least one
older sibling who already had the title "Intelligent" sewn
up and my perceptiveness and truth-speaking were not valued in my family. Apparently,
I came to believe that in my family beautiful hair was valued over
these inner qualities and strengths.
Because of my feelings of family abandonment, betrayal and captivity and because,
for me, hair pulling became an addictive coping tool, I also felt cut-off
from the source of my spiritual power, from God.
I now believe that when humans see themselves as abandoned, betrayed
and cut-off from the source of their inherent power, and they are unable
to directly or safely voice these feelings because they perceive it
as unsafe to do so, it is a natural and normal built-in human reaction
to pull their hair out. This sends a signal to your clan and
culture that you are internally suffering and need for things to change.
Without exception, I and my students who have healed their trichotillomania,
have connected with and healed our deeply powerlessness due (often)
to feelings of early isolation, abandonment, captivity. Many
times these perceptions were held unconsciously and only understood
upon close examination. Without taking these steps I believe
we would not have healed.
For a deeper explanation of this topic and how it applies to healing compulsive
hair pulling, please refer to my complete Pull-Free, At Last! System
materials.
For information on What’s Wrong With Pulling My Hair Out? or Facilitated
Recovery™ programs or just to reach me, please write to: Abby Leora Rohrer,
Facilitated Recovery, LLC, PO Box 664
Lafayette, CO 80026 or call
(303)546-0788.
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