{"id":5339,"date":"2020-04-22T18:13:15","date_gmt":"2020-04-22T14:13:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/?p=5339"},"modified":"2020-04-22T18:13:17","modified_gmt":"2020-04-22T14:13:17","slug":"trichotillomania-a-common-disorder-of-hair-pulling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/trichotillomania-a-common-disorder-of-hair-pulling\/","title":{"rendered":"Trichotillomania: a Common Disorder of Hair-Pulling"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>There was a spot on Noor Muthanna\u2019s head that was itchy, so she asked her maid to check. It was a coarse and coiled strand of hair that the maid later pulled out when asked to. Noor was left with a tingly feeling, and very quickly over the course of three weeks, she developed all signs of a condition called Trichotillomania.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Trichotillomania, also referred to as hair-pulling disorder, \u201cis an often debilitating psychiatric condition characterized by recurrent pulling out of one\u2019s own hair, leading to hair loss and marked functional impairment,\u201d according to a research paper published on The National Center for Biotechnology Information\u2019s website.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWhen it gets bad, I pull for hours on end &#8212; three four five six hours &#8212; and my wrists and fingers start to hurt,\u201d Muthanna, a 20-year-old Jordanian national, who has been suffering from this condition for about seven years, said in a video call.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s exhausting mentally and physically, so at some points, you would really want to stop, but because you want to stop and it\u2019s not working, you feel anxious and you pull more.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At around the same age, Noelle Zarifeh started developing the same symptoms. After living through some traumatic events during the Lebanese war, she finally overcame this and was happy in her school and among her friends. When her parents discussed moving homes, Zarifeh felt stressed about this. She was 13.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt was something I did in secret, but my mom noticed an empty spot on my head so she took me to a dermatologist, thinking it was a skin problem,\u201d Zarifeh, a 37-year-old Lebanese, said in text messages. The dermatologist said it wasn\u2019t a skin condition, so her family started telling her to stop playing with her hair. \u201cIt felt worse! So I had to stay in my room all the time and pretend that I had lots of homework to do.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Zarifeh only really discussed it openly with her mother three months ago, which is 27 years after she first started pulling her hair.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Trichotillomania can also be linked with other obsessive conditions and can, therefore, be a consequence or an effect.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI have some obsessive-compulsive disorder tendencies and one of them is related to my face and hair,\u201d said Luke, a 20-year-old American citizen who didn&#8217;t want to be identified by his family name for privacy reasons. \u201cI touch them all the time and when I find something odd on my scalp like a bump or maybe a specific strand of hair textured differently or longer than the others, I feel the urge to remove it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-container-2 wp-block-gallery-1 wp-block-gallery aligncenter columns-3 is-cropped\"><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"787\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_6594-787x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"5341\" data-link=\"https:\/\/www.mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/?attachment_id=5341\" class=\"wp-image-5341\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_6594-787x1024.jpg 787w, https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_6594-691x900.jpg 691w, https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_6594-768x1000.jpg 768w, https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_6594.jpg 828w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 787px) 100vw, 787px\" \/><figcaption>Picture courtesy of Luke. <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"790\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_6595-790x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"5342\" data-link=\"https:\/\/www.mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/?attachment_id=5342\" class=\"wp-image-5342\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_6595-790x1024.jpg 790w, https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_6595-695x900.jpg 695w, https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_6595-768x995.jpg 768w, https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_6595.jpg 828w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 790px) 100vw, 790px\" \/><figcaption>Picture courtesy of Luke. <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"828\" height=\"595\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_6596.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"5343\" data-link=\"https:\/\/www.mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/?attachment_id=5343\" class=\"wp-image-5343\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_6596.jpg 828w, https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_6596-800x575.jpg 800w, https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_6596-768x552.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 828px) 100vw, 828px\" \/><figcaption>Picture courtesy of Luke. <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cSometimes I\u2019ll pull for the sake of just pulling and sometimes it\u2019s triggered by stress,\u201d Katherine Halford, a 24 year old Canadian national, said in text messages. \u201cI draw a lot, and when I\u2019m coloring something intricate or difficult, I\u2019ll feel inclined to pull.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Halford, who also suffers autism, started pulling her hair when she was 8 years old. \u201cI just remember finding it fascinating to see the hair follicles that would sometimes be stuck to the end of pulled hairs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to the research, \u201chair-pulling appears to be quite common and often presents along a continuum from mild to severe\u201d and although it was officially recognized in the American Psychiatric Association\u2019s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual in 1987, several people, even ones who suffer the condition, know nothing about it beforehand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI literally didn\u2019t know that this was an actual condition until I looked it up,\u201d Beatrice, a 20-year-old Italian\u00a0citizen who didn&#8217;t want to be identified by her family name for privacy reasons, said in text messages. Her condition started in 2018 while going through a stressful time related to choosing her major in university. \u201cThere is almost no education about this issue so as an inevitable consequence, it\u2019s underestimated and not taken as seriously as it should be.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because people are still unaware of the condition and how serious it can be, individuals suffering Trichotillomania often feel ashamed and embarrassed of their sudden behavior as they would feel \u201cabnormal for pulling chunks of our own hair out\u201d according to Muthanna. These individuals, therefore, start the habit of covering the areas they pull out hair from and try to deal with it on their own. &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI am taking advantage of the quarantine to always wear a beanie so that I literally can\u2019t touch my hair,\u201d said Beatrice. \u201cI also use one of those squishy anti-stress balls to keep my hands busy from reaching my hair.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI was very relieved at some points that I\u2019m wearing the hijab because I don\u2019t know how else I would have dealt with this,\u201d said Muthanna. To physically restrain herself from pulling, she had to shave her head completely and later kept her hair short.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because there are no \u201cpharmacotherapies that would be universally accepted as first-line treatments for Trichotillomania\u201d according to the research, people are often treated using behavioral therapy that generally used \u201chabit reversal therapy (HRT) and has sometimes included components of acceptance and commitment therapy and dialectical behavior therapy as well.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Edited by: Farah Mohamed <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There was a spot on Noor Muthanna\u2019s head that was itchy, so she asked her&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":5340,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[48],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5339"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5339"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5344,"href":"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5339\/revisions\/5344"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}