A Trichy Story: The Day You Became a “Puller”

Crash.

You’ve just been in an awful car accident.

Everyone survived, but it was brutal.

This accident will change you forever.

It is the day and moment you became an anxious soul with a messy mind. 

In just moments your mind shifted to a compulsive, anxious and fearful place. 

In that wreck your brain re-wired itself. Trauma can do that.

Trauma and anxiety are frightful companions. 

You’ll find out that anxiety can manipulate your mind into intense compulsions. 

Compulsions that you can’t control. Compulsions that will change your life in more ways than you could imagine. Compulsions that will dictate your actions. Compulsions you’ve never heard of and ones you didn’t know existed. 

The first time it happens you are lost, confused, and scared. 

It wasn’t an anxiety attack. It was more than that, but you’re just a kid and you don’t even know what anxiety is. What you know is that you entered the car with eyes full of thick dark lashes, and you leave the car with empty eyelids that no one recognizes, including yourself.

You pulled. You’ve just become a “puller”. You have no clue what this means. 

You have no clue what has just happened. 

You only know that you survived the car ride, even in the midst of paralyzing fear. 

You arrive at your destination but you’ve arrived a different person.

Both mentally and physically.

Your fear of being in a car after the wreck caused so much anxiety that you have masked the fear with pain and self-mutilation. You didn’t choose to pull. It happened. It was your body’s response to debilitating and overpowering anxiety and stress. It was a response to trauma. 

Who knew that some people’s bodies and minds create compulsive pulling as it’s “fight or flight” reaction. You wouldn’t wish this response on your worst enemy. You’ll spend the rest of your life wondering why you were cursed with this disorder, this syndrome, this embarrassing anxiety response.

It will change how others look at you. It will change how you look at yourself. It will change your entire life and you’ll do everything you can to make it go away. 

It won’t. It will ebb and flow with your life’s encounters. When you’re happy, it becomes non-existent. When you’re stressed or anxious, it takes over with a powerful force. It will dominate, no matter how long it’s been absent. 

You will hear the phrase “I’m so stressed I could pull my hair out!” and you’ll wonder if those people truly understand the core and creation of that phrase. You already know the answer, they don’t. But you do, though you desperately wished you didn’t.

With therapy you find out the name and cause of your disorder. Your nine-year-old self learns the word trichotillomania. Your nine-year-old self learns about chemical imbalances in the brain. You learn the acronyms OCD and PTSD. You learn about words like anxiety and stress. You learn more than a kid at your age should know about mental health. 

Your life from here on out is filled with big emotions and big reactions. 

You try to pray it away. You try to wish it away. You seek therapy. You medicate. You end up zombie-like and still yet to be cured. 

The worst part is that you lack a cure and at the same time lack the understanding, compassion and empathy from the kids in your school. You are made fun of, looked at differently and bullied for the very thing that you’d like to escape from. It’s a double edged sword. You hate and despise the very thing that they do. You are just as confused and shocked as those who work tirelessly to humiliate you.

To kids you have suddenly changed. You’re different now. You become a target. Would they make fun of you if they knew your story? Would they make fun of you if they understood the makeup of your brain? Would they make fun of someone with special needs or an incurable disease? Because what you’re facing seems like a mixture of both. 

Eventually, you find ways to hide the pulling, the differentness. It isn’t a cure but a mask of the battles you face. Eventually you find ways to prolong the attacks and episodes. Eventually you find ways to face the world’s cruelty of people who are like you, different and unexplainable. Eventually you learn to accept the cyclical timeline of your disorder and learn ways to cope.

You don’t realize it for a very long time, but you’re an overcomer. 

Eventually you can make it disappear for long periods of time, until the moment that you can’t and the cycle begins again. 

One day you find the tools, the strength, and the mind-shift to live with your disorder. Once you learn to live with it and accept it for what it is, you learn to engage with it differently. That alone makes you a success story. 

You are a unique soul living with an anxiety disorder. You are a person living with trichotillomania. More beautifully, you are a person who has the strength, grit and determination to fight this compulsion and the consequences of it every day.

There is no cure, but that’s ok because you are brave and strong and resilient and you’ll live a beautiful life, with or without all of your hair. 

Even better, maybe there is a cure. Maybe the cure is simply overcoming the shame and embarrassment. 

For me, there was healing in finally gaining the confidence to feel proud of where I am, anxiety disorder included. To have the vulnerability to share my story with the world so others can look at themselves in a different light. One where they aren’t alone. 

I want little girls, and grown adults, and teenagers, and people of all walks of life to read this and realize they are more than this disorder. I’m hopeful people like me can stop hiding behind the shame, the embarrassment, and the ridicule and say, “I am more than my flaws. I am more than the sum of my faults. I am more than my anxious mind and fearful thoughts. I am me, and I am beautiful!”

xox, Chels