I’m still touching my eyebrows A LOT, but stopping just short of actually pulling.  I’m finding it so hard to leave them alone completely.  But 2 days without actually pulling out a hair is a pretty good start, so I’m happy.

Todays little tricks:

• Put loads of moisturiser on my eyebrows.   Makes the hairs slippery so I can’t grip them with my short fingernails, and should also repair the skin damage and dryness from picking constantly.
• Keeping my hands busy.  I spent a good couple of hours tidying up today, and it was so much easier not to pull than when I’m sitting at my laptop or reading.
• Food.  I’ve been making a real effort to eat healthily since I got ill last month, and I’ve noticed a huge difference in my mood, which makes a difference to my Trich.  Like many Trichsters, I pull more when I’m stressed out or fed up, so eating well is really helpful.

I caught myself picking at my eyebrows so many times today without even knowing I was doing it.  I didn’t pull anything out (I don’t think) because my nails are too short, and I stopped the second I noticed.  But how can I stop doing something I don’t know I’m doing?  Today didn’t really go as well as I hoped, but it’s a start.  I definitely did it less.

Do you remember anything about when you started?  Or did you just realise one day that you do it, without really knowing why or for how long?  It’d be great to hear your histories.  This is mine:

I started by plucking my eyebrows just like everyone else, tidying and getting rid of strays.  My eyebrows are naturally quite bushy, so I guess this was a pretty big job.  To start with it was pretty normal, but I’ve always been a perfectionist.  Soon if I could see the tiniest stray hair, it had to go.  But it wasn’t out of control, not yet.

I’d always felt like I had to hide the fact that I plucked my eyebrows.  I remember the boys at school making fun of the girls who plucked their eyebrows a lot.  It wasn’t that I really thought there was anything wrong with it, but personal grooming for me was a bit of a weird taboo.  It was something I was sure other people did, but I didn’t have the kind of friends and family who really talked about it.  I didn’t even read magazines that talked about it.  I’ve always that believed it’s what’s on the inside that counts, so maybe I didn’t want to publicly acknowledge that I did anything so vain, so shallow as spending any time and effort on my appearance.

It still wasn’t a problem until I was 18.  My parents announced a few weeks before my final a-level exams that my dad had had an affair and they were getting divorced.  I got through the exams without any problems - I was lucky enough to be smart and survived on last minute revision, ignoring what was going on at home.  3 months later I moved out to go to college, moving in with a girl I knew from school, B. Living with her was great.

Then she did something she’ll never know she did.  She introduced me to public grooming.  B used to sit in the living room plucking her eyebrows while we talked, something I’d never seen before.  Of course I’d seen girls checking their make-up in public before, but they were always girls I thought of as vain and silly.  I’d never seen this kind of behaviour from anyone I respected.  Suddenly it was ok to pluck my eyebrows and look after my appearance, it didn’t mean I was shallow.  Delighting in my new found freedom, I joined in, plucking my eyebrows downstairs while we talked of hiding away in the bathroom on my own.

Then B got a boyfriend.  She did the classic disappearing trick, spending all her time with him and none of it with me.  We’d spent so much time together I hadn’t properly made any other friends, and found myself alone.  I don’t think I’d really dealt with my parents divorce yet either - having to get through my A levels had made me push it to one side, something to deal with later.  Then came the distraction of college and the novelty of independence.  Now it hit, and it hit hard.  I became depressed, spending hours alone in my room crying.  I had a supportive boyfriend at the time, but it was long distance.  I don’t think he ever really knew how bad I got.

Around this time I remember reading an interview with a female celebrity in a magazine B left lying around.  I’m not quite sure who it was now, but I remember very clearly what she said.  When she feels stressed, she plucks her eyebrows. It helps her to relax.  Could this have triggered some connection in my mind?  A link between emotion and eyebrow plucking?  Perhaps.  The fact that I still remember it suggests that it did.

Everything was still fine until I lost my tweezers.  I’ve already mentioned that I can be a perfectionist and that my eyebrows were naturally large.  The house was a mess, I couldn’t find my tweezers anywhere and the stray hairs were growing, fast.  I didn’t want to buy a new pair of tweezers when I knew they were here somewhere, and I was broke.  So I started trying to pull the hairs out with my fingernails.

I soon found my tweezers again, but it was too late.  I’d already discovered that I could grip the hairs between my fingernails and it wasn’t long before I found myself pulling without meaning to, often without even knowing about it.  My eyebrows got smaller and patchier and the skin got red and sore.  I didn’t know why, but I couldn’t stop.  It was 2 years before I heard of Trich.

Here I am, 7 years later, still doing it.

That’s my story, tell me yours?

best wishes to all,

love Maus

Stop stop stop.

My teacher made us watch some video on 2012 and that’s when I started to go downhill. I started having panic attacks, I started staying up all night because I was afraid I wouldn’t wake up if I went to sleep, and I started pulling at my eyelashes and eyebrows.

I’m a senior in high school now and it still hasn’t stopped. I stopped wearing mascara because I pick it off and it’s not like it matters if I wear it anyways. My eyelashes still look like shit and it’s more noticeable when I wear makeup. I used to get compliments all the time on how pretty and long my lashes were naturally.

I don’t even notice I’m pulling half the time. I’m surprised I even have eyelashed and eyebrows anymore.

I’m glad to know I relate to people, I just wish I could stop.

Submitted by haleyashton

I’m going to go put moisturiser on my eyebrows, pull a hairband down over them, and do origami till I forget they exist.

EDIT: It worked, I didn’t pull any more, but I didn’t get any work done either

I have had this compulsion since I was 12 or 13, and I can almost remember how it started. I have fond memories of the summer I was 11, camping in the backyard with my older sister and her best friend. One night they saw a loose eyelash on my cheek, and told me that if I were to make a wish and blow the lash off my finger, my wish would come true. The little seed of an idea was planted in my malleable young mind: my eyelids were rife with little wish granters, there for the taking. Over a decade later I no longer make the wishes, but my eyelashes and eyebrows come out just as easily.

Submitted by allcominguproses

I’ve been pulling from my eyebrows for about three years now. Every time I meet someone they say, “do you draw your eyebrows on?” I had three days of win. Its shocking how much extra time I had and how much more I could see when my hands werent covering my face pulling at my eyebrows.

Submitted by imaginarykite

I’ve been pulling out my eyebrows for the past 6 years, I’ve had bald patches in my eyebrows which I’ve had to cover up with make up, and I always have dry skin and sometimes red patches or broken skin from picking at them.  I’ve dug at a tiny hair enough to draw blood sometimes.  But the worst of it for me is the way it eats time.  I pluck my eyebrows for hours a day, it’s hard to get anything done with your hands permanently attached to your face.  I want my life back.