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Home › Articles › Special Needs › Hair Pulling

Hair Pulling

What Happens When a Child Can't Quit?

By Teri Brown

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It begins so gradually many parents don't even notice it. Your child's odd habit of playing with her hair and even pulling one out once in a while doesn't seem like a big deal. Then you notice she has a small bald spot that seems to be growing. Soon you realize that one bald spot has grown into many and you have entered the often confusing world of trichotillomania.

Trichotillomania (TTM) is currently classified as an impulse-control disorder, but that classification is under review because the disorder also resembles an obsessive-compulsive disorder, an addiction, a habit or a tic disorder. However you classify it, those who suffer from TTM only know that they can't help it.

The Addiction
Ashley Fraser from Columbus, Ohio, was only 8 years old when her parents took her to see her first therapist in an attempt to treat TTM, but the hair pulling had begun long before that day. "I was attending preschool and my teachers began noticing spots of missing hair on my head," says Fraser, now an adult. "They eventually had a conference with my parents to ask why they were 'cutting my hair so oddly.' My parents thought children in the preschool had done this to me. That was the first sign of my trichotillomania."

Knowledge about TTM as a psychological disorder was not widespread at the time Fraser's hair pulling became evident, and the psychologists were baffled. The condition worsened through puberty.

For Frazer, treating TTM as an addiction is the only thing that finally helped her recover from it. Abby Leora Rohrer is a former hair puller and author of the ebook, What's Wrong with Pulling My Hair Out? Breakthrough Secrets and Powerful Answers to End Your Trichotillomania Forever Without Medication, Willpower or Diets (Facilitated Recovery, 2004). Rohrer doesn't claim to be anything other than a recovered TTM sufferer who has, through trial and error, found techniques that help others. She considers TTM to be an addiction, a way for people to cope with toxic or uncomfortable feelings.

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