My Story

Hello, everyone. My name is Rachel and I've been picking for over 15 years now. I'm currently 23 years old. It started out as trichotillomania when I was five or six. I pulled out the hair at the front of my scalp because I liked the way it felt and I like to look at the roots of my hair. I also pulled out my eyelashes for the same reason. My mom noticed my bald patches and got after me about it. I quickly stopped. However, I began to pick at my scalp. This started around age 7 and continues to this day. I would get bloody, raw, sores on my scalp and lose hair around where I was picking. I remember my hair feeling crusty from the dried blood. I remember a boy was standing over my desk at one point. He saw the top of my scalp and I saw the look of pure sickness come over him. "Your.....your head is bleeding." He looked as though he was trying to keep from fainting or something. Of course, all the other kids came over to look and I quickly covered my head until the teacher told everyone to sit back down. I was so embarrassed. In middle school, I still picked at my scalp (and occasionally the insides of my ears) but I also became obsessed with body hair. I tweezed my eyebrows into little asymmetrical stumps with raw sores at the front of each from where I would dig the tweezers in. I would spend, literally, hours crouched in front of the mirror; twisting and burrowing the tweezers into my brows. I also did this for my pubic hair. I had started to get pubic hair around my genitals and I didn't like it at all. I thought it made me look dirty. So I tweezed that hair too. While I stopped tweezing my eyebrows by the time high school started, the pubic hair tweezing continued until college. Again, there were raw, bloody, open sores that left me embarrassed and ashamed. I had my first boyfriend but I was never comfortable being intimate with him for this very reason. I had "tools" I would use. Tweezers, scissors, sewing needles, and a pocket knife; all crusted with blood. I remember the excruciating pain that would come whenever I hit a nerve. Luckily, this ended in college when I lived in a dorm and, with very little privacy, couldn't indulge in my obsession. Unfortunately, I began to pick at my back. I had done it in high school some (enough to leave scabs) but it definitely worsened in college. I've been picking at my back for five years now. I do it constantly. It's constantly covered in scabs and angry, red sores. It's kept me from being intimate and from enjoying even simple things like wearing a tank top, a backless dress, or going to the pool or beach with friends. I do a lot of theater and am constantly having to undress in front of others. I'm always sure to keep my back to the wall. Every now and then, I'll have to throw out a shirt because of the blood stains. I have a boyfriend who is caring and very understanding. He thinks I'm beautiful no matter what. I'm comfortable being intimate with him, although I'm always hesitant to be sexed up from behind. Lately, though, thing are changing. Summer is coming and I will be damned if I have to spend another season sitting poolside with a t-shirt over my bathing suit. March 2012 is the month I'm going to get better. If I want a smooth, good-looking back, it's in my power to have it. If you want to know how I'm doing, I'm posting another topic called "How I'm Healing." I CAN do this and I know everyone else here can too.