Olivia Munn is a Trichster

Olivia Munn (photo by Misha Erwitt for NY Daily News)

I'm a little slow on the uptake here, but a few weeks ago, actress Olivia Munn "came out" as having trichotillomania. She didn't arrange a press conference or anything, but she happened to mention it in an interview with the New York Daily News.

Her exact quote:

“I don’t bite my nails, but I rip out my eyelashes. It doesn’t hurt, but it’s really annoying. Every time I run out of the house, I have to stop and pick up a whole set of fake eyelashes.” 
- Olivia Munn, interview with the NY Daily News

For a couple of days, the story was on all the news websites and celebrity gossip sites. If you Google Olivia Munn right now, 2 weeks after the original article, there are still a couple of sites mentioning it on the first page of search results.

And what was the internet's reaction to this breaking news?

A great big "Meh."

Which I think is a good thing!

Really, no one said "OMG So nasty!" or "Whoever has that disorder should be rounded up and shot!" A lot of people commented on the sites that they, too, have the disorder and were glad a celebrity felt like she could talk openly about something that is normally hidden.

Only one site was even borderline offensive about it, and that was Celebitchy's article Olivia Munn Suffers from Trichotillomania. The worst part was this quote:

"She’s also a plucker. But in the grossest, most neurotic way ever. Olivia has just admitted that she suffers from Trichotillomania – compulsive eyelash-pulling."

Which didn't even bother me that much. Because honestly, what do you expect from a name like "Celebitchy?"

Another good thing about it was that the Huffington Post was inspired by this bit of "news" to write an informational article on trichotillomania: Trichotillomania: What Is The Disorder That Makes Olivia Munn Rip Out Her Eyelashes?

So, like many people with trichotillomania, Olivia Munn probably won't lose many friends or fans over this admission. Personally, I've never lost any friends after admitting to them that I pull out my eyelashes. Hopefully not many of you have, either.

If you liked her before, you probably still like her. If you didn't like her before, then it doesn't really matter, does it?

Trichster: A Documentary about Trichotillomania

Wow.

It's been far too long since I've posted.

However, I recently found out about a really cool project, and it was the jolt I needed to start up Trich-y Business again.

Because of this blog, I was contacted by Jillian Corsie, a filmmaker in New York about a documentary she is planning to make, all about trichotillomania. Jillian wants to use her talents to spread awareness about trichotillomania.

Trichster, a documentary by Jillian Corsie

The documentary, called Trichster, will be following four trichsters for a year and document their experiences with hair pulling. The purpose of the film is to spread awareness of the disorder. Many people don't even realize hair pulling has a name, let alone that millions suffer from it.

Okay, I just made that number up. I have no idea how many people have trichotillomania. But it sounds cooler if I say millions.

Ultimately, I believe Jillian has the same goal as I do — to share experiences, to create a community, and shed light on an issue that is surrounded with secrecy and shame.

She is in the beginning stages of making the film. You can click here to visit the film's website and learn more about the project. If you want to help, you can spread the word or make a donation to her Kickstarter site, which is a site that makes it easy to donate to community projects. She's hoping to raise $10,000 by August 17 to be able to make the film.

On the Kickstarter page is an intro video that shares more about the project. I'm pretty excited about this idea. And I promise to start updating more often.

Trich-y Business Blog Revamp

I've given Trich-y Business a bit of a makeover to make it look a little more unique and whimsical with the help of a free Blogger template from Yummy Lolly. I'm no designer, web or otherwise, but I think I like it. Let me know what you think!

Trichotillomania and... Mel Gibson?

Trichotillomania got a little bit of bad press this week through an association with that big ball of crazy, Mel Gibson. In the saga of Jew-hating-in-need-of-anger-management Mel Gibson vs. ex-girlfriend-and-mother-of-his-baby Oksana Grigorieva, her latest accusation is that some bruises and scratches around her face and eyes came from a fight with Mel. Well, Mr. Gibson has fired back that her scratches came from the "emotionally unstable" Oksana's trichotillomania:

(Click on the image to read the TMZ article.)

Not that I would ever defend Mel Gibson, but he's not saying Oksana is unstable BECAUSE she has trichotillomania. The association is there, yes, but I don't think his intent to make fun of trichsters. I just don't want to be guilty of hyping this up to be something more than it really was.

PS: If you read the article, don't read the comments unless you feel like getting angry. I've discovered this is generally true about most pages on the internet that allow comments.

Topical Advice

I've had a bit of a setback lately, and I have a pretty sizable bald spot on my left eyelid. That part of my eyelid is sort of itchy and raw, and that eye gets irritated easily lately since there's fewer eyelashes to protect it from bacteria and dirt.

So I'm seeking topical advice. What topical medications have you used on your eyelids or in your eyes to soothe the irritation that follows a pulling spree? I've tried Vaseline, and it feels nice while I rub it on the eyelid, but the relief doesn't seem to last very long. And my eye itself is still dry and irritated.

So what have you used that you have found to work? Eye drops? Ointments? Other methods of relief? There's nothing we can do to make the eyelashes grow back faster, but I'm hoping I can find something to at least ameliorate some of the negative aftereffects.

A Benefit of Trichotillomania

Sometimes we get lost in the negatives of hair pulling—the anxiety, the physical effects, the stigma of having a "disorder." But today I discovered a benefit that has come out of my years with trichotillomania.

I'm SO good with a tweezers. Like, for serious.

My friend and coworker came over to me this afternoon and said, "Do you have nails?"

"Do I have nails?" I repeated stupidly.

"Yeah, I have a splinter and my nails aren't long enough to pull it out," she explained.

Aha! thought I. I can do better than that! "It'd be better to use a tweezers," I responded triumphantly, "which I also have!"

She shut her eyes, muttering, "I can't look." In a single tweeze, I pulled out the splinter and saved the day. "That didn't even hurt!" she exclaimed.

"I'm good with a tweezers," I replied smugly. "You don't even KNOW."

Although she probably did know, because she knows about my hair pulling, but that's beside the point.

There aren't too many occasions where I can say this, but.... Trichotillomania to the rescue!!



Image sources:

• http://www.pollsb.com/polls/nose
• http://www.fundraw.com/clipart/clip-art/3999/Flying-Female-Superhero/

Trichotillomania Twittering

I've decided to join the Twitter revolution. I've created a Twitter account for Trich-y Business, where I will post thoughts I'm having about trich. Of course, I will still post here, as 140 characters can be a bit limited for a verbose character such as myself. My username is eyelashpuller, and my name is Lashes Trichster.


Also, as I notice that people often ask me questions in comments to my posts, I've created a Gmail address, eyelashpuller@gmail.com. Please keep in mind that I'm not a doctor, psychologist, etc., but please feel free to contact me there.

Connect the Trich Dots

I just played a depressing game of connect-the-dots with my eyeliner. There was more connect than dots.

Trichotillomania Humor

Cause you gotta laugh at yourself, right? Or at least at me.

Which character in Gone With the Wind had trichotillomania?
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Scarlett No'Hair-a!!!!

Isn't that so awful and corny it makes you wanna hit me?

I haven't posted in awhile. I actually got pretty busy at my job (imagine that) and haven't had time to think of a good trich post lately.

I've been playing around with medication lately. I don't recommend it. Originally I was taking Prozac, but that didn't seem to be helping at all. Over a year ago I switched to Cymbalta. First I took 30mg a day. Then my doctor increased me to 60mg. Then she increased me to 120mg, which I was not very happy about. That's the highest dosage that's considered "safe," although Cymbalta is new enough that there's not even a generic yet, so really they don't know anything about long-term effects. I decided on my own to go back to 60, because I didn't really notice a difference between 120 and 60, and I figured I may as well have as little unnecessary medication in my body as possible. I was doing really well for awhile, but of course there's no way to know if improvement is from the medication or just from adjusting my habits. Maybe both.

But today I had a major relapse, pulling from areas on my eyelids where I don't even usually pull, so I'm feeling pretty down on myself today. As trichsters know, there's nothing quite like the ashamed and angry feeling after a major pulling spree and the helplessness that comes from knowing there's nothing you can do to bring those eyelashes back except wait and wait and try not to pull anymore.

*Sigh* A Trichotillomania Relapse

I've been so good lately. My mother even commented on how nice my eyelashes look. I guess a relapse had to come sooner or later.

I've been doing editing work at my desk rather than on the computer today, so that's the culprit. When I'm on the computer, my hands are engaged, typing, using the mouse, so I'm less likely to pull. Since I'm staring down at my desk editing today, my hands are bored and so start pulling automatically. I've pulled at least 15 hairs in the last hour. Then I started doing my typical Internet research: looking for articles on eyelash follicles (what the colors mean), eyelash mites, and the relationship between trichotillomania and endorphins. I just find it fascinating, as I know other trichsters do, and I think it makes me feel more in control to learn about the specifics of my inner demons.

Does anyone else feel bad for their eyelash mites? I feel like I viciously evict them each time I pull out an eyelash. They're my poor, unsuspecting tenants, and I'm the evil landlord.




Image source:
http://cheezburger.com/View/3899505152

Trichotillomania and Latisse

In hearing so much about Latisse, the treatment to make eyelashes grow thicker and longer, it's only natural that the trichotillomania community was thrilled about the possibility but still anxious about its effectiveness in relation to trichotillomania. I've been waiting to see if some other trichsters would be the guinea pigs and try it first, so we could all see the results.

I'm a member of the Daily Strength, Trichotillomania (Hair Pulling) Support Group and get a daily email with members' forum postings and journal entries. Today in that email was finally a guinea pig! And with positive results! Now, of course that doesn't mean you should all rush to buy it, but it's encouraging to see that it's worked for at least one of our fellow trichsters:

Successful results at 14 weeks with Latisse

(FYI, the photos she is talking about are on her profile page. Click on Photos.)

Image source:
http://dermatologyconsultants.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Latisse_logo.jpg

Having Serious Body Issues Today

Part of my trichotillomania is an obsession with having everything look and feel "right." The poor tiny eyelashes and eyebrows that are just trying to grow back in again are subject to my wrath, because they don't feel "right." You can see how this turns into a vicious cycle.

Like many trichsters, this compulsion for everything to feel right is not limited to hair. Many people with trichotillomania are also skin-pickers. I am one of them. I'm not as bad as some, who constantly make themselves bleed, but I'll pick at skin that has any sort of irregularity: pimples, scabs, dry skin, even just little bumps on my skin that aren't any of the above. Additionally, if I break or chip a nail, I have to stop everything and fix it, or I can't concentrate on what I was doing before. Today's been a bad day for epidermis issues. I'm having a lot of trouble concentrating at work because of them. I need a Pop-tart.

That Trichy Feeling

I'm sure my fellow trichsters know what it feels like just before you pull. I was about to type that it likely feels similar for most people with trichotillomania, but upon reflection, I'm betting that it varies. I imagine, for example, that it feels different for a scalp puller than it does for an eyelash puller like me. What does it feel like for you?

Mine starts with a textbook description of trichotillomania, in the way that people who don't have it try to describe it. The way that psychiatrists describe it is with a tension that is relieved through the act of pulling. At the most basic level, this is true. But this isn't a very detailed examination into the physical nature of the tension and relief.

For me, the pulling urge often starts with a slight tingling sensation on the edge of my eyelids where my eyelashes grow. If I try to delay the pulling, I experience symptoms of general anxiety, including slight shaking, shortness of breath, and a feeling in the pit of my stomach, the kind you get when you're really nervous or stressed out.

If I give in and pull, the tension only eases for a moment, while I'm pulling. I lose one hair. The feeling returns, and I pull again. I lose another hair. The cycle of anxiety-relief-anxiety continues until my self-loathing overpowers the pulling urge and I angrily grab a jar of Vaseline and try to soothe my screaming eyelids.

Check out this quote. If you replace the word "obedience" with "pulling," is this not an apt description of the physical struggle we trichsters face?

As I grew older, I learned to delay my obedience, but each moment cost me dear — in breathlessness, nausea, dizziness, and other complaints. I could never hold out for long. Even a few minutes were a desperate struggle. (Gail Carson Levine, Ella Enchanted)

If you've never read Ella Enchanted, I emphatically recommend you read it. It's classified as a children's book, but it's one of my favorite books. It's a humorous twist on the Cinderella story written in 1998. The premise is that a young girl named Ella had a curse placed on her at birth which forces her to be obedient. Whenever anyone gives her a command, she must follow it. The above quote is the physical reaction in her body when she tries to ignore a command. The story follows her as she tries to break the curse.

Although I never connected this book with trichotillomania when I read it before, I can see now why it resonates so powerfully with me. This book is about a struggle for freedom from a personal barrier that holds Ella back from being the woman she wants to be. The same struggle that we live with each day.

My Eyelashes: A Coloring Book

Sometimes, when I'm putting eyeliner on to cover my patchy, sparse eyelashes, I feel like a kid with a coloring book. I'm coloring in the lines. Or playing connect-the-dots. Or doing a fill-in-the-blanks worksheet.

Post-holiday pulling

The holidays have come and gone since my last post, and coming back to work today has given me a new Trichy topic to discuss. I've been good without even trying throughout the entire holiday. I haven't had the urge to pull, either eyelashes or eyebrows (not in a pulling spree situation, anyway) throughout my vacation; in fact, I hadn't thought about my trichotillomania once until my friends commented on New Year's Eve how great my eyelashes look. Yet I've been at work barely a half hour when I immediately start compulsively pulling my eyebrows.

I've discussed on this blog before that reading, typing, editing, any task in which my mind is active but my body is sedentary triggers my trichotillomania, and I'm sure that's why I've started again. What surprised me was the immediacy of the change in my behavior. It's as though my trichotillomania was on a holiday schedule along with the rest of the world, and now it's back to business as usual.

Birthdays and Pullfreeathons

Today is a very special day. It commemorates two anniversaries. The first is the day of my birth. I have been on this Earth for 22 years today. The other anniversary (the more relevant one to this blog) is that today is 10 days since the day I began my "pullfreeathon." This is a term used on the UK site, Trichotillomania Online (on my Trich-ed Out Links list, right sidebar) to indicate a pledge that trichsters can take to NOT pull. It's not a competition against anyone else, only against yourself and your compulsion to pull. You post on the forum to tell people that you are beginning a pullfreeathon, and the other members of the forum come out to support you!

I've found it very helpful. It helps me combat the urge to pull because I know other people (who understand what I'm going through) are cheering me on and keeping me honest. I also feel I have more of a duty to myself because I have a specific reason not to pull. Not just because I know it's not good for me, but because I want to increase the number of days that I can say I've been pull-free. I recommend pullfreeathons to all fellow trichsters.

Know Thyself - Trichotillomania and the Bible

I'm not much into Biblical allusions, but I am into pithy aphorisms that give great advice. "Know Thyself" is excellent advice for trichsters. You have to be self-aware and recognize your triggers for pullling.

For me, I know that when I lean my elbows on a desk, table, or any flat surface that I'm using to read or work, my hand is at just the right position to reach my eyelashes. And that's a bad thing. So I try to read with my arms stretched out, leaning back. Just to be safe, I put something small in both hands to try to distract them from the compulsion to pull. Because I know myself. If I prevent myself from starting, it's much easier to continue than if I try to stop in the middle of a pulling spree.

Do you know thyself?

Trichotillomania/Hair Pulling Quotes and Quotations

(Sort of)

A hair on the head is worth two on the brush.
Irish Proverb

But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.
Bible, Matthew x. 30.

You do not lament the loss of hair of one who has been beheaded.
Joseph Stalin

I love getting ready to do a scene, and thinking about it, and talking about it. But the rest of the time, I'm so nervous and obsessed. I'm just tearing my hair out in the trailer. The whole time I'm really tense.
Casey Affleck

Prejudice is like a hair across your cheek. You can't see it, you can't find it with your fingers, but you keep brushing at it because the feel of it is irritating.
Marian Anderson

I wish I had more hair on my head. Maybe if I sprinkled fertilizer on it, it would grow.
Kylie Bax

I'm the artist formally known as Beck. I have a genius wig. When I put that wig on, then the true genius emerges. I don't have enough hair to be a genius. I think you have to have hair going everywhere.
Beck

In mainstream romantic comedies, I'm usually tearing my hair out. It's just a devastatingly difficult genre for me.
Carter Burwell

It is foolish to tear one's hair in grief, as though sorrow would be made less by baldness.
Marcus Tullius Cicero

I guess if I wrote a book one day, it would be about hair.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus

A hair divides what is false and true.
Omar Khayyam

Let the devil catch you but by a single hair, and you are his forever.
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

Sources:

http://www.quotationspage.com/
http://www.brainyquote.com/

Trichotillomania Awareness Week

Did you know that this past week (10/1 - 10/8) was Trich Awareness Week? I didn't find out until today. Here is some information about it.

Trichotillomania: Body and Mind Disparity

Whether you have trichotillomania or not, I'm sure that every person has, at one time or another, experienced a time when your body and mind did not cooperate with each other. When your mind was telling (or shouting at, or pleading with) your body to do something, or to stop doing something, and your body refused to listen.

That's what trich is all about. Intellectually, you know that you shouldn't pull your hair out. You can think of many, many reasons why you shouldn't. For me, I'm shouting at myself in my own head WHILE I'm pulling. STOP! Don't pull another eyelash! But my fingers won't stop. I have to physically restrain myself to end the pulling. Because mentally restraining myself so often just isn't enough.

We think that, as humans, we are superior to animals because we have intelligent minds and rational thinking. We pride ourselves on our self-control, our ability to deny what our bodies crave. Maybe our bodies are more powerful than we realize.