{"id":10334,"date":"2022-06-21T02:46:59","date_gmt":"2022-06-21T02:46:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.booksofall.com\/cn\/?post_type=product&p=10334"},"modified":"2022-06-21T02:47:49","modified_gmt":"2022-06-21T02:47:49","slug":"the-hidden-epidemic-of-compulsive-hair-pulling","status":"publish","type":"product","link":"https:\/\/www.booksofall.com\/cn\/the-hidden-epidemic-of-compulsive-hair-pulling\/","title":{"rendered":"The hidden epidemic of compulsive hair pulling"},"content":{"rendered":"

Whether hair pulling, skin picking or cheek biting, body-focused repetitive behaviours blight many people\u2019s lives. How can science help us understand and treat these distressing conditions better?<\/h4>\n
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Christina Pearson was 14 years old when she started pulling out her hair, creating bald patches on her head. She was taken to a psychiatrist, but in 1970 there was no name for her disorder, and certainly no treatment.<\/p>\n

The doctor issued a psychiatric discharge that removed Pearson from high school. In that moment, she felt relief. Going to high school meant that somebody might pull off her hat and reveal that her head was mostly bare \u2013 a possibility she found \u201cso frightening that anything was better than that\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In the ensuing months, Pearson holed up at home, pulling out her hair and feeling, she says, like a monster. Scared and searching for relief, she eventually decided to leave. \u201cI hitchhiked across Mexico at 14 and was doing peyote out in the desert, all kinds of things,\u201d she says. \u201cI really lived a very fringe life.\u201d At 15, she started picking her skin, her body frequently covered with open sores. By 20, she was addicted to drugs and alcohol.<\/p>\n

At the age of 30, Pearson \u201cfinally got sober\u201d. She had started a small telecommunications business with a friend in Santa Cruz, California. In 1989, she received a phone call from her mother, who had just listened to a story on the radio about a study\u00a0published\u00a0in the\u00a0New England Journal of Medicine<\/em>. \u201cThere\u2019s a name for what you used to do,\u201d Pearson\u2019s mother told her, not knowing that Pearson still pulled her hair. The news that there was a name \u2013 trichotillomania \u2013 \u201crocked my world,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

After decades of feeling shame and isolation, she began to feel hope: there were others out there living with the same condition. Pearson started a support group. A Seattle news network invited Pearson to appear on air, where she spoke about her life and provided a number for a trichotillomania hotline that she planned to operate herself.<\/p>\n

She returned home to over 600 messages.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople were crying and sobbing and begging for help,\u201d says Pearson, who spent a week calling each person back. \u201cIt was the best therapy I ever had, because I heard my life coming out of other people\u2019s mouths.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reference:<\/h4>\n