A student has spent her life battling a rare condition that compels her to literally pull her own HAIR out.
Claire Dorrance was just four years old when her parents became concerned that she was pulling out her own eyelashes – and she has never grown out of the habit.
The 21-year-old has been battling an overwhelming desire to pull out her hair all her life, which has left her and no eyebrows or eyelashes on more than one occasion – and a bald spot.
Claire said: “When people try to get you to stop it is always about your appearance but obviously that is all you can think about anyway.
“Hair is the ultimate feminine thing.
“There have been days when I have looked like a cancer patient because of having no eyelashes.
“Having this condition has massively effected my self-esteem – all the more so because it is something you do to yourself, so you are responsible.
“My parents threatened to take me to the doctor’s lots of times, so I hid it so they would think everything was OK.”
Now Claire, who is doing theatre studies at Glasgow University, finally has a diagnosis for her condition after attending a psychology lecture that discussed the illness.
The student, who is originally Lockerbie, suffers from trichotillomania, a disorder which means sufferers feel strong urges to pull out their own hair, or may do it automatically without realising.
It is related to obsessive compulsive disorder and compels sufferers to pull at their eye lashes or eyebrows or hair, often leaving bald patches.
Speaking to student newspaper The Tab, Claire said: “It was an amazing feeling to discover that it was a condition with a name and that I wasn’t alone.
“I realised that I wasn’t some weird person.”
Claire finds that her trichotillomania affects her the most when she is stressed – doing uni work or writing essays.
The condition has been linked to perfectionism – meaning those who like their work to be perfect are more likely to suffer from the condition.
Claire said she finds herself pulling her hair out when she feels like she should be doing something more productive.
She said: “Watching TV, for example, I feel like I should be doing something else so that is a bad time for me when I’m more susceptible to start pulling.”
Although the condition is recognised as an illness, the symptoms and reasons for developing the condition differ so much from person to person that very little is known about the condition and how to treat it.
There are also two different types of pullers – “automatic” pullers, those who have no control over the action and may not even realise they are doing it until it is too late, and “focused” pullers – those who experience urges to pull and may not be able to think about doing anything else until they have done it.
Claire is an automatic puller and has to take measures to try and prevent herself pulling without even realising she’s doing it.
She said: “I will still go to pull. My flatmate will catch me touching my hair and shout at me to stop.
“It is pretty much like having a phantom hand – that is the only way I can describe it.”
This automatic compulsion to pull without realising she is doing it is different to “focused” pullers.
Although the condition is under control for Claire now, she doesn’t think she will ever be able to stop pulling her hair entirely.
She said: “I think my family were quite upset when I found out that the condition was a real thing.
“They felt it was their fault, I think.
“They had no idea what I was doing and just thought it was a bad habit.”
“I think they were quite angry before – but when they found out it was a condition they felt sorry for being angry.
“Now I often show my mum my patch and chat about my progress with her.
“You’re definitely not alone in dealing with the condition – it’s not a hopeless case.”
There are websites that contain useful facts about the condition and there are also online communities where sufferers come together to give each other support and advice.
