IF YOU ASK ME WHAT my greatest feat is, I won't hesitate to tell you that it was to stop pulling my hair. My name is Edith, I am 21 years old, and I am currently at the end of a very long and difficult personal journey that brought me to a point where I would never want to go back. I know what it's like. I'm a veteran. I pulled for 11 years; I had the most severe form of trichotillomania, called trichophagia, when you swallow all your hair. I had horrible stomachaches, a completely bald head, I wore bandanas for at least 6 years of my life, and had not many friends throughout high school. I think I tried to stop about 50 times. I went from using the elastic method, to forcing myself to do push ups, I've tried everything you can Imagine. At one point I shaved my head to skin everyday to go to school. Other kids called me the cancer kid. I must have bought more than 100 sticks of mascara in my life. I don't think I have to elaborate, I'm sure many of you have "been there and done that".

I started seeing a therapist 3 years ago. It was the hardest thing for me to go to the hospital and tell the doctors what was wrong with me. In Canada, you are only entitled to see a therapist for free if a general doctor diagnoses you. You can imagine seldom doctors ever see trich cases. I felt so ashamed to tell them that I pulled out my hair. I started crying in front of the doctors, it was very emotionally draining. I'll never forget how much my friend Ferry helped me get through this. We waited in the hospital for hours. She really dragged my ass over there; she knows I would have never gone on my own. I am eternally grateful to her. I would say that's when I really started curing myself.

I sat on a bus for 3 hours every Friday to go see my doctor for 50 minutes. I hated it at first. I had the impression she was always looking at her watch. I didn't want to talk about my past, my pains, my parents. I was too lazy to face myself and too proud to admit my weaknesses. I was always late to my meetings. I missed half of them. I stopped seeing her because it was going nowhere, and because I was going away to San Francisco to spend the summer. What a summer. I had some of the greatest time of my life, working and going out a lot. People in Frisco are so accepting. I felt like my disease was nothing, it was no big deal. That was also an important step in my healing process.

I also had my first gay relationship with an incredible woman. She did as much for me as my therapist did, and I am also grateful to her. At the end of the summer, I had a normal head of hair, for the first time in 10 years. I also ran a marathon that fall, and when I look back, I realise that it was also an extremely important step. However, I had to come back to Canada to finish my college degree, and as soon as I started school and basketball, I started pulling again, more than ever. Back to the same old patterns, I was really depressed. I had tasted what it was like to be out of that, it was so hard to go back.

In my last year of College, I went through a very intense emotional period. I would cry all the time, call my sister and start crying at any moment, I can't say it was a depression, because I was functioning properly. I think I was doing a serious cleansing process. It was one of the hardest part of my healing. A good analogy would be the following; suppose you move out of your home and you have to empty it all out. You find out one day that there is a whole room full of stuff that you have never seen before, much of it's content is very dirty and sticky. As you remove the dirty stuff, you find out that the room is actually infected with some dangerous germ. The only way you can clean it out is to empty it all out and actually take it apart, every piece of wood, every nail, until there is no more infection. After cleaning out the whole room, and the whole house, you realise that the infection was actually in the whole house, but very well hidden. You look at your house and realise how much work there is to be done. Either you sit there and pull your hair out, or you roll your sleeves and start working. Which is what I did. I called up my doctor again, and started seeing her again. I was much more ready for it. I went on my own will; I was looking forward to my sessions. I did a lot of progress in those 4-5 months when I saw her. I was more willing to help myself, which made her job easier, and the whole thing was so much easier for the both of us. I had to stop therapy because I went to San Francisco again. Unfortunately, it was over with my girlfriend, I screwed up the relationship, and she had another girlfriend. I was still madly in love with her, and that was a really tough summer. I also had my violin stolen, as well as my two bikes. My brother was also spending the summer in Frisco, and he was having a rough time as well. One day we sat in the living room and decided to take our life in hand. He would stop biting his nails and I would stop pulling my hair. It was a decision. There ware no excuses. Even though I had been accepted to Law school for September, I put it off. I fixed my priorities, and decided I would not go to law school before I had stopped pulling. My brother and I used the 21 days method, which we invented. The method is very simple, yet extremely efficient. Starting July 1st, we gave ourselves 21 days before we would stop completely. Therefore, on July 21st we would stop completely. However, those 21 days have to be used properly; every time you pull out your hair, you remind yourself that you have x number of days left, and you have to become aware of the reasons why you're pulling, talk to someone about it, feel the tension in your body just before you pull and learn to feel and chase that tension. Become aware that you are self-destructing, that you are lacking respect for yourself. No one else is doing the pulling; look inwards for the causes of your stress. Feel how much control you have over your body, over your hands and your tension, over your life! It's a decision I took, I would stop pulling, and I went into it with a strong determination, a really positive attitude, and total confidence that I would succeed.

After the 21 days, I stopped pulling definitely and I haven't started since then. I went to Europe for 3 months, where I told myself the sole purpose of my trip was to work on myself and my hair pulling. I talked to loads of people over there, told them about my problem, and the more I was talking about it, the more it was leaving me. It was as though telling about it was helping me understand it, and every day, it was a little less present than the day before. I can't say it was easy, though. Some days, I had to concentrate on only that for the whole day, when I felt the urge to pull. It was like a game of patience between me and trich. We sat there waiting to see who had the most patience, strength, and determination. I always won. Sometimes it tired me out, but I won anyhow. I did a lot of walking, in France and Italy, a lot of relaxing, a lot of thinking. I took off a lot of pressure from myself. I started being easier on myself, and towards others, and that also made a huge difference.

One day I realised the battle had been won, the enemy within was nothing else than a bad nightmare, my hair was beautiful, I felt beautiful, and I came back home. It's been now 121 days, exactly 4 months, and my hair looks great. I'm starting law school in 1 month, and I'm really motivated. Everyday I wake up and thank life for giving me the strength that I have. I'm grateful for having had this disease; it gave me the occasion to build my strength and patience enormously. I still think of myself as a trichster, and sympathise enormously with all of them, because I think once a trichster, always a trichster. I still get urges, but they're very easy to control now. Just the fact that I've stopped for 4 months is enough to prevent me from pulling again. What I learned from this experience is that incredible things are accomplished when you start believing. Not just believing, knowing that you can do it, if you want it just enough.