This day has always fallen on 10th October and with that, it has always been a day of revelations.
As every year on every form of social media, various people write posts about the importance of mental health or share their own mental health experiences. Mental Health has always been a delicate subject and needs to be treated the right way for people to truly understand it.
On Mental Health Awareness Day is always eye opening to see every year, because every year you learn something new and your eyes open wider further to the fact of how many people are affected. It brings home the fact that no one is alone in this matter. Everyone is linked and truly connected.
One thing that I always saw on these various posts, was no one posted about trichotillomania. It was always posts about the more common types that were mentioned such as depression, anxiety, eating disorder or even bipolar. All of these posts were heart warming and lovely to read, it was if I was able to get to understand people better regardless of whether I actually knew them or not. On the other hand, I always felt alone. To this day sometimes, I feel like trich is an issue that is rarely talked about and honestly, I think hardly anyone knows what it is. It is an issue that needs to be spoken about and people have more awareness of it to truly understand how it occurs; even what could be done to prevent it not going further. However, this year I finally spotted a post about trichotillomania from a friend on Facebook.
‘I’m gonna write this because I’ve had a few SDFs and it’s #WorldMentalHealthDay and people need educating about the less-known mental illnesses. LONG POST INCOMING, AND TRIGGER WARNING FOR TRICHOTILLOMANIA.
When I was 11 years old, I had trichotillomania. Most of you probably don’t know what that is – I certainly didn’t. It’s an impulse control disorder where you feel compelled to pull your hair out. It CAN be triggered by depression, which years later I was diagnosed with, but I don’t believe that depression was the reason I was pulling my hair out. It’s a disorder that has had little medical research into it, which means that sometimes people just need to pull their hair out and they don’t understand why.
Quickly, I started developing bald patches. We hear a lot about ‘silent sufferers’, and I have been one as well with other illnesses so to anyone who’s suffering silently my heart truly does go out to you and I hope that in time you’ll be able to talk about it and get the help that you need. But with trichotillomania, there’s no option. You can’t ‘silently suffer’ because you’re developing massive bald patches all over your head, so you have to start making up these pathetic lies as excuses because chances are, no one else in your class will understand. Because I didn’t understand, and I was the one that had it. Luckily the peak time that it was happening was during the winter months, so I was able to wear a hat at lunch/break etc., but (cheeky reference to secondary schools bloody stupid uniform policies here) you couldn’t wear a hat at my school once it got past February, regardless of whether it actually was cold or not. I was terrified. If I heard anyone laughing in the corridor, I’d assume it was about me; if I heard anyone mention the word ‘bald’ or even ‘bold’, I’d assume it was about me. And I couldn’t give an explanation for why it was happening, and to be an 11 year old girl in a new school I can’t even begin to explain how terrifying that was for me. Shout out to 11 year old me for getting through it all.
My point is, just as many others have said today – if you are suffering from mental illness, please talk about it. I know it’s impossibly hard (this status is actually the first time I’ve properly publicly talked about this because it’s something I’ve kept hidden for so long) but people need to be educated, and they need to understand. No matter how well known the illness is, we need to talk about it. Mental illnesses are horrible nasty things that can destroy a person, but they are NOT YOUR FAULT and we need to help others to understand that. Luckily I overcame it with the help of my family and through some YouTubers that talked about their experiences with the illness, and obviously now have a full healthy head of hair which I do get a bit weird about when people touch it so apologies if I’ve ever snapped at any of you about touching it. But if 11 year old me had been in a world where as many people speak about their experiences with mental health as they do today, then I’m sure she would have been a lot happier growing up.
I apologise if any of this was worded/structured weirdly, and if you read until the end then thank you – look after yourselves pals xxx’
As soon as my friend posted this post, a lot of comments and likes flooded in. Some commenting their thanks for talking about this unheard mental health issue and others commented mentioning that they suffered from it as well. It was a revelation in itself and a big breath of fresh air for myself.
My friend who wrote the post is confident, popular, bubbly and really knows herself. So, it was a big surprise to see that she of all possible people actually suffered from trich. There is the well known phrase of ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’, which is true. In actual fact, you really don’t know whats inside everyones books and who everyone truly is. Everyone is unique and special in their own way.
I was thrilled to see that she overcame trich and now, she has a full beautiful head of hair that she always loves to style everyday; show it off to everyone. In turn, it brings me hope. A beacon of hope that overcoming this can be done and the results are so worthwhile. It will be a sight that I don’t want to let go ever again. However back to reality, I still have a long way to climb and I would like to do this for myself. At the end of the day, I would like to come out at the end of that tunnel being a much happier person and as completely me.
Thats the aim and now I just have to continue my journey.
It has been tough ever since I have returned back to university, this term is the term where it counts. Where the majority of the degree mark counts and so, I have to make sure that I do my best to achieve a great result.
Day in the life of living with Trichotillomania 