The beginning

I can't tell you the day that I started, or even the month. I do remember I was twelve and I was in the sixth grade. I don't even remember pulling my hair out at home which later on is the only place I would do it. I can't tell you why I started, I have no idea. I wasn't stressed, as far as I knew. I wasn't anxious about anything. Although as I went through counseling my therapists concluded it had to be that I was going into junior high or my brother would be leaving on his mission the upcoming summer.

I didn't have ADD. I wasn't really OCD about anything. 

I remember sitting in Mrs. Isham's sixth grade class looking at the floor around me and seeing piles of hair on the carpet. I remember I had to start wearing my hair different ways so I could cover up my growing bald spot.

People started to notice. The school counselor asked me to come into her office one day during class. I sat across from her at a small round table and she asked me the small talk questions like, “how are you doing?” And then she asked if I had been pulling my hair. I remember her making the motion of pulling her own hair out when she asked me. I told her no. And that was that. I know she didn't believe me, but I wasn't about to talk about it with her. 

One evening my parents took me into their room and my dad told me about a man at work who had bald spots on his head and he told me it was because he had been pulling his hair out. They then asked me if I pulled mine out. There were two reasons I told them no:

-I was ashamed. I knew this was not normal. It wasn't a bad habit like biting your nails, which everyone does. But no one pulled their hair out. 
-I thought I was going to be in big trouble. For some reason I thought I was doing something very wrong. 

So I told them no, several times. And they kept reassuring me that it was okay and they were just trying to help. After awhile I started to cry and I admitted that that was what I had been doing. 

This was just the beginning, I had no idea how much this disorder would affect me through the years.