Trichotillomania Causes:
A Special Message for Teenagers
Who Want to Stop Pulling Out Hair

I was once a teenager, too, and wanted desperately to stop pulling out hair.  Whether you’re pulling eyelashes or hair from your scalp, it’s emotionally devastating. Trichotillomania causes are a complete mystery, and almost everyone who is a hair puller will tell you a different story.

I’ll always remember the day that a classmate suddenly discovered that I had bald spots.

It was 1974. I was a senior in high school and we were assembled in the gym. On the top row of bleachers sat some of my classmates. I was standing alongside the bleachers on the floor when I suddenly heard a classmate say these words directed to me and everyone else:

“Gary has horns!”

My heart sank. I had been exposed. Outed. This time by a classmate. My bald spots from years as a child pulling my hair could easily be seen from the guys on the bleachers above me. When I was six, the bald spots were the sizes of dimes and nickels. By the time I was a teenager, it became more and more difficult to hide them. And now my peers thought I was a freak. 

As a teenager once upon a time myself, I know that pain and emotional devastation doesn’t have age limits.

I wish I knew the cause of trichotillomania.  I’ve kept you – teenagers and young people – in mind as I write and record these messages. In fact, I’ve watched and listened to your messages posted on YouTube and I find myself visualizing you – beautiful inside and beautiful outside – as I recorded Doses of Comfort. These videos are very powerful sources of inspiration for me to give you strategies to stop trichotillomania.

How I wish, when I was a teenager, that I would have had someone to give me words of comfort and hope. Or a trichotillomania support group to go to, but there was none nearby.  I didn’t have support then, but today you can. Now you can be relieved of your urge to pull your hair, even if only for a few minutes.

With Doses of Comfort, you can load this recording from your CD to your iPod, and listen to it over and over again, whenever you need it.