Posted by Caedmon on November 25, 2006, at 15:10:44
In reply to Why does my daugher pull her hair out?, posted by kitkat124 on November 23, 2006, at 22:59:38
Gonna agree with the last few of the posters.
She's young. We don't know the extent, frequency, severity of the hair pulling. Yet we're ready to say "oh she has disorder X and needs treatment Y"
kitkat I *don't know* why your daughter pulls her hair. I do this. What I do is called trichotillomania. For me, it is NOT an OCD-like tendency. For ME, it is more like an "impulse control disorder" although I dislike calling it that too. (I don't like calling everything I do a disorder!) For me, a general reduction in anxiety and depression levels has helped.
For some people the trichotillomania is a compulsion similar or part of OCD. For some people it is anxiety related. But nobody knows very well why it occurs. There is surprisingly little study on it.
When I was about 10 I used to feel really compelled to say certain speech sounds. Usually they were back consonants like "k" and "g". I just felt better when i did. It didn't make any real "sense" in the traditional way. It was a habit. I would repeat them over and over. I did that for a while and then stopped.
I used to imagine lines continuing from the edges of tables and other angular objects. I would sometimes intersect them in my mind or imagine them stretching to infinity. Just a habit though. I don't do this anymore, and grew out of it pretty quickly.
I used to avoid cracks in the sidewalk. Of course.
I used to ritualistically 'balance' how pressure felt on my body i.e. if I touched a doorway with one hand I wanted to touch it, with equal force, with the other hand. Sometimes I would repeat this until I was sure I had touched the threshold with equal force. By the time I was maybe 13 or 14 I had grown out of it.All of this, wayyy before meds or therapy or psychiatry trying to label me as eternally disordered in some way. Sometimes people *do* grow out of it.
Hair pulling is probably more distressing to see in your child than nail-biting or hair-twirling. If your daughter is forming bald patches or bleeding at the follicles then I would seek treatment.
Either way, it is something to bring up with the doctor on your next visit.
It does sound like your daughter has a lot of stress she is dealing with internally and that's very sad. :( I hope you can continue to help her out. Sometimes if you find the right therapist/counselor for a child, it just "clicks" and they can move on and be happier. However it works out, I really wish you, and her, the very best.
- Chris
poster:Caedmon
thread:706591
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20061123/msgs/707141.html