A variety of factors contribute to a person starting to pull out their hair.
I would say most commonly, hair pulling is a reaction to stressful circumstances and an absence of positive methods of dealing with stress.
However, there are many other reasons a person might pull out their hair, and these might better explain why so many of us have similar rituals.
First and foremost, one or more family members pull or have pulled hair or eyelashes, or compulsively skin-pick, then you have probably inherited a tendency towards this type of anxiety disorder.
You’re also likely to have a genetic connection if one or more other people in your family have obsessive compulsive disorder, extreme social anxiety, tourettes or other anxiety/impulse related disorders.
For some, there is a deeper social connection and possibly even a cognitive social problem.
Your ability to handle stress is not just inherited, though – it is also modelled and learned from the people you grow up with. You can acquire a coping style and temperament, as a result of how you see others solving problems.
Social factors may contribute towards you feeling stressed enough to tear your hair or eyelashes out, and these include your family’s temperaments, their circumstances, traumatic experiences, treatment by your peers and whether or not you have, and know how to use, a social support network.
In particular, whether or not you feel free to be yourself.
This is where our online coaching system comes in to play. We help you to strengthen your stress relieving techniques and help you to find comfort in being yourself. In the beginning you may be able to handle urges without pulling when stressors are minimal, but we help you to handle factors further and further up your own personal anxiety scale, until you feel you can solve any problem and still not pull.
It really IS as easy as it sounds.
