Could this be a form of regulating her emotions ?

[mamastired]

My daughter who has many symptoms of BPD also has trichotillomania. She does not cut, but has this other disorder pretty severely. Could this be a form of regulating her emotions ? And is it common to have both of these disorders ?

Our objective is to better understand the struggles our child faces and to learn the skills to improve our relationship and provide a supportive environment and also improve on our own emotional responses, attitudes and effectiveness as a family leaders

[twojaybirds]

what is  trichotillomania?

[BioAdoptMom3]

I just looked it up and according to what I read it is almost always a response to depression, stress and low self-esteem which usually tend to be present in those who suffer from BPD.  It also said it is a manifestation of OCD.  Our DD, who is diagnosed with BPD traits cuts herself and struggles with eating disorder behaviors from time to time, which also are a response to depression and anxiety and eating disorders are also another manifestation of OCD.  So, it sounds like yes, it COULD indeed be related to all of the above.   

[momontherun]

Hi mamastired. I am not familiar with your situation as I have been working on my own situation - how old is your dd? Has she been diagnosed?

To my understanding trichotillomania (intense urge to pull hair out) is basically a self harming act. Many pwBPD self harm (skin picking, hair pulling, burning/scalding, cutting, head banging, keeping wounds from healing etc.) From what I have learned self harming acts are a way of expressing and dealing with deep distress and emotional pain... . so yes, it could be a form of regulating her emotions as a maladaptive coping skill. Here is a site for more information on it: www.trich.org/about/hair-signs-symptoms.html

[Verbena]

Yes, absolutely.  My DD28 has BPD and has pulled out her hair since she was about eight years old.  She has a lot of shame about this and really struggles to control it.  She uses it to self-soothe in my opinion.  It's almost an unconscious habit that she does when she's deep in thought. 

[JulySky]

Mamastired:  You may be onto something:  I don't know for sure if trichotillomania is a symptom of people afflicted with BPD, but our daughter came down with folliculitis from her legs to her stomach. (She reached for Bic 5-blades like most people grasp for their cell phones.)  She shaved her arms, too, and plucked her beautiful eyebrows into slash marks. 

We think she over grooms because she is fixated on herself.  She will make sure her fingernails and toe nails are gorgeous before even thinking of buying groceries, and she can't be bothered to say good-bye to departing family members after their visit if she's working on her tan.

[Thursday]

My dBPDSD21 has been pulling her hair since she was 7 or 8. She started cutting at 14, stopped for a few years and is now even more involved in cutting.

I see what verbena describes. I believe she is disassociated when she is involved in pulling... . she gets this look on her face, like she is intellectually incapacitated, blank, far-away. She also has a lot of shame, when people ask her about it or notice. She struggles not to pull when she is around us and can, to a certain extent, keep herself from doing this when she is in social situations but when we are alone together she pulls but more furtively. If there is any kind of confrontation, discussion of her behavior, life lecturing, "mothering" or "fathering" she pulls in a very specific way, hair pulled over her face and the pulling is in front and very much more determined and looks more self-abusive although she still gets "the look" on her face that I describe above. Sometimes she will sit in a fetal like position when she is into this kind of frantic hair-pulling. We used to do family therapy when she was younger and she did this sort of pulling whenever she was in front of the therapist.

Does it regulate her emotions? I believe it keeps her from having to deal with her emotions. Keeping herself detached and distracted from her emotions is one of the most destructive aspect of BPD for her, in my opinion. She will go to the lengths of self-injury to avoid having to feel her feelings... . and these feelings are varied... . such as her grief over the loss of her Mom to cancer at age 12 or her very low self esteem and resultant serious and deepening self-loathing.

When she first began pulling her hair out (this is reported by my DH, her father as it predate my involvement) she was either unaware of doing it OR lied about it. There was an assumption of a physical or medical reason for round patches of hair loss. I wonder if she was so ignored that nobody saw her pulling out her hair? This was around the time of her Mom's beginning illness and subsequent diagnoses. I believe my SD went from being a major focus of her Mom's (only child, hard to conceive, tried for ten years, older first-time Mom)  to a much, much lesser focus in her Mom's life- Mom was a workaholic and once diagnosed, focused more on her career and her illness than on child and husband. Understandably. (and heartbreaking... . ugh)

My SD has several other OCD tendencies also.

Thursday

[Verbena]

Yes, my daughter would have that same far-away look, too, when she was pulling her hair out.  She would sometimes claim she didn't realize she was doing it; other times she would leave the room to do it in private.  My dd also sucked her thumb while she was pulling.  She still does this and she's 28.