I believe that together, we CAN achieve this, and should. THIS is why TLC was established. THIS is why our Staff, Executive Board, and Science Advisory Board works so hard – and is supported by our members – people like YOU.

Now is the time to donate to TLC, and still receive a tax deduction on your 2011 taxes. As a thank you for any gift over $45, we’ll send you a Membership packet – with hundreds of articles, resources and discounts to TLC events.
I know the pain well. None of us should have to face these problems alone, and we all deserve to heal. Thanks to TLC, today there IS rigorous scientific research, trustworthy information, a community of support, treatment referrals, and increasing public awareness. But sadly there are still thousands of people suffering alone, without access to effective treatment, and much work to do in achieving the goal of a cure.
TLC is the only non-profit organization funding research, educating treatment providers, and working to end the suffering caused by hair pulling and skin picking.
If you care about this cause, please give YOUR support. Now. Today.
Wishing you a pull-free and pick-free New Year.
In Love and Service,
Christina Pearson
TLC Founding Director
P.S. If you are interested in making a stock or securities donation, please give us a call today at 831-457-1004. I will be SO happy to speak with you!

Trichotillomania Learning Center – TLC
207 McPherson St. Suite H | Santa Cruz, CA 95060
Phone: 831-457-1004
Web: www.trich.org
Email: info@trich.org
TLC is a 501(c)(3) national nonprofit organization,
our EIN# is 77-0266587.

About the Program

TLC’s Research Grant Program is a donor-funded program designed to provide funding for seed projects. The goal is that these smaller projects, once completed, will garner interest from larger funding organizations. TLC will not fund any indirect costs. Please contact us if you would like more information.

Eligible Research Programs

Any research study that may contribute to the understanding and/or treatment of TTM, compulsive skin picking and related Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviors (BFRBs) – these may include experimental psychopathology studies, clinical studies, or investigation of phenomenology and impact across the developmental spectrum.

Projects will be considered for funding up to $20,000 per year, although smaller projects may also be proposed.

Candidate Requirements

Candidates must have a relevant advanced degree (MD, PhD, PsyD) or be enrolled in a degree-granting program. If a student submits proposals, a research mentor must be identified in the letter of intent and in the application.

Letter of Intent

Applicants should submit a brief (no more than 3 pages) letter describing the investigator(s) and site(s), the proposed project and its scientific relevance, and a budget estimate (total costs – no detailed budget is needed at this stage).

The letter of intent is due December 16, 2011, and will be reviewed by members of TLC’s Scientific Advisory Board.

All candidates will be notified via email by February 4, 2012 of whether to proceed with a full research grant application, the details of which will be described for selected candidates in that communication.

Letters of intent should be submitted via email to Jennifer Raikes: jennifer@trich.org

Complete Grant Application Due Date: March 31, 2012.

More Information: http://www.trich.org/research/grant-program.html

To submit a proposal does not require IRB approval. To receive funding, however, the proposal must have an IRB approval.

Grant applications will be reviewed by a panel of TLC SAB members may 4, 2012, and notification of award will be made by June 10, 2012.

Grant applicants will be required to present on their subject at the 2012 TLC Annual Conference. Recipient must allocate 1000.00 of grant funding toward the cost of attending the 2012 Conference in Chicago, May 4-6, 2012.

Here I am, in college.  I feel so frustrated.  I thought I’d finally gotten control of my trichotillomania, being one-hundred-and-forty-something days pull-free, only to find the disorder manifesting in a new and unusual way.

I started picking the skin on one little spot on the top of my head a month ago.  I do not know what brought this on, but the picking has been relentless. The pus and the blood felt so disgusting, and so good, underneath my fingernails.  There is no doubt in my mind that skin picking and hair pulling are so closely related that they must be brother and sister.  I clipped my nails short a week ago and somehow my picking episode must episode faded away and the scab healed.  Luckily, I isolated my picking spot to one area.  I swear, if it’s not one thing it’s another.

In unrelated news, I want to start a trich support group at my university.  Since I’ve suffered and fought and lost and won many battles with trich I’ve become more aware of other people’s tics. I notice when other people pull their hair or pick at the skin on their hands.  I can tell when somebody is wearing a wig or if someone has bald spots they’re trying to hide.  With this strange gift, I’ve noticed other students on my campus with trich.  I’m not sure how to go about starting the support group since it wouldn’t be very nice to go up to someone and ask them “Hey, do you have trichotillomania? I noticed your bald spots, and I thought you did.  I have it too! We should talk some time.”  That might catch people off guard.

Hmmm…. How do you go about something like that?  Has anyone else started a group at your college? How did you tell people about it?

That unease about supporting Trich as a charitable cause struck a chord with me.  I could really relate to that feeling.  I wrote the donor a note, but realized that perhaps many other people have struggled with that same feeling, too.  It is important not just because it effects support for our cause, but because it may be a sign that we don’t feel valid in our own suffering from pulling or picking.

I’ve always been a ‘volunteering’ person and from a young age knew that I wanted to help “save the world” in some way…  I remember when I first started the support group in NYC 15 years ago, I thought to myself, “THIS is the problem I’m devoting myself to?  Is this really where I’m most needed?”  Despite the pain trich had caused me, it felt very trivial at times, compared to famine, war, abuse, and countless other problems.

But I can honestly report now, having been involved for so many years and talked with many hundreds of people, that picking/pulling really isn’t a bourgeois problem.  Whether or not it SHOULD cause great suffering, it DOES.  And it hits people of all social classes, personalities and backgrounds.   In fact, the families with the least financial resources have the least access to help, and often suffer the most.

Though most of the time hair pulling and skin picking aren’t life-threatening, they can be. Ingesting hair leads to emergency abdominal surgery. Despair over pulling or picking contributes to suicidal depression.  Just last year we lost two dear TLC members to suicide.

Even when, as in most cases, hair pulling and skin picking are not life-threatening problems, they do cause great pain.  It isn’t just cosmetic angst.  It is the pain of isolation, of disappointment in oneself, in feeling or being treated as damaged or weak.
I carried on volunteering and now working for TLC over the years because I could feel my efforts were making a tangible difference.  And so, I’ve realized this IS the problem that “most needed me” – and needs YOU too –  because few who are not directly affected by trich (or skin picking) care enough to push for change.

When we create a world where:

• Body-focused Repetitive Behaviors (BFRBs) are diagnosed quickly.
• BFRBs are not a source of shame.
• Knowledgeable treatment is available to all people with these disorders.
• Treatments are more effective and eventually cures are found.
• Information and emotional support are available to people of all ages and their families.

Then maybe I’ll run off to become a human rights crusader or environmental activist or …  (or retire on a beach somewhere – I’m not 21 anymore!)

~Jennifer Raikes

TLC Executive Director

From TLC: Another great post by a TLC Volunteer. if you have a personal story you’d like us to consider for the blog or our member newsletter, email leslie at (@) trich.org.

When you look at yourself in the mirror, you see so many different aspects of who you are, who you can be, who people perceive you as. A person with so much potential and so much to give yet your one flaw is the missing patch on the right side of your scalp. You don’t know why you do it, you barely notice when you do it. It is that much of a norm to you. Nobody understands including yourself, all you know is that you want to stop and regain control. The statement above that “Nobody understands “is a false statement, because even though you may feel that way, someone else is also in that same situation and you are not alone.

I know that relaxed feeling you feel when you pull, and how you hide it so you do not disappoint you’re loved ones. Yet I also know that it is possible to overcome this pressing obstacle. Suffering from Trichotillomania since I was ten years old, even having extreme cases to the point where I had shaved all my hair to start new. That did not stop my hardships though; on and off I would continue to pull and sometimes even breakdown in tears. I kept it from friends and even family. Yet I could not hide it anymore and came clean and worked hard to stop. Whenever I felt my hands going through my hair I would twist and release, or even think about the numerous people that wished for hair. Now at the age of sixteen I can say I survived and you will too. You are strong; you are full of potential, and most of all human. This is just a speed bump on the road and although it is not an easy battle to overcome, it is possible. I will always be a “puller” and I accept that but you take it a day at a time and one day you will reach that moment when you realize you don’t even do it anymore.

Helen Keller once said, “The struggle of life is one of our greatest blessings. It makes us patient, sensitive, and Godlike. It teaches us that although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of overcoming it.” Having Trichotillomania will not stop you from living, you can’t let it. I hope finding the TLC organization has helped the struggles you face, because I know it has helped mine. I always felt alone in this problem, I did not know pulling even had a name or was classified as Trichotillomania, but finding a number of people who felt exactly the way I did, was the most comforting feeling. I have come to a place in my life where I don’t pull anymore and I know you will too!

Yes, I want deeper cognition into my own recovery process. At the grand and amazing age of 54 (soon to be 55), I would like to experience long hair again while I still have some natural color (I have kept it fairly short for years now).  I also want to find out if my hunch is right and that certain things have changed, in terms of sensory triggers, reactions, distress tolerance levels, and how I approach my own hair in general, after maintaining aware recovery for about 12 years. Plus, I love long hair, but years ago could never handle all the stimulation it gave me!

This is about me. I pulled in isolation severely for 21 years, and picked my skin for 15 of those, before I knew there were others.  After this discovery, and during the development of TLC, I spent 10 years in alternating periods of relapse and remission, in treatment, some good, some not so good, but always learning.

Today, I have maintained a high level of recovery for 12 years. I am now more likely NOT to engage in behavior, than to engage in it! So why am I doing this personal “challenge?”  Why not just keep my hair short, and not push the envelope? Because it is important, as it will give me deeper understanding of my own process, and hopefully, will allow me to share from personal experience how I navigate this path, from the inside-out.

Is this scientific? No. I leave that to our beloved scientists, who, as you can see in this research-focused issue, are hard at work and deeply worthy of our ongoing support and gratitude. Without them, TLC would not have been able to lay the groundwork that we have for effectively moving the field forward. There is still so much to do, but these clinicians and researchers are my heroes, for all they have accomplished in a few short years. Can’t wait to see what unfolds in the next few!

On a personal level I have found that, for me, there is no clear dividing line between the emerging science of my disorder and the spiritual homework of living with it. And that, while people desperately need accurate, useful information, and access to effective treatment, they also need deep empathy, recognition of their distress, and a kind of “bridging of shared experience” to really kick-start the recovery process.

For instance:  when someone wants a good overview of current knowledge, or wonders if there is a treatment provider we are familiar with in their area, we can often oblige, with tremendous beneficial impact. But what do we say to the mom who emailed on Friday to ask if spanking her toddler child for pulling is the “right” or “wrong” thing to do?  To the heart-broken mother whose daughter just had major surgery to remove her second large trichobezoar (hair-ball) from her stomach, even though she is in treatment? To the thirty-six year-old man who just wants to know “But WHY do I pick my skin?” To the sixteen-year-old who texts me that her parents just don’t believe she is trying to stop?

Many, many of the questions that come in we can now answer with some degree of clarity, offering data, resources, treatment information, and useful strategies, with a growing body of rigorous research to back this information up. But for many questions there are no clear answers, so it becomes the work of the heart.

At TLC, it is our charge to hold and honor the space that allows validation of experience; to maintain hope, encouragement, and commitment, even when confronted with someone suffering 40 years of unnerving, relentless, life-destroying  picking or pulling behavior.; to recognize, accept, and ultimately give voice to behaviors that are shame-bound, publicly ridiculed, and seen as generally demeaning.  This takes heart, commitment, and courage, especially when you know that you cannot fix it, don’t have the exact answer (yet), and that even if you do have useful resources or referrals, the person in need may not be able to access or utilize them for a variety of reasons.

For this loving service I thank my coworkers at TLC, for each of us must deal with this challenge on an almost daily basis.

The experiential process I am embarking on here is not only for my own edification I hope, but others, also. I am told (and have seen the evidence in brain-scans) that changing specific behavior over time, with intentional awareness, and reinforcing it through practice, can impact and alter the “neuronal architecture” of related pathways in the brain, at least to some degree.  I was always triggered by the length of hair. I want to see what happens now, after years of “practice.” In other words, I want to mindfully experience what research has discovered, if at all possible.  I also want to be able to describe it, personally, from the inside out, although it will be as a piece of prose, rather than as a report!

Looking forward to seeing you at this year’s Retreat.
Love, Christina

Note: This entry is re-published from Christina’s July newsletter column, mailed to TLC members a few weeks ago.  It seemed timely to share as we are in the midst of planning the retreat, working on the 2012 Research Grant RFP, and launching the 2012 Hands-Down-a-Thon/Awareness Week Campaigns. Plus it’s been awhile since we’ve heard from Christina!

Great post! Thank you for sharing and giving TLC a Shout Out!

A Call to Freedom

by Trich Whisperer
Reprinted from the TLC Newsletter, InTouch, #60 © 2011
© Trichotillomania Learning Center, Inc. 2011. All Rights Reserved

I really don’t remember the first time I met my nameless, faceless friend. He was remarkably unexceptional, simply offering relief when my eyes became unbearably itchy from allergies. From him, I learned that the best reprieve was found in pulling out my eyelashes. I think we must have become acquainted in third grade during allergy season because by the time I entered fourth grade, I had no eyelashes. That year, my classmates nicknamed me “Snake Eyes.” The nickname and almost daily teasing lasted for several years and I quickly discovered that my friend offered relief from more than just itchy eyes.

My mysterious friend became my worst enemy on semester exam day in eighth grade. It was the winter of 1981. I had just completed my science exam in white-haired, red-faced Mr. Conley’s class. I was sitting at the shellacked brown wooden table staring intently out the window and worrying about next period’s Ohio history exam – the last exam of the day but the one for which I was least prepared. My fingers traced across the texture of the carvings on the table left by students past. Some carvings were shallow, like scratches left by absentminded doodlers. Others were deep, intentional, created by angry artists lacking a canvas. At some point, my hand drifted from exploring the texture of the carvings to exploring the texture of my hair. And I started to pull.

Keep Reading…>>

My name is Maddie M.  I’m 18 years old and I’ve been pulling for 9 years now.

My mom didn’t even begin bothering me about it until four years ago when my head hair became noticeably thin and I began to look like a sick person.  She comments all the time how “thin” and “really bad” it looked and she asked, “Why can’t you just stop” because “you don’t know how it makes me feel”.  That’s what my mom said.  She made it seem like I could be just another quick fix like the chores she has people do around the house—as if stopping pulling could be just as easy as changing a light bulb.

I felt that her ignorance was insensitive because if stopping pulling was really that easy then that meant that I had some control over it which I knew—after reading and learning about it from the Trichotillomania Learning Center—that managing trich wasn’t that simple and that it is something people struggle with all of their lives.  It’s an ongoing battle every day, all day.

I couldn’t understand why she would try to make me feel worse about my affliction and myself than I already did.  Throughout my senior year of high school and my last two years of elementary school I never left the house without a beanie pulled far over my head.  I felt like a freak and a sick person and not even my mom could understand me.  She accused me of “not trying hard enough”.  But that was so wrong.  I tried really hard.  Maybe I didn’t try all the time because it was very difficult to get motivated, but even when I did I felt like I could never stop pulling no matter how hard I tried.

The ironic thing is that I’ve been pull-free for almost a month now.  I don’t know I’m doing it.   It’s a miracle.   Almost like a quick fix.  I haven’t been less stressed—I just had senior final exams, I’ve been hungry, desperately looking for a job to make money, I stopped seeing my psychiatrist, I broke up with my boyfriend two weeks ago (but we’re back together now), I’ve packing up my life in anticipation of moving away to college, and dealing with my mom harassing me about pulling all along.

I’ve been thinking about it more and I’ve discovered three noticeable changes that I recognize and that work for me. One day, I know, I will relapse, but for now I am trying very hard catch myself now that I’ve had such a long streak of success.  When that day does come, at least I know I will be able to pull myself out of it once again.

Firstly, I’ve come to understand trich and also my recent work with the Trichotillomania Learning Center.  Maybe helping other people even a little bit has helped me help myself.  Whatever it is it’s so relieving to have miraculously pulled myself out of the trance I used to live in pulling all day every day.

The second thing that has helped me—I know this is going to seem shallow—is that I bleached my hair blonde.  All my hair is the same texture and color now so, though some roots are deeper than others, my fingers and my eyes can’t differentiate between hairs to pull out.

Lastly, I’ve become much more comfortable talking about my struggle with trich within this last year.  My boyfriend was the first person I could open up to.  He asks me questions about how I’m doing and how I’m feeling and if I thought I was going to do well that day.  He is always trying to help and learn more about it.  He’s understanding and realizes that I’m not a broken light bulb.  I told him all of my patterns and he doesn’t think I’m a freak.  He knows that I’m trying hard.

In talking to some of my friends about it I’ve found that four of them have it to.  That’s a very big number considering I only have a handful of close friends and the statistic is supposedly every 1/50 people.  Some of them knew they had trichotillomania and others didn’t know what they had.  Either way I think it’s helped me and other trich suffers in opening up about my struggle.  I know I’m not alone and they do too.  I know recovery is possible and I know people succeed everyday and they do too.

Keep working at it, trichsters.

 Do you agree?

If so, we need YOU.  Please JOIN TLC. Together, we will advance research, train doctors, and educate the public.

And, if you become a TLC member during the NEXT 7 DAYS, we will send you a free copy of the DVD:  Recent Research Findings: Trichotillomania Treatment and Phenomenology in Adults &Children

Each month, TLC helps over 500 people with hair pulling and skin picking disorders by providing trustworthy information, treatment referrals,support groups and phone and email support. But we know it is not enough to provide the best resources available today. We are working to create abetter  future.

Your membership supports vital programs such as:

• The Professional Training Institute – training doctors in best practice treatment
• The International Research Consortium – seeking better treatments and a CURE
• Phone & Email support – personal answers available to all those struggling
• Outreach Campaigns – educating schools, doctors, the media, and the public
• Email Support Groups (just like this one!)

We cannot do this work without the support of those with a strong personal interest in ending the suffering caused by hair pulling and skin picking disorders.   We need you.

If you want better answers, accessible treatment, and a community of support for yourself or a loved-one, PLEASE JOIN TLC today.   

 TLC MEMBERS RECEIVE:

• The Comprehensive Information Guide (over 200 pages of our best resources)
• Our information-packed newsletter InTouch
• Discounts to Conferences, Retreats, and Workshops

In a recent letter to TLC supporters,   I shared a story about the child “CM” who felt like an “alien” until  she found help from TLC.  Here’s a recent email she sent to me personally:

“I HAVENT PULLED MY EYEBROIWS FOR 4 OR 3 WEEKS!! and maybe if you have time and your not busy over this summer you could come fly over here on a weekend day and you my mom and i can go to the mall or something and all hang and talk about stratagies!!!!!”CM age 10

Where would she be now if TLC did not exist? 

The progress we have made in the last 20 years is remarkable.  And the people we have helped are profoundly grateful. Yet, with our current resources, TLC’s programs only reach a fraction of those in need.   Please ensure that our programs and services can grow to help all those still suffering: make a gift to the Anniversary Fund today.

Together we will provide the best resources available today – and create a better future.

Progress can’t happen without you.   Don’t delay – please JOIN TLC Today!   Thank you!

In love and service,
Christina Pearson
TLC Founding Director