Trichotillomania (often abbreviated as TTM) is a mental health disorder where a person compulsively pulls out or breaks their own hair. This condition falls under the classification of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
Compulsive hair touching may be a ritual to help reduce stress or anxiety usually brought about by obsessive thoughts.
There's a number of triggers that may set you off into touching your hair such as nervousness, stress and anxiety. Understanding these triggers is crucial and a good way to snap out of this habit. If you're dealing with anxiety for instance, you can try some calming breathing exercises or speak to someone about it.
Playing with your hair is one of those actions everyone seems to do at least once during their day. Silkup explains that hair touching can be considered a symptom of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) in extreme cases, and is sometimes used as a coping mechanism to help people deal with feelings of anxiety.
Recommended. Symptom: You feel stressed when objects are out of place. It's really hard for you to leave home until you've arranged things in a certain way. Symptom: When you're thinking of something completely different, you have thoughts about hurting yourself or someone else.
A knee bounce or a hair twirl pops up for different reasons: studies show stimming helps give an extra spark to assist ADHD brain wiring and more accurate responses. While more prevalent in ADHD and autism, engaging in stimming isn't exclusive to either.
What is trichotillomania? Trichotillomania (often abbreviated as TTM) is a mental health disorder where a person compulsively pulls out or breaks their own hair. This condition falls under the classification of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
There is nothing wrong with setting your hair in place now and then. Still, if you touch your hair frequently all the time, this may be a symptom of anxiety disorder and can develop into trichotillomania – compulsive hair pulling that causes visible hair loss.
Fears about contamination, germs, and cleanliness are very common with OCD, which may lead to problems with physical closeness, being touched and overall affection. That said, those with OCD are prone to intimacy issues.
Trichotillomania and other BFRBs can be considered a form of stimming, since they are often triggered by feelings of boredom or anxiety and may temporarily help soothe these negative emotions.
For kids with ADHD, chronic hair pulling and skin picking doesn't necessarily mean they are stressed out or upset. Lots of complex kids (and neurotypical kids for that matter) are not even aware that they are pulling their hair out as a kind of fidgeting behavior.
Stimming can take many different forms: visual: staring off into space, drawing, spinning things like pens or coins. verbal/auditory: repeating sounds, excessive giggling, constantly clearing throat. tactile: rubbing fingers, chewing/biting nails, chewing the inside of cheeks.
Excessive hair touching is a repetitive and addictive habit that can be extremely hard to stop and can lead to Trichotillomania - a hair pulling disorder. Many women who's hands are always buried in their hair, typically suffer from very dry ends, oily roots, hair loss and poor overall hair condition.
People struggling with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) are often misdiagnosed as having other psychological conditions. One of the most common misdiagnoses for this population is Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD). This diagnostic problem arises for two reasons.
Obsessive thoughts
Some common obsessions that affect people with OCD include: fear of deliberately harming yourself or others – for example, fear you may attack someone else, such as your children. fear of harming yourself or others by mistake – for example, fear you may set the house on fire by leaving the cooker on.
Mild symptoms may present as recurring thoughts about daily activities, like whether or not they locked the door, turned off the stove, and so on. The person may have mildly compulsive behaviors, like cleaning frequently, that don't get in the way of daily functioning.
Trichotillomania can be related to emotions: Negative emotions. For many people with trichotillomania, hair pulling is a way of dealing with negative or uncomfortable feelings, such as stress, anxiety, tension, boredom, loneliness, fatigue or frustration.
Some men are possessive about their hair, so they don't enjoy a random person touching it. However, if he likes you, he might feel relaxed when you run your fingers through his hair. They feel special and pampered by your touch. You can enhance their experience by lightly massaging their scalp.
She's establishing a more intimate relationship where it's common for you both to enter each other's 3 foot bubble. Playing with someone's hair and rubbing the scalp is most often a pleasureable experience. She is likely touching you to bring about such pleasure.
In reality, neurotypical people stim, too - they just might not realize it. Common examples of stimming include rocking, clenching fists, tapping fingers, and humming. Some people stim in response to anxiety or stress, while others stim when they're bored or fatigued.
Trichotillomania. This condition is an impulse control disorder caused by anxiety or stress. Often called “hair-pulling disorder,” people with trichotillomania have the irresistible urge to pull out their own hair, eyelashes or eyebrows. The area of hair loss is usually asymmetric and follows an irregular pattern.
Hair pulling is one of the many self-stimulating or self-soothing activities used by individuals affected by SPD and autism to self-regulate. In seeking sensory stimulation or sensory soothing, there is a tendency to target sites where there are many nerve endings such as the hands, feet, mouth and scalp.