everyone welcome to relax with joan i'm jim kaylor today on my show we're going to talk about more serious subject than i've talked to you about in the last few shows and this is the first of a two part series on my favorite subject which is trick i tell over mania or trick to tell mania this is how i got into mental health in the first place so i used to be a hair poor but i'm not going to go into those details right now you can always see that on my website it joan kaylor dot com but what i want to do today is explain what trick to tell mania is and other body focused repetitive behaviors and then we're going to see a short video courtesy of the trip to tell me a learning center and the hair pulling support group of los angeles but before we do that i explain what took until mania is a little bit and other body focused repetitive behaviors such as skin picking and nail biting took until mania also known as trick t r i c h or compulsive hair pooling affects two and a half to three percent of the population in the same incidence as obsessive compulsive disorder so i'm not a mathematician but if you do the numbers that rounds out to about twelve million people are affected by hair pulling and hair pulling can be anywhere on the body where there's hair scalp pulling pulling hair from your scalp eyelashes i browse anywhere on the body it's the irresistible urge to pull out one hair and it's considered an impulse control disorder  by the diagnostic and statistical manual which is the psychiatric manual it is not obsessive compulsive disorder which is a common mistake made by both laypeople and therapists  alike it is a serious medical problem actually although trick attilla mania is not considered a fatal disorder it does contribute to and trigger depression anxiety low self esteem social isolation avoidance of medical care just to name a few problems if you can imagine some of you out there are dealing with this right now i know and some of you out there are thinking oh my gosh is that what i do i didn't know there was a name for it and yes there is a name for it it's been around since eighteen eighty nine when dr hall a poet french dermatologist created the term in paris france and here we are in two thousand and nine more than one hundred years later still talking about trick until mania but what i'm going to do today is we're going to show this video and then come back because i have more information to give you and then the next show i will be talking about treatment options so we're going to go ahead and  and young people and teenagers and the adult know lonnie from hawaii is going to share her experience on what hair pulling his been like in her life and why she decided to start the support group so without further ado we're going to go to this d v d for a few minutes and then come back  my name is janet and this is my daughter mariah for her took a toll mania sort of post when she was nine i noticed one day that she was missing her eyelashes a few weeks later her eyebrows were gone too in the months following her scalp hair started to thin out until noticeable bald spots were showing her pediatrician told me to just stop pulling but i believed our child when she said she just couldn't stop that her hands were drawn almost magnetically to her face and head and that urges to pull were overwhelming much research we eventually learned that this baffling disorder had a name trick until the mania and that many others around the world share her struggle this is my daughter story and the story of others and her support group here in southern california as they battle this class with the sword or with the hard to pronounce name this is what mariah and her friends want you to know not just about to tell a mania but about themselves these words are straight from their heart i started pouring almost a year ago and i pull from right here like on the left side of my head and in the back in the front it's hard to school because you can do a lot you can jump around if you have like a wig on and you can slide down poles and gokey and it's hard to go swimming with family you can't run around and it's really hard to participate some things it's very addictive you can't just stop it's a very hard thing to go through and if you've had that you would know but in fact it is a very common problem conservative estimates are approximately two percent of the population or roughly one person out of fifty at five and a half million people that's more than enough to populate both the cities of los angeles and philadelphia well it's like let's say it's a car and it's going fast it's really easy to stop the car but it's wouldn't you're paul it's like your just driving in that car and you can't stop it he could but it's hard to stop it you have to try to try hard so when that doesn't have trick might think she can stop she just doesn't want to but it's hard to stop and that's it mania is a neural biological behavioral disorder possibly in a spectrum of obsessive compulsive disorders although some think it is more of a tic disorder like tourette's syndrome where the behavior is considered involuntary whatever the scientific category it is the disorder with a huge human cost for it suffers for children in particular the innocence of childhood is often lost  people would target tell a mania are not trying to injure themselves or to purposely damage their appearance they are not necessarily anxious or troubled except by their disorder however life can become in the beginning my parents did not understand and it was hard because it's like i have to do it in secret and it like it would really hurt me when they would say well can't you just stop or you know if you do it again i'm going to punish you all ground you or something like that beyond baldness or missing eyelashes and eyebrows the cosmetic damage caused by trick of tele mania can be devastating to a person self image and self esteem and the emotional weight of knowing you've done this to yourself can be overwhelming most people with trick until mania carry heavy loads of shame and self blame you want to die you don't want to kill yourself because you don't know why you're doing what you do there's no answer you can't just stop pulling extra greenly extremely hard because your hair or your hands are always with  can get rid of the tweezers that you pull with or any other toilet report that you cannot take away your hands your fingers it really is not that unusual as people put it there sixty eight million people in the u s that ha and it seems that everyone knows about bipolar disorder and yet there's only two point three million in the u s so how can that be i think it's just not discussed enough me at this time there are however treatment options that have helped many people although anti depressant and high anxiety medications are sometimes prescribed most people find they are mainly helpful to the extent they allow the person to engage in other strategies cognitive behavioral therapy involves retraining the brain to follow new patterns often using manipulative to help a person manage the mania have tried many different types of therapy at different points in their lives some of been able to stop polling but still continue to struggle at some level for many years here is my eleven year old daughter mariah i said pulling when i was in third grade and i was nine i think and  asking like oh you're not supposed to wear that sort of thing that comfortable i can't really go swimming that much and i said that some ways house that already knows about it something like that  recovery six months ago we found a support group for mariah with other children and teenagers who share her struggle the director started the group so that no young child with this disorder will ever have to suffer in silen exclusively from the top of my scalp trick has affected every part of my life i actually kept my hair pulling secret from my husband for thirteen years of my relationship so i only told him about it seven or eight years ago the thing like it was like being married to somebody that you love deeply and yet keeping this huge secret from them and being so ashamed and thinking in a weird way that he would leave me if he knew that i pulled out my hair so that's how deep trick ran for me in terms of self esteem thinking that people would actually despise me or reject me if they knew that i pulled out my own hair i was very involved with people and they didn't know this deep dark side of me and so everywhere i went i'm always busting to make sure my secret is covered up if i could just stop pulling i would not be pulling today i would have stopped when i was thirteen with the first hair i want the word to get out there that people do pull out their hair they don't need to be ashamed of it and there is help and there is support and maybe along those lines let's find the clip here just to show you the effect that it's had on me take out my hawaiian flower but this is where i pull from which is exclusively on the scalp so i have a little hair piece to give height but i pull from the crown and this is not an uncommon look for people with mania to have the crown missing so it kind of has the m and so this is where i have a hard time keeping my hands out if you have chikatilo mania and you're out there watching this i also want you to know that there is hope there's a lot of support and you're not alone for more information visit w w w dot trick dot org for the trick of tell me a learning center website or call them eight three one four five seven one zero zero four thank you for taking the time to watch this message from my daughter and her new friends trust me when i tell you that it truly come straight from the heart oh  of all the shows that i have done so far this is the most important because this show talks about a subject that comes straight from my heart i pulled for twenty five years from the age of eleven until the age of thirty six and then i did find my way out of this one thing that i want to teach you is that there are treatment options that work and while these young people and teens and noah lonnie are on their path to recovery anyone who wants to get more information about trick it to let mania or skin picking more nail biting can go to the w w w dot trick dot org it is possible to stop and it is possible to lead a fun life and a high quality of life here in pittsburgh we've got w w w the obsessive compulsive w w dot c f w p a dot org for the obsessive compulsive foundation of western pennsylvania and we do have a support group for terror pulling skin picking and other body focused repetitive behaviors so there is a support group here in pittsburgh if you go to that website and including myself there are others who treat trick the till mania other therapists on that same website you can go to find a therapist and there are a therapist that may be listed but i want to talk to you a little bit about some treatment options and i'm going to go into this further and my next show they mentioned on the video about cognitive behavior therapy and that's a very important option and that's the one that has had the most research in it t l c comes straight from my heart because i've served on the board of directors for about seven years and was part of the founding board of directors to get it started back in one thousand nine hundred one so t l c is doing so much to get the word out about trick  me about research there's research going on right now on the causes of trick it could be inherited if someone else in the family has hair pulling problem or anxiety or another body focused repetitive behavior there are many reasons for trick i consider trick to be an addiction like alcoholism or compulsive gambling because one is addicted to pulling so including cognitive behavior therapy some really good coping options are exercise in my practice i have found that folks who are active in sports or who who exercise on a regular basis have a greater likelihood of letting go of the trick until mania easier as you know i'm also a big proponent of car practic care because chiropractor care addresses the nervous system and helps to create a healthy nervous system so i really refer my clients for regular chiropractic care to help strengthen their nervous system there is research that is available on calling the to behavioral therapy and family counseling not so much about the complimentary treatments such as car practical or meditation or acupuncture although there have been case reports that these are all still helpful family counseling is a really important piece of this too because people tend to pull in isolation and keep it a secret so bringing family members in and explaining what this is all about helping parents to understand you parents out there right now don't panic ok this is a treatable problem you can get help please do not tell your son or daughter not to pull because it doesn't work telling them not to put is like them if you have something that you enjoy doing but is maybe a bad habit or complex behavior pattern this would be if you're a cigarette smoker this is like somebody telling you not to smoke cigarettes so if there's something that you do on a regular basis that you would rather not be doing it's just hard for them to stop pulling as it is for you to give up whatever you would rather not be doing so what it is is coming together to understand this problem find support find treatment for it go to the t l c website there are books available there are so many resources out now than there were twenty years ago twenty years ago when christina pearson started see there was nothing available including myself we all suffered in silence but now there is help available i'm going to be teaching at the medical conference for the trip to tell me a learning center in boston on may first so if you go to the website you'll find more information about the medical conference that's in boston i'm just trying to think of there's anything else that i want to let you know about this time i'm not a physician or a nurse but i want to let you know that currently there is no medication approved by the f d a specifically for the treatment of trick attilla mania just as they mentioned in the d sometimes doctors will prescribe antidepressants and that will help the depression that comes along with trick but it doesn't help stop the urge to pull because the urge to paul is based on a completely different chemical system in your brain but again it does help the depression but it doesn't stop the urge to pull but you know what there are so many treatment options that are available if you go  online to find a support group keep in mind that these folks are struggling to find their path to recovery they're struggling to find answers for themself and they may or may not be successful i want to tell you that i haven't pulled my hair since ok dead or that it will be twenty years this august so it is possible to stop and hair does grow back ok so don't worry about whether or not your hair is going to grow back it will but please know that you can stop pulling you can find help for this you don't have to suffer in silence so that's about it for today but again line up show will be more on target about trick and different treatment for it so please tune in for that and i want to thank you for watching today and want you to know that this show comes straight from my heart thank you for watching and have a great day