My name is Lori Strickland and this is the story of my experience, strength and hope in dealing with compulsive hair pulling (Trichotillomania).  As I write this I am still amazed that one day back in 1990 when I stood in my bathroom glancing in the mirror at my hair, that plucking out just one hair, that seemed so out of place, would lead me into 10 years of slavery. One of desperately seeking and pulling out unwanted hairs from my scalp.   It is my personal belief that my Trichotillomania lay dormant in my body long before it   surfaced.  With me it started with an obsession of the hair on the top of my head and progressed all the way to the hair on top of my toes.   

Many years before I started pulling hairs from my scalp I spent an enormous amount of money and countless hours trying to change the appearance and texture of all my body hairs.  I went to beauty salons to have my haircut, permed, relaxed, colored, conditioned and styled.  Only to walk away disappointed and frustrated because I never felt like my hair was never good enough or acceptable.  I constantly compared my hair to other people’s hair. Not once did I ever feel like my hair measured up.  Then there were all those painful experiences that I put myself through with electrolysis, waxing, tweezing, and bleaching to hide and rid myself of all of those other unwanted body hairs that I found so repulsing.  

Many, many times I asked myself “Where did this obsession and repulsion with my body hair come from”? I can only tell you that it all started when my ex-husband started   belittling me about my appearance.  He would say such cruel and abusive remarks about my body and especially about my hair. I don’t blame him for my insecurities, as it is my belief that I was already insecure when we met. Then because of my own insecurities, I took on his negative views of me as truth!  I am in no way excusing his abuse. Violating another human being with abusive talk or physical abuse is wrong!  However, I believe it was my choice to accept his negative views of me, because I chose to get my value and worth from man and not God!  

In 1990 I married my present husband Bill.  It was in our first home in the bathroom of the apartment that I mentioned earlier in this testimony that my Trichotillomania begin.  My husband is a wonderful Christian man who has spent 10 years teaching, inspiring and encouraging me how to find my true worth from my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I accepted Christ in my early youth; however I really didn’t understand that accepting Christ as my Lord and Savior also meant putting him in total control of every area of my life.  I believe with all my heart that God has also used my husband who has the most awesome faith in God to teach me just how loving and powerful God really is.  My husband knew from the very beginning of our courtship about my obsession with my hair, but he had no idea that I became a compulsive hair puller in our first year of marriage. In fact no one knew about my deep dark painful secret except for God of course and in some sort of deluded way I thought I was hiding it from him too.  

February of 2001 is when I finally pulled out enough hair out of my scalp that it become noticeable.  Up until then I covered up really well all the hair loss from my scalp pulling and was fortunate that I had really thick hair to compensate for the hair loss from my pulling. I can’t begin to tell you how many years of joy and happiness that my compulsive hair pulling has robbed from me.  Even though God had grown me by leaps and bounds in other areas of my life, over the last 10 years I believe that the bondage of hair pulling has kept me from truly knowing the peace and joy that God wanted me to have.  

I can’t tell you what finally brought me to hit my bottom in February of 2001 with my hair pulling, but I have to be honest I am glad it finally happened.  I was sick and tired of living in misery and isolation because of my compulsive hair pulling.  Many times I would spend hours pulling out my hair one by one until I literally felt physically sick and emotionally drained.   There is so much shame, despair and isolation when you are held bondage to hair pulling.   I finally got so miserable and desperate that I cried out to my Lord and begged him to help me to stop pulling out my hair and to remove the obsession I had with my hair.  I knew that the Lord answers prayers because I have seen miracle after miracle happen in my life and other people’s lives because of answered prayer. However for some reason I was not sure that God would work a miracle in my life this time and deliver me from the bondage of hair pulling.  Well I was wrong!  God heard my cry for help and once again he worked another miracle in my life.  

 The next day after I prayed for help I had this thought come to mind to go surf the net for “hair pulling” and much to my surprise I landed on a site that said “Trichotillomania” (compulsive hair pulling).  I couldn’t believe my eyes there was a name for what I did!  I eagerly got into the site and started reading about this Trichotillomania.   That one site led me to another site and another site until I came across a site called Amanda’s Trich Site.  Amanda’s site was a Christian based site for sufferers of compulsive hair pulling. Amanda’s site was full of information about Trichotillomania and offered information about support groups, email addresses and testimonies of people who have been delivered from compulsive hair pulling through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  

I then found Amanda’s email address and emailed her and admitted to her that I was a compulsive hair puller. The next day I received an email back from Amanda who lives in South Africa .  The email was so encouraging.  She gave me hope that I too could be delivered from this hair pulling through Jesus Christ. Amanda also shared with me some handy tips on how to break this habit.  I also emailed a lady named Camilla who had suffered from compulsive hair pulling for 25 years and had also been delivered from the stronghold of hair pulling through Jesus Christ.  The very next day I received a wonderful and inspiring email from Camilla.  It was a very loving email full of encouragement and scriptures to refer to that would help me to stop my hair pulling.  

 I learned from Camilla that it is estimated that 2% of the population, 1 out of 50 people, suffers from a form of hair pulling.  Even though I was happy that I wasn’t alone in my suffering with compulsive hair pulling I was saddened that so many others suffered with this thing that they call Trichotillomania.      When I read Camilla’s email I just felt the presence of the Lord and a peace that could only come from him.  At that very moment I knew in my heart that I was going to be set free from the bondage of hair pulling.  I literally felt all the shame, despair and hopelessness that I carried with my compulsive hair pulling leave my body. I no longer felt like I was weird because I pulled out my hair.  

 After feeling a little more comfortable with my compulsive hair pulling I bravely, but anxiously asked my husband if I could talk to him about something.  As tears rolled down my cheeks I shared with him that I have been a compulsive hair puller over the last 11 years. I pulled down my hair that was pulled up in a clip and showed him my bald spot from one of my favorite spots to pull.   Much to my surprise he reacted very lovingly to me and has since then been really supportive and does whatever he can to help me stay pull free.  

As the weeks went by I continued to stayed in touch with Camilla by email and she shared with me that she had started a Trichotillomania Christian Ministry in her hometown and serves the Lord by offering Christ centered support groups and Bible studies as well as individual counseling for adults, children and the parents who suffer from compulsive hair pulling. I told Camilla that I was very interested in her ministry and asked her to send me some information. I was so hungry to know more about this Trichotillomania and knew that I was going to need daily support and tools to help me to remain pull free. I have had some personal experiences dealing with addictions and obsessions in my life and many of the lives of my family members, so I knew that having a daily support system is very important in the recovery from addictions and obsessions. 

Within a week I received the information about her ministry and a copy of her testimony. When I read her testimony about how the Lord delivered her from 25 years of compulsive hair pulling I was once again encouraged that I too would be delivered from my compulsive hair pulling.  As I write this testimony I am still pull free after 11 years of compulsive hair pulling.  I contribute my success to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.   The Lord has continued to bless me by putting wonderful and supportive friends (fellow hair pullers and non hair pullers) in my life to encourage and pray for me in the area of my hair pulling.   

One week after receiving the information from Camilla about her Christian Trich Ministry I thought to myself that all of this information that Camilla sent me was quite helpful, but I needed more. I needed a friend in my hometown that had Trichotillomania so that we could support each other.    

I continued to pray this prayer everyday and the one day soon the Lord laid it upon my heart that he wanted me to start a local Christian Trich Ministry (support group).  My first reaction was “oh my”, this couldn’t be what I am hearing.  “Me” I don’t know any thing about starting a Christian Trich ministry (support group) I just wanted one friend who had Trichotillomania, but not go public that I was a compulsive hair puller to find a friend.  Then God made it very clear to me and said if you want to meet someone and make a friend who has Trichotillomania then I want you to start a Christian Trich Ministry and share with others that I have delivered you from your compulsive hair pulling.  In my heart I did want to share with others that they to could be set free from the stronghold of pulling but I felt so inadequate in my skills to organize and lead a Christian Trich Ministry (support group) and not to mention scared to death of meeting a lot of new people.  Then I remembered hearing a preacher on the radio talk about when God calls people to minister for him he doesn’t call the equipped he equips the called. Then I had a peace that God would provide and give me whatever I needed to accomplish his plan of starting the first Christian Trich Ministry in the state of Texas . 

  After I got over my shock of what God had called me to do I emailed Camilla and told her about it and how scared I was. I also ask her how I should go about starting a Christian Trich ministry.  She shared with me that she felt the same way that I did when God called her to start her Christian Trich Ministry in Georgia . Camilla reassured me that God would help me and would provide me with whatever I needed to start this ministry.  Camilla suggested that I read the book “The Prayer of Jabez”.  She explained that the book would help me understand why God had called me to start the Christian Trich ministry and it would help me in the area of being shy, which I am.  To be honest I never knew that there was a character in the Bible named Jabez.  I asked my husband about this Jabez character and about this prayer that he prayed.  My husband was also not familiar with the “Prayer of Jabez”

A day or so passed by after I got the email from Camilla that suggested that I get the book “The prayer of Jabez”.  On this day I was praying and having doubts about starting this Christian Trich Ministry, because I just didn’t think that I had what it took to start a ministry. I was afraid that maybe I had not discerned my prayer correctly.  The truth be known I was hoping that I discerned my prayer wrong, so I prayed and told God Okay God if you really want me to start this ministry please give me a supernatural affirmation that this is what you want me to do. Also if it was His will, I asked him to provide the tools that I needed to get it started.  Two days after my prayer, my husband came home from work and handed me the mail and a book. It was the book that Camilla suggested that I read. “The prayer of Jabez”. I told my husband how nice it was of him to go out and buy me the book.  Much to my surprise he said, “I didn’t buy you this book a unknown male client of the company I work for left it on my desk You said you wanted to read it so I brought it home to you.”

   “Wow”, I said loudly to my husband. “Is this just not to weird?  Camilla suggested I read the book “The Prayer of Jabez” and I asked God to show me a supernatural sign that he wants me to do this ministry and to supply me with the tools and for some unknown reason an unknown man walks into your office and lays the book “The Prayer of Jabez” on your desk.  I told my husband I knew that this was the supernatural affirmation that God wanted me to start the Christian Trich ministry and he supplied the book that Camilla suggested that I read so that I would understand why God had called me to start a ministry.  I read the book and she was right it did help me understand and it encouraged my heart to know that God would be my helper and that he would provide me territory for ministry and anything else that I needed to make it happen.

On April the 10^th 2001 I met with Brother Ken Branam the pastor of my church at Plymouth Park Baptist Church to ask for their support in starting my Trichotillomania Christian   Ministry (support group).  Once again I faced some fear about sharing with another person about my compulsive hair pulling, but Brother Ken was so caring and comforting and he made a special effort to put me at ease!  He knew that I  was coming to meet with him about starting a support group out of our church, but he had no idea of what kind of support group it would be.  After sharing with Brother Ken about how God delivered me from compulsive hair pulling and that God had laid it on my heart to start a Christian Trich Ministry  I received a very positive reaction from him.  Brother Ken was amazed with how many people suffered from Trichotillomania and was very supportive about the church helping me get this ministry started so that we could bring hope to others that they too could be set free of the bondage of compulsive hair pulling.   On this day the first Texas Trichotillomania Christian   Ministry was formed! 

  If you are reading this testimony and you or a loved one are being held bondage to compulsive hair pulling our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ wants to set you or your loved one free.  God’s word says that we can do all things through Christ who strengthens me and I am living proof because he gave me and continues to give me the strength to remain pull free!

  In Christ love,

     Lori Strickland