KELSIE HANNA: Pull my hair out every single day I would say. If I am not attacking an
eyelash, I am attacking my actual hair on my head.
KELSIE HANNA: Trichotillomania broken down through Greek – trich is hair, tillo is to
pull and mania is a manic or frenzy. So, basically, it’s a manic frenzy of pulling out your own hair.
KELSIE HANNA: I can’t exactly say why I pull my hair out because it’s very neurological.
I just get sudden urges. I can control my hair pulling to a certain extent but there
are times where I don’t even know that I am aware of doing it until my hand goes numb
or my arm starts to hurt and then I, kind of, just snap back in to it and then realise
what I was doing.
COMM: 30-year-old Kelsie lives every day with an urge to pull out her own hair.
KELSIE HANNA: I will start feeling, like, there’s like, ants and like needles like
poking my head. And it just, it won’t stop and then I kind of have this uncontrollable
urge to actually start digging around and try to find what hair is actually bothering
me and I can’t stop until that hair is removed. Which means that there’s probably 10 or
20 others that are going down with it.
KELSIE HANNA: The perfect strand for me though is something that is coarse and wirey, has
an extremely, completely different texture than all the other hair. Sometimes it feels
really good to pull my hair out because I am getting rid of that sensation. So I guess
it can kind of relax you in a sense, other times it does hurt and most of the time I
don’t really know that I am doing it.
COMM: Kelsie first admitted she was pulling her hair out to her parents when she was just
5 years old.
DEANNA BISCHOFF: I remember her coming down the stairs and she had some blank spots on
the top of her head above her forehead. And she finally admitted in tears that she was
pulling her hair out.
GARY HANNA: Yeah, it’s true.
DEANNA BISCHOFF: And going in to her bedroom to find out what’s going on, like, where
all this hair is. Remember we opened up the closet door and there was a garbage can inside
her closet and it is full of hair.
BRITTANY HANNA: Growing up with my sister having trichotillomania, I knew if she was
stressed out because there was patches of hair on the floors. I know how much I love
my hair and it’s like a security blanket for me. So, to not have control over something
like that, it wouldn’t be easy.
GARY HANNA: Well, finally you get to a point where you can either cry about this disorder
or you can accept it. We got to the acceptance and we got there very, very fast.
COMM: Kelsie has tried a number of different therapies and medicines for her condition
but she now manages it herself.
KELSIE HANNA: Every part of my body is completely shaved. So I don’t have urges to go anywhere
else. Ways that I deal with it to cover-up the bald patches is I wear a headband usually
throughout the day and if I am going anywhere, I usually wear a wig.
CURTIS BILHETE: Okay, shoes off and put the real shoes on.
KELSIE HANNA: I told my fiancé about my condition pretty much the first day that we met.
CURTIS BILHETE: It bothered me a little bit at the beginning but then I realised that
it’s nothing she can do, you know, it’s all mental. You know it’s a disease right
and people don’t understand that.
CURTIS BILHETE: When I see her pulling her hair out like, I will just joke, jokingly,
you know give her a little nudge or, you know. What are you doing babe? You know, and then
she will stop right away because then I make her aware of it, right.
COMM: Having grown up struggling with her own hair, Kelsie now works as a hairdresser
with a focus on helping others with hair loss.
COMM: She also speaks publicly about her experiences to help raise awareness about her condition.
KELSIE HANNA: Trichotillomania definitely inspired me to get in to hairdressing. I needed
to find a way to cover-up my bald spots.
KELSIE HANNA: People with skin conditions and sensitive topics when it came to their
hair. The reason why they came to me was because I wouldn’t judge them. How can I judge somebody
when I have issues myself?
KELSIE HANNA: I think people are ashamed to talk about the condition because who wants
to admit that they pull their own hair out. I have tried it all: I have put gloves on
my hand with duck tape wrapped around it. This disorder is very relentless and it likes
to just take control. So you have to constantly find crafty ways to, to stop yourself from
doing it because I know that my only purpose to be here can’t just be to live. It’s
to work with what everyone might see as a weakness and turn it into a strength. So my
confidence kind of came from not letting my disorder rule my life.
DEANNA BISCHOFF: The courage that she shows, the strength that’s she shows is absolutely
amazing. She has not only come in to herself, she has also helped countless people to come
in to their own as well.
KELSIE HANNA: I don’t let trichotillomania control my life because it is what I have
not who I am.