I want to pass on an experience I am going through to warn others if they have similar problems and are thinking of hair removal. Am male, hetrosexual, not that it matters I know it affects all types of people both sexes and sexualities, non discrimant.
When I say similar problems I am talking about an anxiety disorder which I have been dealing with for many years now. When I was about 17/18 I started pulling hair from all areas of my body including the hair on my head. It started out infrequently about once a week and then over the next couple of years progressed into many hours every day. All the while I was living my life and enjoying it and thinking that the hair pulling was just a cosmetic problem. So at the age of 24 decided to go get some laser sessions to remove some of the hair. I started this up and it continued for about two years. I didnt know the hair pulling was related to the anxiety problem and just thought the hair was the problem.
The pulling was usually started by thinking that there was more hair on one side than the other, I would just pull a few out on one side and then think now the other side has a few more and pull some out on the other side. This could continue for hours until all the hair was gone, even though I would think to myself that it looks good, dont pull any more I couldn’t stop. The problem progressed into many other forms such as scratching and picking the skin with some nasty implements causing injury, but hair pulling was the main time consumer. I now know that it is an anxiety disorder and the act of pulling is a coping mechanism for the anxiety which actually helps to relieve the anxiety. I have been told that a fairly high number of people have a similar problem so I thought I might warn about hair removal as the answer.
I started the laser treatments with a very positive attitude thinking it would solve the problem. It didnt, if anything it made it worse, my anxiety went through the roof and over the period of that two years I slowly started to stop my outdoor sporting activites and socialising, still thinking that when it is over I will be OK. It was a similar problem to the hair pulling where it felt like such a relief to get the laser removal and would feel good immediately after the appointment. But as you all know laser appointments are spaced out 6-8 weeks. I kept going back saying you missed this bit so that it is even on both sides. After the end of the two years I got to a point where there has been some premanent hair removal but I still strongly needed to pull hair and pick at the skin. I thought I had failed and would never get on with life and was seriously contemplating suicide. So I turned to regular electrolysis appointments to fix the problem.
I finally went and got some professional help and started to understand about this problem and have started to manage the problem in various ways. One of the ways ,the electrolysis appointments are continuing and they seem to help relieve some of the tension so I keep going and hope to cut down the time of appointments and space them out more to hopefully stop them alltogether. I go to electrolysis once a week and be done with it rather than do any of my own hair removal because I know how hard it is for me to be rational and resist the urge to pull out a lot of hair.
But really a lot of time has already been wasted and I know now that hair removal was not the only answer. I really wish that I had have got some help before I started all the hair removal. Then at least I could have been aware of the problem and could have been at least rational in my hair removal choices. I cant really say that all hair removal is bad because the electrolysis and laser has helped a bit, especially the electrolysis which seems give me some releif once a week and saves me a lot of time at home pulling hair, but awareness is the key.