Trichotillomania. I didn’t have a name for it as a kid, that impulse to yank. And I didn’t know back then that my secret eyelash problem was related to the reason my mom painted her eyebrows on each morning before she’d let anyone see her. It turns out that they’ve discovered there seems to be some genetic connection with the compulsion to pull out hair, and I lived (and still live) in fear of the day I — like she — end up accidentally bare.
My eyelash tugging migrated to eyebrow tugging once my full Frida Kahlo grew in during puberty. It felt like an oppressive window-dressing, not like me at all. And the process of pulling was soothing, and it was toward an end that helped me feel like I looked more like myself. But steadily, the gap between my brows grew over time, until someone with poor social skills asked me why my eyebrows were so far apart. It’d be another several years until I could curb the impulse to pull them. Which I did by giving up touching my brows entirely. (There are still moments I realize I’m doing it, but for the most part I’ve reined it in.)
I have them threaded, though, because my unibrow doesn’t feel authentic to me. Because I like the way they look when they’re done. And because it gives me a concrete reason not to reach up in moments of stress for the sweet relief of the pluck.
