To the Admins of the Trich facebook group,



I recently came to terms with the fact that I have trichotillomania. And for the past couple of weeks, I was seriously considering joining your facebook group for support in managing my chronic eyelash pulling. I decided against participating for the following reasons:



#1- Your bent on being “pull free." As somebody who has Dyslexia, I can tell you that the idea of "overcoming” or “beating” a mental condition, (and Trich is a mental condition,) is counterproductive and stupid. When you have dyslexia, you have dyslexia for life. You can find a way to work with your dyslexia, and learn tricks to offset the problems dyslexia brings. But you don’t magically stop being dyslexic. Trich is the same way. And insisting that you can magically will yourself to stop wanting to pull is just harmful to others well-being. Joining a group who refuses to acknowledge the realities of having a mental condition would be harmful to my emotional well-being.



#2- Your poor treatment of those who do not like the Pull Free Message. Your classification of people who take a healthy, realistic approach to trich as a mental condition as excessively negative, hurtful people is abhorrent. Again, telling me with enough effort I can stop pulling my eyelashes is like telling me that if I just tried hard enough, I wouldn’t be so dependent on spellcheck. A support group that refuses to be supportive is a waste of time, and not something I want to be a part of.



#3- Your rejection of Rebecca Brown. While Rebecca tends to be a little more depressive in her outlook towards Trich than I would be, she is never rude or hurtful. She has depression that is tied to her Trich, so of course she’s not going to be able to go along with your “sunshine and rainbows” pull free bent. And when she pointed out that this outlook was actually harmful to her and did nothing to help, you yelled at her for having a different opinion and rejected her from the community. I do not want to associate with anybody who treats others that way.



I am grateful for Rebecca Brown’s work towards helping those with Trich. If not for her, I would not have known about the Trich learning center and wouldn’t have implemented workarounds when my pulling became a serious problem. If it wasn’t for her, the damage would have been much, MUCH worse. I would have joined this group and then felt horrible about myself for not being able to will myself into stopping.



Please rethink your position on Rebecca and the Pull free Message. It would be very much appreciated.