Trichotillomania

Thanks, I hadn't heard of Reichian therapy. I will commit some research time to it..

My things was chewing my nails to the quick. I had the head scratching til it bled till I was a teen which I morphed, with discipline, into twirling of the hair which I srtill very much enjoy doing. I am kind of allergic to tobacco but started to smoke after that - a few a day. I suppose it was a sort of self harm. That was only for a few years and then after 5 years of intense therapy the urge left ,along with many other negatives I had been manifesting. I think Reichian Therapy is very well suited to autistic people if the therapist can recognize that how autism presents in a healthy individual is not a pathology. (Reichian therapy had to also adjust to accommodate queer folk too.) It is not based of talking so much as it is on the  body holding traumatic memory and releasing in from the muscles down to the cellular level.

Alas its not well known anymore. It saved my life in the 80s.

oh interesting!  I’m on the higher functioning side of the spectrum so my reactions towards sensory issues is a bit masked 

but sometimes they just slide out...and it's really disappointing.

(this isn't a conversation I ever thought I would have )

When I pull out hair I sense a sort of pop and that pop is just a lovely sensation that releases tension.

Done some more digging..

Sensory phenomena are often described as a need to feel good internally or a need to calm a generalized internal tension , which are similar to the symptoms of hair-pulling disorder (HPD), characterized by a strong urge to pull the hair and the posterior reduction of anxiety or tension. Similarly, sensory symptoms appear in mental disorders characterized by RRBs, such as ASD, OCD, HPD, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Specifically, 45% to 95% of individuals with ASD and 65% of adults with OCD experience sensory phenomena before ritualization.

Two recent studies have shown that individuals who execute body-focused repetitive behaviors (BFRBs: hair-pulling, skinpicking) tend to display heightened reactions to ordinary sensory stimuli, such as clothing textures (e.g., being bothered when touching soft towels, or wearing a turtleneck). In a study by Falkenstein et al, participants with trichotillomania (pathological hairpulling) reported higher auditory and tactile responsivity than comparison participants.

I have hair pulling and skull picking tendencies .It’s possible it could be linked to autism and maybe not OCD.Please correct me if I’m wrong .

I've struggled with this too for a while. I've had trichotillomania since I was like 10ish? and dermatillomania too since maybe about 14/15 and I genuinely have felt so ashamed about both for ages. I think it's quite common in autistic people to have either one or both of them because many may use them as a (harmful) way of stimming, and many of us also have comorbid OCD/mental health conditions and it becomes a coping mechanism. 

Yes, since I was about 15. Dermatillomania started around the same time. It's only very recently I've realised there is a name for this and I'm not ******* insane.

From the research I've done I don't think there is a direct link to autism but it's reported by quite a few people. I too think it's maybe closer related to OCD? 

It is any/all hair for me but facial hair is most satisfying - hence the crappy state of my beard!

I could get quite graphic about dealing with ingrowing hairs...

Eyelashes, ear hair, eye brows and arm hair…