What happened to make us like this.

I wanna know what happened during evolution that made us have to pull out our hair. Ive been pulling out my pubic, eyelash and eyebrow hair ever since I was a young child and Im 53 now. Ive never told anyone of this and I have 4 siblings. Im ashamed of it and only a few years ago did a Google search of it and I admit I was kinda relieved to know I wasn't there only one to do this and it had a name. I do alot of research of various topics relating to the human condition, like why are we the way we are and why we think the things we do. It's lead me to know all things are driven by evolution and most things pertaining to this take time. I just wanna know what the heck happened to humans for this to be encoded into our genes and why it's so strong at times.

I just joined the group today at age 71. Only started telling friends about my trich in the last 2 years. Although I am not a therapist or psychologist, I was a social worker all of my adult life and was witness to a myriad of coping mechanisms expressed by clients and their families. Not sure if evolution has anything to do with an outward expression of distress, but I think those of us who have OCD/impulse control problems, all suffered some stress in childhood that was more than we could handle. Some kids choose acting out or aggression towards others of things and some kids have too much of an investment in being "a good child", so we turned inward and took out the distress on ourselves. Hair is just there and there's plenty of it. If we pull too much, someone is bound to notice and then a solution must be found. And so it becomes a cry for help. But when we were young, our parents didn't have access to counseling and there wasn't research about Trichotillomania. I think that because we received an even small sense of relief, the action stayed with us and as an adult it's become a habit we can go to if need be. Of course my opinion is just mine and comes from living with this since the 6th grade.

Wow, I never considered these ideas. I think there is a lot of truth to this.