Dad’s death made me tear my hair out
But treatment gave me new lease of life
NIKI TENNANT
Cambuslang woman Victoria Hutcheon has, for 16 agonising years, been addicted to pulling out her hair.
The fixation for plucking at her hair until her scalp is covered in bald patches spawned from the trauma caused by a tragic accident that killed her dad when she was in first year at secondary school.
What Victoria now recognises to be a form of self harm has resulted in years of bullying and stares that made her a virtual recluse.
In 2001, life was good for 32-year-old dad, Terry Hutcheon.
His wife Mandy had given birth to their baby son, Harry, six months previously and he’d landed a new job.
When driving from the family’s Drumsagard home to Dundee for training, he pulled into a lay-by on the A9 near Perth for some shut-eye.
A van driver, who’d fallen asleep at the wheel, careered off the carriageway and into Terry’s parked car, shunting his vehicle into a lorry parked up front. He was killed instantly.
“I had to step in and help more with my baby brother than a sister should have at the age of 14,” said Victoria, now 30.
“That led to me not processing it as much as I should have. I tried to stay strong and look after everyone.”
Victoria remembers the occasion when she began the ritual of pulling out her hair – starting with her eyelashes.
The family were on a flight to Majorca for their first holiday after her dad’s tragic death.
“At first, I was just playing with my lashes. Some were coming out and something in my mind obviously clicked and I started pulling them,” remembers Victoria.
By the time they landed in Palma, Victoria had no lashes.
The habit soon moved to her hair, then her eyebrows, but the ridicule at school for having no brows stopped Victoria from pulling at them ever again.
“As stupid as it sounds, the slagging I got for having no eyebrows seemed to bother me more than anything else,” she said. “My mum was struggling, and I didn’t want that to be another thing for her to cope with. I could not tell her why I was doing it, because it was almost subconscious.
“I was bullied terribly at school. I was the ‘baldy b **** ’.
“Image is everything for kids and I was one not to be seen with. I had a small group of friends, but I was a bit of a freak to everyone else.”
Explaining her obsession, Victoria said: “When I pull one individual hair, I’ll sit for 15, 20 minutes and pull 100 – easily. I don’t realise until I look next to me and there’s a pile of hair.
“Folk will say: ‘Just stop it.’ If it was that easy, I would.”
Hypnotherapy, counselling and cbd have all failed to moderate Victoria’s habit, and prescribed medication for anxiety did not lessen her overwhelming urge to pull.
Then, while watching an episode of a medical drama, an on-screen doctor referred to a patient’s self-inflicted hair loss as trichotillomania (trich).
“As soon as I heard the term, I looked it up and thought: ‘That’s exactly what I’ve got,’” said Victoria, who discovered that the condition is a bodyfocussed repetitive behaviour which, in her case, manifests itself in the pulling out of hair.
Armed with fresh knowledge about the source of her obsession, Victoria’s research led her to the Hair Solved female hair loss specialist in Manchester.
The salon’s Enhancer System involves a light, durable mesh being secured to the scalp using existing hair.
Real human hair extensions are then attached with lightweight fixings that help to create the look and feel of natural hair. It is designed to ensure that wearers cannot get to their real hair to pull it out.
Victoria explained: “Because I have some hair, a wig would have aggravated my scalp. I would have had to shave off the hair I have to be able to comfortably wear a wig so the prospect of going from someone who had bald patches to a full head of hair was like a miracle to me.”
Victoria has since had three Enhancer Systems, which last around three years, and are maintained the same as natural hair through eightweek visits to the salon. Due to her malignant hyperthermia (MH), a disease that causes a fast rise in body temperature and severe muscle contractions – coupled with a circulation disorder in her leg – she had to give up her job as a customer services adviser three years ago.
Because the mesh is beginning to fray, Victoria’s current hair system is nearing the end of its lifespan and she faces a £1200 bill to replace it.
Reluctantly, she has set up a GoFundMe page in the hope of raising enough to fund the hair system that has transformed her life.
“This has made my life so much happier. It made me feel like me. If I did not have this, I wouldn’t leave the house.
“The bullying and staring with my hair system off is not something I could go back to,” explained Victoria, who disguises her lack of eyelashes through make-up techniques.
“To someone who has never gone through it, it may seem like a trivial thing. But being a girl, your hair is part of you, part of your identity.
“I’ve damaged my own hair beyond repair. I used to have thick, healthy hair. It is brittle now and grows back very thin and sparse.”
In sharing her story with the Reformer, it is Victoria’s hope that other women and girls whose confidence and self esteem has been shattered through hair loss, either through trich, alopecia or cancer treatment, will see there is help out there.
She said: “There might be someone who is the same as me and thinks: ‘That is what I have got,’ or someone who has hair loss through something else and did not know this hair system exists. If it helps just one person, it has been worthwhile.”
Hair Solved, which now has a salon in Glasgow, has offered to contribute £100 to the cost of a new hair system for Victoria.
But because her disability makes it impossible to work, she needs help to finance the remaining cost.
To donate, visit Victoria Hutcheon’s GoFundMe page, ‘My Battle With Trich, MH And Managing Them Both.’
The bullying and staring with my hair system off is not something that I could go back to