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This month’s topic on Mental Wealth, Newstalk’s podcast series about mental health, is trichotillomania (sometimes known as TTM or problem hair-pulling). Katie, a student from Dublin, sits down with presenter Simon Tierney to discuss her experiences of the condition and the tools of recovery.

Looking back on her particularly bad moments with the condition, Katie recalled the trauma of pulling her hair out:

‘It would be every few minutes. I was looking back at my debs photos and I had my hair up in a quiff. But you could actually notice, by the end of the night, a faint baldness on the side. And I was like, ‘No, I have to stop this’. That’s when I went on to the OCD Ireland webpage and found the link for the monthly TTM meetings. After one meeting, I stopped (hair-pulling) for six months’.

One of the major battles with trichotillomania is the stigma surrounding it, compared to more publicised and widely understood conditions. Katie describes it as ‘the unspoken condition’. Her bravery in agreeing to open up about her problems on this month’s Mental Wealth will hopefully help to destigmatize the disorder and raise awareness of it around the country.

During the interview, Katie also discusses the ways in which CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) helped her to deal with the condition.

The four previous episodes of Mental Wealth are available to listen to below.