Lucia Frances has even named two hacks called the ‘intermittent hair up-do’. A trichotillomania sufferer who has been pulling out her hair since she was a baby has shared her methods for combatting the disorder after her experience went viral on TikTok.
![[Lucia broke an eight-month clean streak from hair-pulling in August this year (Collect/PA Real Life)]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2024/12/19/06/18164341-e420e270-feb5-4e2d-b506-b5e3ceff1e26.jpeg)
Lucia Frances, 26, originally from Gran Canaria, one of Spain’s Canary Islands, and now living in Surrey Quays, south-east London, said her mother first noticed her “strange” behaviour when she was a few months old and would touch her hair while being nursed.
![[Lucia has been twisting and pulling her hair since she was a baby (TikTok/PA Real Life)]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2024/12/19/06/18163858-4f153679-2597-4976-88dc-f4041e8e1ec0.jpeg)
Over the years, Lucia went on to struggle with twisting and pulling out her hair but it was only in her teenage years that she came across trichotillomania, the name for a disorder where someone pulls out their own hair, and felt as though her mannerisms aligned.
![[She started sharing her experience with trichotillomania on TikTok (TikTok/PA Real Life)]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2024/12/19/06/18164513-a9a2ee51-8fa4-4027-b2c2-7b4f09da5370.jpeg)
Lucia’s hacks include the “intermittent hair up-do”, which involves changing her hairstyle to “break” her urges, the “sandwich method” of creating windows of time when she cannot pull her hair, and distraction techniques such as crocheting and playing with extensions or hair bands instead.
![[Lucia’s most-watched TikTok video with 15.6 million views (TikTok/PA Real Life)]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2024/12/19/06/18164818-52a5afa2-1347-4153-9766-f04ed24d5863.jpeg)
She also promotes positive affirmations, encouraging sufferers to tell themselves “I can go pull-free” and “I am mindful of my habit”. “Something that resonates with people, and something that really helps me, is trying not to focus on the hairs you have pulled, but more so focus on the hairs you still have and make sure those are healthy,” Lucia, a social media manager for a marketing agency, told PA Real Life.
