Olivia Munn Pulls Out Her Eyelashes... And So Do I

So, I was surfing the news the other day and I came across this weird article about how Olivia Munn admitted to pulling out her eyelashes. A lot of people thought that this was really weird, but not me. Why? Because I can totally sympathize with her plight of the hair pulling... I do it too. Clinically, they call it trichotillomania, but I have never been formally diagnosed, and I am nearly sure Ms. Munn has not been, either. It's caused by stress.

It all started in high school. Well, probably, it started somewhere before that, like in the womb, where I felt stress for the first time. In any case, in really hit a pitch in high school and that was when I began pulling at my eyelashes... which is not really what it seems.

See, I have these exceptionally long eyelashes and I would wear mascara to make them appear gigantic, thereby being the envy of all my friends. When I would get stressed out (and it could be anything, like something small as being late somewhere or something big like being anxious over a stage performance), I would begin to pull the mascara off of the lash itself, and the lash would follow.

Like Ms. Munn so eloquently says, it is not painful in the least. But do it often enough and people are going to start to notice. Eyelashes take about 2 weeks to grow back, so if you pull 'em out at a quick rate, you, like me in my high school, might start to look a little cross eyed. I would fill in my lash line with black eyeliner to keep people from noticing.

Olivia Munn buys falsies--hey, whatever works.

All of this eyelash pulling business culminated for me in college when I was in a math class that was incredibly hard and stressful. I thought I was going to fail this class and it worried me immensely. One day in class I started tugging at my eyebrows while the teacher was explaining some complicated way of doing some mathematical thing (really stuck with me, as you can tell.) I was finding so much relief from pulling at my eyebrows that  I just kept doing it.

I got a weird look from the teacher when I told him goodbye and thanks for the great explanation... and then I went to the bathroom, where I caught a glimpse of my half-maimed eyebrows in the mirror. I cowered in embarrassment, covered my eyebrows, and ran for my car where I drove to the nearest nail salon and begged the Asian lady to fix it for me and fill in the missing parts so I could go to work without looking like I got in a fight with a eyebrow pirate.

She obliged me, but kept asking me, "You sure you no do this with tweezer?" and "I never saw before." She also laughed. A lot. That was when I knew it had to stop. I had to find a better coping mechanism for my stress. To someone who doesn't pull at their hair when they feel stressed, it might sound a little silly, but it can be really embarrassing, especially because it becomes noticeable.

I hope that Olivia Munn exaggerated slightly when she said she just buys false lashes and gets on with it. Because, as I realized, you can't just de-hair yourself to being stress free. If anything, it causes more stress on top of whatever is already going on. But since Olivia Munn was sharing and all, I felt comfortable bringing up my own eyelash issues with all of you. Clinically, they call that empowerment.

Have a good weekend. And please, try not to pull out your eyelashes. *blink blink*