Desperate Mum Shaves Off Her Todder’s Beautiful Hair To Stop Her From Pulling It Out

A desperate mother has made a heartbreaking decision to shave off her two-year-old daughter’s blonde curls to stop her from compulsively pulling out her own hair.

Kerry Shearer, from Grantham, Lincolnshire, and husband, Gavin, have always loved their daughter, Isla’s beautiful blonde curls.

But the little girl has a habit of pulling out her own hair, pushing the desperate mother to shave Isla’s head, feeling it was the only solution to save her daughter’s hair.

“It was a really difficult decision to shave Isla’s hair. She had beautiful, blonde curls,” Kerry said.

However, shaving off Isla’s hair did nothing to Isla’s extreme behaviour which also included wrapping her locks around her fingers as she sucked her thumb since she was a baby.

Kerry said she has also covered Isla’s hair in Vaseline to make it too greasy to pull but to no avail.

Kerry believes her daughter has trichotillomania an impulse control disorder where the sufferer feels compelled to yank out their own hair. It is also linked to anxiety, but Kerry says Isla is too happy to be anxious.

“I’ve tried everything to stop her, but nothing seems to work. I know trichotillomania is often linked to anxiety, but Isla is the happiest child going, so I don’t know what’s causing it,” she said.

Kerry recalled how they thought the habit was cute, but Kerry became worried when a friend commented on a video they uploaded of then one-year-old Isla playing with her hair, saying that Isla looked as if she was ‘eating her locks.’ “That worried me. I obviously didn’t want her eating her hair,” she said.

Now, Isla is partially bald, with her hair now grown back on her left side, but she’s been left with a bald patch spanning half of her right. She just tugs on her mother’s hair, or pulls it out of hairbrushes instead, as she is yet to receive an official diagnosis from doctors.

Kerry said that health experts agree it is highly possible Isla has trichotillomania, but doctors still hope this could be a phase she will grow out of.

As they wait for the diagnosis, Kerry reached out to other mums through Facebook and has received support from other mums experiencing similar problems. She said she is sharing her story to raise awareness of the condition.

“I would love to see more people becoming aware of trichotillomania, as it happens to millions of people around the world,” Kerry said. “It’d be great for other parents to teach their kids about this condition, so they can understand that, just because someone looks different, it doesn’t mean they’re less of a good person.”

Source: Dailymail.co.uk