Amy Schumer opens up about a secret that she calls her big secret. It is a decade-long battle with trichotillomania (also known as the hair-pulling disorder).
“I think everybody has a big secret and that’s mine,” Schumer told The Hollywood Reporter of her experience with the mental condition, which her character Beth also suffers from in her new semi-autobiographical dramedy on Hulu, Life & Beth. “I’m proud that my big secret only hurts me but it’s been what I’ve carried so much shame about for so long.”
As it does for her fictionalized counterpart, Schumer’s hair-pulling disorder began during a troubling time in her adolescence, when her parents split up and her father declared bankruptcy and was diagnosed with MS, per People. Schumer was able to pull out so much hair in real life, just like on the show, that she had to wear a wig at school.
“And everybody knew,” she told THR.
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“And it’s not that I used to have this problem and now I don’t,” added Schumer. “It’s still something that I struggle with.” Compounding her anxiety is the fact that there is a genetic component to the disorder, which makes her worried for her young son, Gene. “Every time he touches his head I’m having a heart attack.”
She claims that she put her expertise into the show to at the very least lift the burden on secrecy. “I really don’t want to have a big secret anymore,” she said. “And I thought putting it in there would be good for me to alleviate some of my shame and maybe, hopefully, help others alleviate some of theirs, too.”
Amy Schumer is not the only one. Olivia Munn revealed in 2012 her trichotillomania. This is a disorder that causes her to pull out her eyelashes.
Source: Glamour