When I was in Junior High and High School, I would sit on the sofa in my mother’s winter porch, raise my right hand to my right eye, and quietly pull out my eyelashes, one by one. A good, quick pinprick of pain accompanied each follicle as I slipped its root gently out of its socket. After I had pulled an eyelash out, I would hold it between the tips of my fingers, rolling it between my fingertips — twirling it, spinning it — feeling the firm, narrow slenderness, the fine, hard darkness of the lash, and the small, rich bulge of proteins at the root, which — up until the moment I had plucked it out — had attached the lash to the lid of my eye. Then, I would drop the eyelash to my mother’s couch; raise my right hand to my right eye again; and quietly pull another lash from its socket.

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[As with all] human hair, [eyelashes] are fed by follicles, located below the skin. In eyelashes, those follicles have also three phases of growth: the “growing phase” lasts about 45 days, and is followed by a “declination phase” in which the growth stops, for about three weeks, and a last phase of two weeks, a span of rest, the “sheading phase”, when the hair falls out. After this period, a new cycle begins and the hair is regenerated.

—eyelashesinhistory.com

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As I sat on my mother’s couch quietly pulling out my eyelashes, I was quite conscious of my actions; that is, it was not an absent-minded habit. I was there — on my mother’s couch — raising my hand to my eye and deliberately pulling out my eyelashes.

As I say, the pain was good. I liked the pain. It was pleasant. It was tangible. It was irrefutable. I could determine when the pain occurred — I was in control of it: I could cause it to start, and I could cause it to end.  If I tugged on the lash just softly enough, I could feel the root pulling my eyelid forward, just on the cusp…just about to slip out of its socket but not escaping just yet.

It was me: I was in control.

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When an eyelash is pulled out or drops out, it needs about two months to be regenerated.

—eyelashesinhistory.com

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Immediately after pulling out my eyelashes, my eyelid would be tender and raw. A hot moisture lined the flesh where my eyelashes had been. But, the next day, the regeneration would have already started.

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Sometimes, when I was in a public place such as a classroom, instead of pulling my eyelashes out, I would rub the tip of my forefinger along the warm, black stubs of the follicles that had started regeneration. A hard, fine itch — a tingle, let’s say — blossomed across my eyelid as I ran my forefinger along the new generation of lashes.

This was a joyful pain. Tender. Reassuring.

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I did not think I was hurting myself when I picked my eyelashes — neither by causing myself pain nor by explicitly mutilating myself. Pain did not equate to hurt — but rather to the here-and-now; to actuality; to existence. Only with pain could I feel existence.

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Eyelashes on the upper eyelid are longer than those of the lower eyelid. The upper eyelashes can reach a length of an average of 8 mm., and tend to curve upwards. The upper eyelid has more eyelashes: around seventy to one-hundred-fifty lashes, and the lower eyelid has generally a row of sixty to eighty eyelashes, smaller, and they curve downwards. This curved shape of both rows of eyelashes helps to slip sweat and foreign particles out of the eyes.

—eyelashesinhistory.com

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I never explicitly planned a picking session in advance; I never awoke in the morning and proactively thought through my schedule for that entire day to see when I could fit in a session of picking. But I could sit on my mother’s couch fifteen or twenty minutes, say, taking out my eyelashes, without my sister, or my brother, or my parents ever knowing.

It was always the upper lid of my right eye, as I recall; only occasionally did I work my left eye. It started one day with a simple irritation: I was rubbing my eye vigorously, and my eyelid turned red and swelled up, and the irritation caused me to rub the corner of my eyelid at the flesh, where the eyelashes attach to the lid. Perhaps I felt an irritation right at the root of my eyelashes: I can’t recall. But somehow I must have pulled out that very first eyelash as a result of my discomfort. And after I had pulled out one eyelash and felt the good, quick pinprick of pain, I pulled out the next eyelash. And the next. And the next.

After a few days of picking, perhaps a quarter of my eyelashes would be gone; occasionally more — up to sixty percent, let’s say. Only on one or two occasions, I think, did anyone other than my mother notice. I was conscious my classmates could notice — and perhaps they did notice it. But I don’t recall them ever saying anything about it.

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Like all the hair in the human body, eyelashes are a biological polymer, made up of about 10 per cent of water and 90 per cent of proteins, such as keratins, and melanins, the substances that give hair its color.

—eyelashesinhistory.com

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My lash pulling — which today would be recognized as a behavioral disorder (or a form of self-mutilation) known as trichotillomania — was perhaps a variation of a custom I had as a small child. When I was lying in bed after my mother had said good night and closed the door to my bedroom, I would turn onto my stomach, bunch up the corner of my bed sheet, and graze the sharp, narrow corner against my lip. Like scratching an itch, the grazing reassured me.  I suppose I might have thought of it as my companion. It was not painful; but there was still a gratifying sharpness; an act of careful, deliberate scratching to which my eyelash pulling seems to correspond: an act of bringing sentience, comfort, and reassurance to a small, distinct spot on my face.

I suppose I have never quite outgrown the gentle trichotillomania of my mother’s couch. To this day I pick at scabs. I pluck cuticles. I tickle small cuts and re-open old wounds. Perhaps it still provides some undefinable comfort; perhaps it provides some drop of reassurance—some reminder that in spite of the uncertainties my life comprises, I can always fall back on those warm, reliable pinpricks of pain.