Charlotte Starling, 27, has dermatillomania – the compulsion to pluck at skin
Started plucking her eyebrows, then moved onto other parts of her body
Her fingertips, breasts and face are now scarred for life
When her partner, Martin Thompson, 36, removed her tweezers she started using knives, needles and pliers to dig hairs out instead
She even grew her fingernails so she could sharpen them into points
Her condition is so bad, she has now been registered disabled and her partner has had to give up his job to care for her
A woman who became obsessed with plucking her eyebrows has spoken about the addiction she says ruined her life.
Charlotte Starling, 27, from Norwich, has dermatillomania – the compulsion to pluck hairs.
Her condition is so serious that it has left her permanently scarred.
Charlotte Starling, 27, from Norwich has dermatillomania - the compulsion to pluck at her skin. The problem is so severe that she has been left permanently scarred
‘I would do anything to find a way to pluck hairs,’ she said.
‘It’s like a drug and I’m an addict. It’s made me devious and dishonest because I will do anything to find a way to pluck hairs and get that sense of relief.
‘But I’m determined to control it for my family and I want to raise awareness of the condition so it is taken more seriously.’
Ms Starling says that her obsessive plucking has left her fingertips permanently disfigured and her face and breasts scarred for life.
Ironically, she says it started because she wanted to look better.
She explained: ‘I’ve always obsessed about plucking my eyebrows.
‘I wanted to get the shape just right and would spend ages plucking out the tiny hairs until they were perfect. Like all young women I wanted to look my best.’
But her fixation took a dangerous turn when her daughter Louise, now ten, started school.
Ms Starling (pictured with her partner, Martin Thompson) started by plucking her eyebrows but then moved onto the hairs on her chest, arms and legs. She says the problem began when her daughter, Louise, started school and she found herself at home all day by herself
Ms Starling was just 16 when she gave birth to Louise on the toilet.
She had no idea she was pregnant until she went to the bathroom in the middle of the night and suddenly felt the urge to push.
She said: ‘I’d had a bad stomach all day and thought I was constipated. I pushed and heard a cry.
‘When I looked down the toilet there was a baby. I was so shocked I screamed for my mum and she scooped it out.’
The pair were rushed to hospital and later given a clean bill of health.
Ms Starling said: 'It's like a drug and I'm an addict. It's made me devious and dishonest because I will do anything to find a way to pluck hairs and get that sense of relief'. Picture shows the damage to her stomach
For years, Ms Starling kept her obsession a secret. She hid her scars from her partner by dressing and washing in the dark. Her family only found out about the problem when her partner's mother spotted her scars
Ms Starling decided to call her 7lb 10oz daughter Louise — a playful nod to her unusual birthplace.
She said: ‘The doctors estimated that she was three to four weeks overdue. I know people find it hard to believe but I honestly had no idea at all. I was too young to recognise the signs.’
Ms Starling and her 17-year-old boyfriend vowed to bring up the baby themselves.
She said: ‘I loved being a mum and dressing her up and showing her off. She became my life and I doted on her.’
However, the young parents split when their baby was 18-months-old and, in time, Charlotte met her current fiancé Martin Thompson, 36.
Mr Thompson tried to hide Ms Starling's tweezers but she started using pliers, needles and knives to dig out the hairs instead. She even grew her nails so she could cut them into points
She said: ‘I had my baby girl and my fiancé and life was wonderful.’
However, her problems really began when Louise started school, aged four.
She said: ‘She had been my life, night and day, for four years ever since I was 16 years old.
‘Because I had her at such a young age, I’d never known any other way of life — and I was totally lost without her.
‘Since I’d become an adult my job was to look after Louise. When she was at school I didn’t know who I was and I started suffering severe anxiety.’
Ms Starling plucked the hairs on her breasts so much that her bra ended up soaked in blood
One morning, to keep calm, she started plucking her eyebrows.
Before she knew it, six hours had passed and it was time to collect her daughter from school.
Ms Starling said: ‘Because I’d got through the day without a panic attack, I did the same the next day. It became a coping mechanism.
‘Every day I would drop her off and rush straight home, draw the curtains and start to pluck as a way to keep my thoughts controlled and my mind calm.’
But with no stray hairs left on her eyebrows, she turned to the backs of her fingers — then moved on to new areas when her fingers became too bloody.
WHAT IS DERMATILLOMANIA?
Dermatillomania - or compulsive skin picking - is an impulse control disorder characterised by the uncontrollable desire to pick at one's skin.
Some sufferers have the condition so severely they pick at their skin until it is damaged.
Sufferers usually start by picking at their face before moving on to other parts of the body.
The condition is often categorised as an obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).
It can lead to bleeding, bruising and infections.
In severe cases, permanent damage is caused.
CSP will often be carried out after the individual has experienced a high level of tension which has caused an urge to carry out the behaviour.
The skin picking is often accompanied by a feeling of relief or even pleasure due to the reduction in anxiety levels.
However, once the damage has been done, those affected will often be left with a feeling of depression or hopelessness.
Although the damage that is caused can be very severe, the gratification experienced can lead the individual to carry out CSP again and again.
Treatment usually involves counselling and cognitive behavioural therapy.
She said: ‘I could pick at the same tiny hair for hours. It would bleed but I still got a sense of relief when I got it out.’
Come 3pm, she was able to pack away the tweezers and become a mother again.
She said: ‘It was like a switch would flick and I could go back to what I knew, which was looking after my daughter, cooking her tea and reading her stories.’
She also managed not to pluck when her fiancé had a day off.
She said: ‘It was only when I was alone that the anxiety came and the compulsion to pluck would take over.’
Before long, Ms Starling was getting up during the night to pluck in the bathroom.
She said: ‘Martin was starting to notice how much time I was spending in the bathroom, so I would tell lies to cover my tracks. I started inventing stomach bugs so I could spend longer plucking.
‘If people were about and I needed to pluck, I would do my eyebrows because nobody questions that.’
She compares her battle to the struggle of an alcoholic.
‘I knew it was out of control but I still had to pluck my eyebrows. I couldn’t just stop but I couldn’t control it either.’
To avoid suspicion, she tried to pluck only hidden areas of her body.
She said: ‘My breasts were the worst. I would pluck the tiny hairs from my chest until my bra was soaked with blood.
‘I would have to wash and dry my clothes and the sheets before my family got home, to avoid suspicion.’
She kept her scars hidden from her partner by dressing and bathing in the dark.
Ms Starling said: ‘He knew I wasn’t body-confident so he never questioned it.’
After three years she tried to get help from her GP — but was dismissed.
Ms Starling says that when she first went to a GP for help she received little sympathy and was just told to stop plucking her hairs. She says that when she told her friends about the condition they laughed
‘I tried to tell her that my plucking was taking over my life, but she just told me to stop,’ Ms Starling remembers.
When she confided in her friends, they laughed at her.
She says: ‘Nobody seemed bothered, so I told myself not to worry about it and just carried on.’
But the following year, Mr Thompson’s mother, Kathy Thompson, caught sight of her scarring.
Ms Starling recalls: ‘I was getting changed and she saw my chest and gasped. She was shocked when I told her about the plucking. She sat down and told me it was very serious and I needed help.
She said: 'Nobody seemed bothered, so I told myself not to worry about it and just carried on'
‘Telling Martin was the hardest part because I’d done such a good job of hiding it. He was devastated and begged me to get help.’
Finally, in 2011, Charlotte was referred to a psychologist and diagnosed with the condition dermatillomania.
She said: ‘Martin cleared out all the tweezers. He found more than 20 pairs hidden in plant pots and drawers.’
But the urge to pluck remained - and in desperation Ms Starling searched the house for tools to pluck with.
‘I used my daughter’s pencil sharpener, needles and knives — anything with a point that I could use to pick the hairs out.’
Ms Starling's problem has become so severe that she is now registered disabled and her partner, Martin Thompson, has had to give up his job to care for her
When those objects were confiscated, desperate Charlotte even broke into her fiancé’s shed for a pair of pliers.
But her lowest moment came when she started growing her nails to file into points.
‘I turned myself into a pair of human tweezers,’ she said.
After seeing the lengths to which she was prepared to go, Mr Thompson even offered Ms Starling his body to pluck to save her own.
‘He hoped if I plucked him I would stop hurting myself. I started on his back but it didn’t give me the same sense of satisfaction,’ she said.
‘That’s when I realised it wasn’t about plucking. It was about punishing myself.’
Ms Starling remains hopeful that, with counselling, cognitive behavioural therapy and the support of her loved ones, she will get better
Her wounds were becoming infected and sore but Charlotte refused to see the doctor because the infection gave her something else to pick.
Finally, earlier this year, Mr Thompson was left with no choice but to stop work as a plumbing and heating engineer to become Charlotte’s full-time carer after she was registered disabled.
‘I can’t believe it started with plucking my eyebrows and turned into this,’ she said.
The urge to pluck is still there but she fights temptation by bathing in the dark and dressing in high-cut tops and long sleeves.
‘If I can’t see the areas I would pluck, it’s easier not to think about it,’ she explains.
She also sleeps in her clothes to avoid the temptation if she wakes at night.
Ms Starling remains hopeful that, with counselling, cognitive behavioural therapy and the support of her loved ones, she will get better.
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