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Sam Faiers reveals she thought pulling her eyelashes out would release her dad from prison
26 September 2019, 12:46
The Mummy Diaries star has revealed the heartbreaking reason behind her disorder that leads her to obsessively pull out her eyelashes
Sam Faiers has opened up about the reason why she began pulling out her eyelashes as a child, revealing that she thought it would get her stepdad released from prison.
The Mummy Diaries star suffers from a condition - called Trichotillomania - that makes her obsessively pull out her eyelashes - and opened up about the backstory behind the condition in a recent episode.
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During a trip to a hypnotherapy session, she told the therapist: "When I was a kid a family friend told me that if I pull out an eyelash it means I can make a wish.
"This was around the time my dad went to prison. I was quite close to him. So I thought if I pull out my eyelashes and wished he would come home, it would be the only way he could come home from prison."
Sam also took her false eyelashes off to show the therapist the extent of her condition.
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She also revealed that her daughter Rosie, 1, had started copying her - which had been a 'turning point' to making her decide to get help.
Sam previously opened up about trying to get help for the condition, saying on her YouTube channel: "When I was 13 I lived in Spain, and my mum took me to a psychologist. She laid me down and spoke to my subconscious… because I actually pick them out in my sleep now. All my eyelashes grew back, it was amazing. But a couple of months after, I started picking them out again."
We tried everything. My mum put mittens on my hands when I'd go to sleep, I put disgusting nail-biting repellent stuff on my fingers so it would sting [my eyes]… I just tried everything but nothing worked."
She added: "When I was at school… I was a really confident loud kid. But when you're going into senior school and you want to look nicer… I felt like I couldn't really look people in the eye.
"I felt like people were looking at me like I was weird… when I was 14 I discovered false eyelashes. I couldn't believe how over the moon I was!"
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