Sam Faiers realised she needed to stop pulling her eyelashes out when her daughter copied her.
The former ‘The Only Way is Essex’ star has battled with trichotillomania – in which sufferers struggle to fight the urge to pull out their hair – since her dad Dave was sent to prison when she was a child, but she decided to seek help when her 21-month-old daughter Rosie started fiddling with her own eyes.
Speaking on ‘Lorraine’ on Friday (16.08.19), she said: "I’ve actually been pulling [my eyelashes out] for 20 years. It’s been a lifetime.
"I started when I was seven or eight. I’ve done it for my whole life. When I was a teenager I started hypnotherapy and I stopped doing it for a while.
"I’ve been seeing a mental health awareness life coach and I feel a lot better after a couple of sessions. You have to go back to the trigger and learn to face it. It’s really weird. I do it kind of subconsciously, like when I’m relaxing and in my sleep and that’s why it’s really hard.
"When I met Paul [Knightley, her partner] and he said: ‘Can’t you stop?’ but I do it in my sleep. He understands now and he’s supporting me and really trying to help me.
"When I was breastfeeding Rosie and I would feel my lashes, Rosie would take my hand and copy what I was doing. I don’t want my kids to think it’s normal."
Sam – who also has son Paul, three, with Paul – discovered that her dad’s prison sentence was her trigger because a friend once told her that she should make a wish on a fallen eyelash.
She explained: "When I was younger, I was really close to my dad Dave and he went to prison and got sentenced for a long time and I took that quite hard.
"I didn’t understand and a friend came one afternoon and said: ‘If you pull out your eyelashes your wishes will come true.’ So I would wish for my dad to come home from prison. I don’t relate it to that anymore, now its just a habit but actually that’s the trigger."
Dave – who is actually Sam’s step-father but who she calls dad – was jailed for four years after he was found guilty for his part in a £1.1 million bullion robbery in December in 2013.
Sam Faiers wants to stop yanking lashes out for daughter’s sake
