Sam Faiers wants to stop yanking lashes out for daughter’s sake

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.