OCD and trichotillomania at college · Our Story, chapter three
Rare Courage Under Fire
Kayla began her first semester at F.I.T. while OCD and trichotillomania were demanding more from her than we had ever seen. Courage did not look fearless. It looked like taking the next train, entering the next classroom, and making it through the next day.
A parent’s lived experience—not therapy or medical advice. This chapter describes one family, one young adult, and one season of care. Treatment decisions were made with Kayla’s qualified providers and should not be generalized to someone else.
Content note: This chapter discusses severe OCD symptoms, intrusive thoughts, trichotillomania, emotional distress, sleep loss, and psychiatric care. It does not disclose the specific content of Kayla’s intrusive thoughts. Read at your own pace.
A new beginning
First came the acceptance email.
Our daughter’s love of animation led our college search somewhere I had not expected: the Fashion Institute of Technology. My wife discovered F.I.T.’s illustration and animation programs, and after visiting several schools close enough for Kayla to commute, one campus stayed with her.
Admission required an art portfolio. Art was Kayla’s happy place, which made the prospect of professional critique feel especially vulnerable. She was still learning to give herself permission to be a student—to experiment, make mistakes, and grow.
I will never forget the moment she read the acceptance email beside my wife. Her eyes filled with tears. This time they were tears of joy: someone in the field had looked at her work and invited her in.
For one beautiful moment, possibility was louder than fear.
It felt as if everything were falling into place. Then the first day moved closer, and the joy began sharing space with something heavier.
Before classes began
OCD and trichotillomania at college: an unfamiliar transition.
Graduation had felt like the end of childhood to Kayla. College brought excitement, but also uncertainty, adult expectations, and a new routine. In our family’s experience, that transition coincided with her OCD becoming much more consuming.
The intrusive thoughts latched onto questions of identity and morality. We learned through her care that OCD could turn what mattered deeply to her into a source of relentless doubt. The more certainty she tried to find, the further away it seemed.
Her distress eventually reached a point where her therapist recommended broadening the care team and seeking a psychiatric consultation. We supported that decision. It was personal, provider-guided, and made for Kayla—not a prescription for another family.
Care belonged with qualified professionals.
Our role as parents was to listen, help her reach the people trained to treat OCD and BFRBs, and keep learning how to support her without pretending we could become the treatment team ourselves.
The first day
One unfamiliar exit was enough to make the city feel enormous.
Kayla was commuting from Long Island: train to Penn Station, then a short walk to campus. Public transit felt more manageable than driving at the time, but that did not make the first morning easy.
She came out of Penn Station through a door she did not recognize. Panic set in. She called my wife, overwhelmed and unable to get her bearings. Directions that might have sounded simple from home were hard to process in that moment.
After roughly twenty chaotic minutes, she found her way to campus. Then came a full schedule, a late train home, and the fatigue of carrying a struggle most people around her could not see.
Leave home while already feeling overwhelmed.
Ask for help when panic makes communication difficult.
Find the campus, enter the classroom, and keep going.
A semester of endurance
The days asked more of her than anyone in class could know.
The physical and mental fatigue accumulated. Sleep was scarce. Concentration became difficult. Messages reached my wife and me throughout the day as Kayla searched for reassurance that she was okay and still herself.
At the same time, her trichotillomania changed in ways that were frightening to her. Pulling that had involved her eyelashes and eyebrows began affecting the hair on her scalp as well. It added another visible and emotional layer to a struggle that already felt relentless.
She was also adjusting to a care plan while learning to commute, navigate a new school, and encounter formal art instruction for the first time. From the outside, she was a college freshman attending class. Inside our family, each day felt like an extraordinary act of effort.
We were learning, too.
Our instinct was to answer every frightened question until she felt certain. With guidance, we began understanding that repeated reassurance could become part of her OCD cycle. Supporting her sometimes meant staying close without trying to settle every doubt.
The words I needed her to hear
She thought we saw weakness. I saw rare courage.
The long days became weeks, and the weeks became months. Some days felt like one step forward and three steps back. Still, she kept boarding the train. She kept entering the classroom. Somehow, she was also succeeding in her first semester.
One night, I realized she might believe we saw only how much she was struggling. I needed her to know what I actually saw.
“The way you’re handling this is remarkable. You’re my hero.”
She lifted her head with tears in her eyes, almost as if to ask how I could possibly mean it. I told her again: “You’re my hero. Mom and I have never been more proud of you.”
Courage was not the absence of fear or symptoms. It was moving forward while both were present.
What helped our family hold on
There was no quick fix—only care, time, and progress we learned to notice.
Improvement did not arrive on our preferred timetable. Sometimes her therapist could see changes that Kayla could not yet recognize. We tried to notice those moments without turning them into proof that the struggle was finished.
Therapy and medical decisions belonged to Kayla and her providers.
We could listen, learn, stay close, and remind her that she was loved.
A hard day did not erase the work that came before it.
Meaningful change could be real even when it was gradual.
This is what supported our family, not a checklist for someone else. For clinical education and qualified organizations, visit our Trusted Resources page.
Strength in the struggle
This was not the end of her story—only one powerful chapter.
Watching our daughter move through that first semester was one of the hardest and most awe-inspiring experiences of our lives. She did not choose OCD or trichotillomania. She did not choose the distress they brought into her days.
What she did, again and again, was show up.
She took the train. She found the classroom. She made art. She accepted help. She endured days that felt impossible from the inside and ordinary to everyone passing her in the hallway.
To the families carrying something similar
We cannot promise another person’s path or tell you what care should look like. We can say that struggle and courage can exist together—and that needing qualified help is not a failure.
Kayla’s first semester did not define her. Neither did OCD. Neither did trichotillomania.
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