This blog post may contain spoilers. Read with caution.
Although this movie is 20 years old, I had never heard of it until a person from the body-focused repetitive behavior (BFRB) community commented on one of my Instagram videos that it showed trichotillomania. And as we all know, I love being able to watch (or read about) a character with trichotillomania. I'm always so interested in how the disorder will be portrayed.
If you'd like to watch Dirty Filthy Love before reading more, you can do so on Peacock or Amazon Prime Video.
My initial thoughts when looking at the movie poster were: Okay, so comorbid with OCD. That's going to be interesting. A comedy? Okay, very interesting.
It is no surprise that a character in "an obsessive compulsive comedy" would likely have trichotillomania because the rates of comorbidity between OCD and trichotillomania are high. The National Institute of Health (NIH) states:
OCD has previously been found to co‐occur in more than a quarter (Grant, Redden, Medeiros, et al., 2017) of patients with TTM. It has been found that TTM cases with OCD have higher levels of anxiety and depression when compared with those without comorbid OCD.
I have seen this firsthand as I've conducted my own research of the disorder—by interviewing BFRB community members for my podcast, Trich Talks.
I personally do not live with OCD so I won't be speaking to how that was portrayed in Dirty Filthy Love but I'd be interested in hearing from the OCD community members!
Here is the synopsis: A man's life falls apart as a result of his affliction with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Tourette's Syndrome in this touching and funny tale.
Prior to watching the movie I thought that the main character would be the one with trichotillomania. Men also live with trichotillomania and it would've been great having that representation. In previous years it was thought that women were more often affected with trichotillomania than men but a more recent study from The National Institute of Health (NIH) states:
Men have the disorder in equal numbers but because men may be less socially bothered by the pulling (i.e. they can shave if pulling from their beards or attribute hair loss to balding if pulling from their heads), they may come for treatment (i.e. something one step further than simply an assessment) less frequently than women, and therefore studies of clinical populations have missed these people.
Support for this interpretation is our finding that men reported less severe distress compared to women. Additional support is that it would be peculiar for people to endorse trichotillomania if they in fact did not have or strongly suspect themselves of having trichotillomania.
You aren't introduced to the character with trichotillomania, Charlotte, until you're a bit into the movie and it is never said outright that she has trichotillomania. Kind of upsetting that it was never named! But because I was looking for it, I was able to detect who had trichotillomania by a very subtle gesture.
This gesture feels so natural to my experience with trichotillomania—you're in a room with others but the urge to feel and find the "perfect hair" is so strong you can't avoid it. What do you do? Pretend you're maybe scratching your scalp or ear.
In this scene you don't actually see Charlotte remove any hair. Maybe she didn't find the right one or maybe it wasn't deemed important for the scene. If you weren't looking for someone to have trichotillomania you might've missed it altogether.
Similarly to the main character of the movie, Mark, Charlotte also has OCD. The movie is centered around OCD and so it is through her body language and subtle gestures that show her trichotillomania, at first.
During this scene you see Charlotte playing with the ends of her hair. Something many women do when their hair is down. In my experience, I find that playing with the ends of my hair, specifically looking for split ends, helps me keep my hair in my scalp. It "scratches the itch" for my trichotillomania without creating, or expanding, a bald spot.
This is the first time we see Charlotte removing hair from her scalp. This feels like a spot on representation of trichotillomania—the far-off stare, finding the right hair, inspecting it, placing it neatly somewhere, and going back for more. I know for a fact I have looked like this in my own car.
This scene is where you see just how much trichotillomania is affecting Charlotte's life. After she physically assaults Mark's ex-wife, Stevie, Charlotte turns to leave. In an attempt to fight back, Stevie reaches out for Charlotte's hair and instead pulls off her wig exposing her many bald spots. Everyone is stunned and Charlotte, embarrassed and exposed, leaves running.
The looks of Charlotte's scalp rings true to those experiencing trichotillomania—some long pieces, some areas of complete baldness, some regrowth, some areas not touched at all. Trichotillomania is unpredictable in nature both when it will occur and where. One day I will be completely fixated on a certain area of my scalp then the next day I am fixated somewhere else.
Viewers wouldn't have known or even thought that Charlotte was wearing a wig. They might not have even realized why she would need one if they hadn't noticed her hands (almost) constantly touching her hair. This is something that many people in the trichotillomania community dream of: not being noticed or found out.
Wearing wigs can be an important, if not vital, experience for those in the trichotillomania community. Many rely on wigs to feel like themselves. To feel "normal" and "beautiful" in their eyes again.
In this scene, Mark comes to comfort Charlotte having taken her wig back from Stevie in hopes to return it. He then prompts her to take a walk with him and she responds that she isn't "having a good hair day." This would've been a good place to name drop trichotillomania, just saying! Mark looks at her and tells her she looks lovely. They both get up and take that walk.
For anyone hiding something but especially those with trichotillomania who are actively trying to cover it up, the fear and reality of being exposed could ruin your whole day! Week! Month! Year! To be met with unconditional love is what everyone wishes for. To be seen and accepted just as you are.
As a whole I feel the movie did a good job at accurately portraying trichotillomania. I wish they would've said its name like they did with obsessive compulsive disorder and Tourette's Syndrome but I'll take what I can get.
Side note: Dirty Filthy Love is labeled a comedy but I'm not exaggerating when I say that I did not laugh or even get close to laughing once. I wonder what part(s) were supposed to be funny? I didn't find anything funny about it! Instead, I found it quite sad.
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