Her left eyebrow had receded a bit on the thicker part, closest to the bridge of her nose. She was deeply self-conscious of it and grew her hair longer on that side that it might conceal the offending brow. She herself was the cause of the problem. Sometimes, in need of comfort, she smoothed her eyebrow hair down with the flat tip of her thumb. Other times, in need a physical out for nervous energy, she'd slide her nail roughly across the eyebrow from the nose bridge outward. After doing so, she experienced a sharp little pain like scratching skin that's already been cut. To prolong the pain, she scrunched up her eyebrows as hard as she could. She was aware of how weird and constipated she looked when she did it without thinking in public. She did it so often that it began to chafe the skin. It became flaky and raw and hurt to the touch. The patchy thinning eyebrow hair which resulted was the only way a stranger could tell anything was amiss. She often felt guilty about it and would put lotion on it in an effort to reverse the damage she'd done. When times were really tough, her whole body would feel raw and scratched and she wanted nothing more to wrench and twist and scratch it some more, rip it off if necessary.