As children Jackie Johnson, from Brighton and Valerie Novey, from Wisconsin developed Trichotillomania - a compulsion to pull out tufts of their own hair. For many years, each believed they must be alone in the world with this affliction, until eighteen months ago, when they struck up a friendship on a website message board...

Jackie begins, "It happened at about puberty. The first time I ever did it, I was with my cousins and we pulled our hair out to look at under the microscope. It became a sort of comforting habit, which sounds strange because it could hurt." Jackie didn't feel any pain and began pulling out hundreds of hairs a day, "I made myself quite bald." Both Jackie and her parents were worried. People thought she could just stop, but she couldn't. "People with Trichotillomania become masters of disguise - growing long hair or putting make-up on their head."

Valerie tells how she started, "It was around puberty. I can remember the exact day, as most people with Trich can. I had pigtails, the part at the back of my head was messed up. I pulled a few hairs out to make it straighter, and it continued from there. It became comforting, a thing to do when I was bored or stressed." Valerie doesn't feel that it was to do with an unhappy childhood; she describes her own as "fairly decent - good parents..." Valerie always had enough hair to cover the bald spots she created, but like Jackie, she became a master of disguise.

Jackie always began with the top of her head, the back and the bits above her ears. Valerie started with the back of her head and top, then realised it was too noticeable, "There's that little bit of control, where you can change the area, so now it's mainly above and behind my ears," she explains, "I felt guilty - I'd tell myself I had to stop. You almost do it without thinking. I didn't know why I couldn't stop."

After thirty years of living secretly with compulsive hair-pulling, Jackie searched on the internet under 'hair-pulling', "I suddenly found all these other people. It was incredible!" The website Jackie found was a text bulletin board and was filled with information about the condition. "It was such a shock! I was reading all my secrets - all the things I'd never told anybody. They sounded so much like me. It was such a shock! I honestly believed it was just me for all those years." Valerie, too, had never discussed her condition with anyone, until she got to know Jackie on the Trich message board, "Since then, because of all the support, I've talked about it with my husband, family and now .. on radio!"

Jackie and Valerie's friendship is still relatively recent. They only met on the message boards about eighteen months ago, but it's a relationship which has changed both their lives, "At the risk of sounding soppy, having someone like Valerie to tell everything to is brilliant!" says Jackie. Valerie adds, "To even be able to laugh about it, was amazing. I'd never laughed about Trich before!"

Jackie went to Milwaulkee last summer, to meet not just Valerie, but Trich sufferers from all over America. They both feel they've benefitted enormously from their friendship, and Valerie, after twenty-four years of marriage, spoke to her husband about it for the first time.

Valerie does still pull out her hair, "People say, 'Why don't you just stop?' but I think it's more related to an addiction." Jackie adds, "It's easy to become complacent when you've stopped pulling, and it's easy to do when you don't realise it. I have a kind of replacement therapy - such as always having a pad and pen when I'm on the phone.."