In today’s guest post, our Keen family member, Amber Bodeur, who’s been “Conquering with Keen, now shares how she found the courage - and the support - to start a support group in her hometown.

…the best way to create a cohesive and supportive environment for our child’s success is to have the tools we use at home incorporated into her school life, too.  You can use this template as a starting point for opening up communication with your child’s teacher…

In January 2017, after six years of picking at my split ends and two years of pulling out my hair, I finally told my parents about my compulsions to pull out hair from my scalp. It took them about a week or two to do some research and understand that this was not just “wanting” to pull out my hair, but “not being able to stop” pulling. My parents understanding meant a lot to me. For the first time, I believed I could actually stop! This “embarrassing” habit of mine had a name - trichotillomania, researchers that studied people like me, and tons of ways to stop were listed both online and in the several books my father ordered home. I was going to be cured!