tonight, on an all-new "20/20." my strange affliction. >> it's something i can't talk about. >> he's bent his way into hollywood block busters. but what does the so-called rubber boy have to do with this baby in the can he solve the mystery of parents accused of harming their baby? plus, do these two women have sex on the brain, literally? >> you look like such a demure, young, sweet thing.

truly. >> a baffling mystery, a car wreck, but their sex drives in overdrive. is it all in your mind? and, so terrified of becoming pregnant, she's going to become a runaway drive. what phobia is so bad, she could lose the love of her life? tonight, my strange affliction. here now, elizabeth vargas and david muir. >> good evening. tonight, people who are so brave to share their stories, their strange afflictions. so troubling, they may not tell their friends, but they tell us tonight. we start with a husband and father that could be facing jail time because of a possible medical mystery. >> the question, how well does a

wife know her husband? they're desperate for answers and a doctor is going out on a limb with a possible solution. here's debra roberts. >> reporter: cynthia ross is frantic with worry as she and husband brandon rush their 2-month-old son ryder to the hospital. >> we packed up enough stuff for the night and headed to the emergency room. >> reporter: ryder's left leg is strangely swollen. they're desperate for answers. >> they took ryder in to have a skeletal survey and wouldn't allow us to accompany him. we could hear him crying. >> reporter: x-rays reveal that ryder has multiple fractures. his leg, his clavicle, ribs, and more. >> a fracture actually in each ankle. and then a lumbar compression fracture in his spine. >> reporter: that sounds pretty scary. >> it was terrifying, and i just like burst into tears, that can't, that's not my son, that can't be possible. >> reporter: to ryder's distraught parents, it seems like a medical mystery. but doctors suspect something

far worse. child abuse. >> yup. >> reporter: and when you heard those two words -- >> it was surreal that -- that's not us. there's just no way. >> reporter: for cynthia, a stark question arises, could brandon be abusing their baby? did you wonder for a second, is there a secret, is there something i don't know? >> the child abuse pediatrician was like, "these fractures are common, and if your husband had done, done something like that, you probably wouldn't know." and i was like, "well, is brandon some person that i've never met? how could that happen under my nose?" >> reporter: how, indeed? rewind a few months and the picture-perfect images tell a very different story. precious babies, rozalynn and ryder, the doting father, first kisses, sweet moments -- >> i am a mom, that's my identity. i love children, i love being pregnant, and i love having babies. my imagination has us in a big farmhouse with kids everywhere. >> probably maybe around four.

we can have as many babies as we can afford, that's basically what i want to tell her. >> reporter: smart, practical. >> yes, he is very practical, he's not as whimsical as i am. >> reporter: they married three years earlier. brandon was 22, cynthia, 21. after rozalynn's birth, they moved back to maine, where cynthia's roots run as deep as the new england woods. and soon, another baby. ryder is born at home. >> brandon spent the majority of my labor running hot water up and down the stairs. >> reporter: like in the old times? >> it was the coolest experience ever, and i am glad she did it. >> for his first month and a half of life it was just me and rozalynn and ryder at home. ryder and i were inseparable. >> reporter: but then, that night, when the perfect picture shatters in an instant, and the accusations fly. >> we were under a microscope, and then we realized that they were no longer looking for a medical explanation when the case worker showed up to the hospital and said we're seeking custody of your kids. they're not going to be leaving with you today. >> reporter: the doctor's report seems damning. fractures caused by squeezing or possibly shaking.

police zero in on brandon, though he says he's never told why. a detective knocks on his door. so you were under arrest? >> i was under arrest at that point. and the world just went dark and everything just changed. >> reporter: brandon is now a suspected felon, his mug shot plastered on local tv and across maine's papers. his wife makes a monumental decision. >> knowing my husband and knowing the kind of father he is, it just didn't reconcile. it couldn't be child abuse. it isn't possible. there's not a bad bone in my husband's body. >> reporter: i want to ask you, brandon, did you ever in any way harm your son? >> no, absolutely not. >> reporter: not shaking him, not squeezing him too hard? >> never. we were so delicate with him, we he's a newborn. you have to be gentle with him.

we already have a 3-year-old, so we know how to handle babies. >> reporter: the young dad is indicted on 12 counts of child abuse. and a virtual wolf pack gathers, cynthia says, as strangers post threats online. >> when brandon's story was all over the internet, the comments would range from, "these people should die. he will get what he deserves in jail." >> reporter: things become frightening after their home address appears online, forcing the couple to quickly move. with brandon branded an abuser authorities err on the side of caution, taking the kids from both parents, placing rozalynn and ryder with cynthia's father, a registered foster parent. to see her children, cynthia often wakes up in the predawn darkness. >> i'm putting together some clothes for the weekend just so the kids have some stuff from home. >> reporter: so much of her time spent driving back and forth to get rozalynn and ryder from her father's foster home. >> i'm hoping that the kids are up and ready to go, i'm sure they'll be excited. >> reporter: they are. and soon are ready for a day of visitation with their mom and grandma.

>> okay, perfect. >> reporter: back home brandon is forced to view some of his son's milestone moments on his cell phone, like ryder taking his first steps. in their new home, old family memories hang on the walls. a stark reminder that rozalynn and ryder are forbidden to live with their parents. so they've never spent the night here? >> never. >> reporter: cynthia wants those bedtimes back. wants to clear her husband's name. >> when he was arrested, i started to take my vows extremely seriously. there was no more space for doubt. he couldn't fight for himself. i needed to step up and be his voice and figure out what actually happened. >> reporter: she's now consumed with finding an answer. what else might have caused her baby's fractures? late at night, cynthia scours the web. >> i just started reading a lot of information about metabolic bone diseases and looking at ryder's case and what i know

about our family, it just wasn't adding up. >> reporter: but there would be no breakthrough found online. instead, the case is about to take a strange twist. could this man, a former circus performer and a master of contortion, help solve the mystery of ryder's fractures? >> i can dislocate both arms, both legs, turn my torso 180 degrees. >> reporter: when we come back. s that cause our symptoms. the leading allergy pill only controls one, flonase controls six. and six is greater than one. flonase the 24 hour relief that outperforms the #1 allergy pill. so go ahead , inhale life. new flonase. six is greater than one. this changes everything.

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continues. once again, debra roberts. >> reporter: some call him a medical marvel. but daniel browning smith calls himself "rubber boy," a body-bending contortionist who twists into a human pretzel. >> i hold a guinness world record for the most flexible person on the planet. i'm a stuntman, i break my arms and legs in movies. >> reporter: like "men in black 2." >> i've been aliens in movies. >> reporter: that's daniel in the green body suit, impossibly inside that box. and on tv shows like "csi: las vegas." >> i was a serial killer named squeagle, my favorite role i ever had. >> reporter: and hbo's "carnivale." >> i was a contortionist in the sideshow. >> reporter: and that's him in this coke zero commercial, sipping a drink from a "don't try this at home" angle. how does he do it? it's a rare medical condition. >> i'm diagnosed with a disease called e.d.s. >> reporter:

ehlers-danlos syndrome, a collagen disorder that can lead to loose and unstable joints even startling bone dislocations. >> my ribs actually dislocate and poke out of my chest. i see completely how e.d.s. could explain childhood injuries. e.d.s, makes you bruise really, really easily, so as a kid i had family members think maybe my father was hitting me or something like that, but that never happened. >> reporter: never happened, which is exactly what cynthia ross is telling authorities in maine. she hasn't heard of rubber boy. but could his condition possibly offer an answer to her nightmare? her baby, ryder, injured, her husband, brandon, accused. instead, cynthia's first ray of hope comes from her grandmother watching an episode of katie couric's talk show and seeing a couple with a story stunningly similar to cynthia and brandon's. >> we're here with bria and andrew huber who fell under a cloud of suspicion after their infant daughter kenley suffered multiple, unexplained bone fractures. >> reporter: the fractures, discovered after andrew was alone in the house changing

3-month-old kenley's diaper. >> i lifted her right leg, and there was a pop. she shrieked, and cried, and i immediately pulled back and was shocked. didn't know what it was. >> reporter: he takes kenley to the children's e.r. and after a battery of x-rays, like brandon ross, andrew is soon arrested and charged. bria says police tell her, her husband is a secret abuser. >> they thought that he was so in love with me that he was jealous of the time that kenley took from him and therefore, he was taking it out on kenley. >> reporter: bria doesn't buy it. they hire a high-powered texas lawyer and bria sets out to discover what might be wrong with their baby girl. but finding no answers. >> you took kenley to 9 different doctors in 5 states trying to get to the bottom of

this. >> it was extremely frustrating. obviously i would fly across the country only to be told, "are you sure your husband isn't abusing her? because that's what it looks like." >> reporter: until she discovers dr. michael holick, a biochemist at boston university's school of medicine. >> if you clinically evaluate this incident -- >> reporter: he offers a radical theory one that makes him a kind of lone wolf in the medical community that e.d.s., daniel's rare condition might cause not just joint dislocations, but fractures in the bodies of some children. how does it present? >> it can present with fractured bones. what we call bone fragility with minimum handling of the infant. >> reporter: after performing physical exams and reviewing x-rays and medical histories, dr. holick diagnoses both kenley and her mom with e.d.s. >> i got to see kenley in my clinic and there was no question, in my opinion, that she has classic e.d.s. >> reporter: that diagnosis finally helped sway prosecutors in texas to dismiss abuse

charges against andrew, reuniting him with his young daughter. >> they knew they weren't going to win that case from a legal standpoint, they could not prove anything. so, before you go taking children out of loving parents' homes and very closely ruining lives, it's a dangerous game to play. >> reporter: the hubers' story is now a lifeline to cynthia ross, back in maine, searching for answers about her son ryder's multiple fractures when she hears of dr. holick. >> i just packed up my mom and my son and we drove down there. >> reporter: to boston, where dr. holick agrees to review ryder's case. so, once you looked at all of these x-rays and all of his fractures, you concluded what? >> i concluded that based on my physical exam of ryder that he has e.d.s. and the likelihood is that these multiple fractures could have been due to the

underlying genetic disorder e.d.s. and bone fragility and not due to child abuse. >> reporter: what did you think when you heard that? >> that family in texas had the same diagnosis and everything was dismissed and they were able to be a family again. i was just sure that we were just some formalities away from being whole again and our kids could be home. >> reporter: but the state of maine isn't swayed. unlike prosecutors in texas, the case against brandon is going forward. maine authorities declined to talk to "20/20." >> it just seems like the medical evidence is being completely ignored. >> reporter: in fact, dr. holick's theory has set off a firestorm in the medical community. one doctor we spoke with pointing out there is no published scientific evidence linking e.d.s. to fractures in infants. dr. holick admits he is breaking new ground. he says he plans to publish his findings soon. do you worry that you could be wrong?

that you could be sending a child back into the hands of abusive parents? >> i worry about this all the time. and i make it clear to the courts that i don't know the parents. >> reporter: and yet -- >> i've seen over 1,000 of these patients, and even as adults, they're at extremely high risk for fracture with minimum trauma. so it's not a surprise to me that just typical, normal, handling of the infant can result in these fractures. >> reporter: but even with the e.d.s. diagnosis, brandon is still living under a cloud of suspicion, still separated from ryder and rozalynn -- while his wife refuses to give up. reaching out to other families familiar with their nightmare including her new friend bria huber in texas, who offers some hard-earned advice. >> just cling onto the hope. hope that, that the truth will eventually come out and that you will be redeemed. for us, that took 14 months.

and hopefully, for them, it won't take that long. >> reporter: ryder's first year of life has mostly been spent away from you. >> it's something that we'll never get back, all of his firsts. so when the children come home it'll be like starting from square one. >> reporter: you say when they come home. >> yeah. >> as of tonight, brandon is awaiting trial, out on bail. what do you think? use #abc2020. elizabeth and i will be right back. next, how did a brain injury turn this woman into a woman on the prowl for men? and will their marriage survive? when my strange affliction returns. worth of mortg year's for every hole-in-one at a pga tour event seventeen times.

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but this next affliction changes the libido. a sex drive that goes overdrive. this is alissa. just alissa, no last names. it's that kind of story. she's 23, single, lives in vancouver. behind that bold blue eye shadow, an ordinary woman with a strange tale of desire gone wild. did you ever imagine that that car accident could so change the course of your life? >> reporter: and this is heather, happily and, normally, faithfully married to her husband andy. they're from england. she too has a story that would make anyone blush. walking down the street, for a while was hazardous. >> she would catch people's attention, you know guys. she would just give them a look. >> i was never subtle with it. >> reporter: you were never subtle? >> no. >> reporter: it wasn't a come hither look, it was a come -- >> get it look. >> reporter: two women, a world

apart, with one thing in common. a brain injury that transformed them in ways both intimate and unimaginable. trauma threw a switch in their brains, super-charging their sex drive. their story might be called "50 shades of grey matter." >> i think i was doing some gardening that day. and i collapsed in the garden. and i can remember a huge pressure in my head and knowing that something was really wrong. >> reporter: heather's x-rated odyssey begins with a subarachnoid hemorrhage. massive bleeding in her brain that left her in a coma for two weeks. the doctor was not hopeful. >> he said, "it's not good and she's probably not going to survive." >> reporter: during our interview, a moment of brutal frankness that shocks heather. he tells us in a way, he did lose his wife. >> the wife that i married died on may the 21st. >> don't say that. it's really sad. >> it's true though. that's what happened. >> reporter: heather emerges from the coma with a voracious

interest in sex. starting in the hospital. so she wanted to have sex with you in the hospital bathroom? >> yeah, in the shower room. >> reporter: while she was still hospitalized. >> yeah. >> reporter: after she was released, it only got better, that is to say, worse. so, what are we talking about, every day? >> yeah, two or three times a day. >> reporter: two or three times a day? >> it was emotionally hard. it was physically hard. it was hard. >> reporter: you got sick of sex. >> not sick of it, but, just sort of bored of the frequency of it. >> reporter: one then day as andy watches, heather crosses the street from their home to pick up a construction worker. >> this guy called her over. she went over. when she got to the doorway he kissed her on the mouth. i was watching. >> reporter: she crossed the street and she's -- >> kissing the builder, yeah. >> reporter: -- making out with a man. >> and i'm just watching thinking what's happening there? >> reporter: heather begins propositioning, and groping other men left and right. >> she'd meet people, and within seconds she'd be offering sex or, even sort of having sex with them. >> reporter: you look like such a demure, sweet young thing. >> i know.

>> reporter: truly. it's hard to even imagine you doing all these things. is it just -- >> you know -- >> reporter: -- an urge to have sex? >> i think so. >> reporter: experts say brain trauma often causes a decrease in libido. only rarely does it cause the opposite. what doctors call hyper-sexuality. heather and andy met with harvard neurologist, dr. alice flaherty, as part of a british documentary. >> these things here are your temporal lobes and a lot of this was damaged. this is where the aneurysm, the blood squirted out and hit this the most. and also causing damage to the hypothalamus which is down in there right the center of the brain. at the front of it is this thing called the amygdala. it's very important for fear. and you're more fearless. you're able to approach things and do things that you wouldn't before. >> reporter: andy estimates heather had sex with about ten other men, but behaved inappropriately with as many as 50. >> heather at the time, she couldn't see that there was anything sort of out of the

ordinary and that she didn't think she was doing anything wrong. she's, like, "well, why -- why -- why can't i?" >> reporter: didn't matter how old they were, didn't matter -- >> no. >> reporter: -- how handsome they were -- >> no. >> -- it wasn't about the guys. it was about her. >> it was almost like a sport, you know, going out and seeing if there was -- >> anybody around. >> yeah. >> reporter: in vancouver, alissa is also trying to manage a new sexual personality. which she traces to a car crash in 2008. >> the car flipped over three times. i hit my head, and the next time i woke up was in the morning in the hospital. >> reporter: she had been a typical teenager, she says, interested in fashion and sewing, her experimentation mostly confined to hair color. so you weren't boy crazy, as they say. >> basically, yeah. >> reporter: and you'd had basically one sexual experience. >> yeah, with one guy beforehand. >> reporter: but from this crumpled wreckage, alissa says she emerged a changed person. so what did you begin to notice about yourself? >> i was tired. i was depressed -- anxiety.

i was withdrawn socially. >> reporter: the area of her brain injured in the crash was the frontal lobe, the part that controls impulses. >> everything needs a braking system. everything needs some sort of control and when there's none its usually a disaster. >> reporter: that "brake failure" led to alissa's strangest affliction. how much of your thoughts after this brain injury were taken up with sex? >> it was definitely much of the day. >> reporter: scot stanley is her attorney. >> before the accident, she was just a normal kid. and then afterwards, she would use this expressly explicit language detailing sex, and would say things that would just cause people to shudder. >> reporter: this had to be such a big, dramatic difference to be not really very interested in sex and then all of a sudden obsessed with sex. did you suspect it was because of a brain injury? >> i think at first i just blamed myself. i just felt a lot of shame. >> reporter: alissa says she

couldn't stop herself, but she couldn't enjoy herself either. >> i don't necessarily physically actually enjoy sex all that much. i'm doing it to satisfy a compulsion. it doesn't feel good. it doesn't feel healthy, because it's not. >> reporter: making a virtue of a vice, alissa now sells provocative videos of herself under an alter ego, sasha mizaree. >> just listen to my voice. >> reporter: her sexual compulsion was cited by her lawyer as part of a lawsuit against the driver responsible for her accident. the judge awarded her $1.5 million. >> the judge agreed with us, that her increased sexual activity, her sexual impulsivity, flowed from her frontal lobe brain injury. >> reporter: she's in therapy and on medication, and says just recently her sexual urges have diminished. so now, you're not at a point where every waking thought is about sex. >> right now, knock on wood, no. >> reporter: what she really wants now, she says, is someone to love. heather and andy's outcome may give her some hope.

heather's desire has been dampened by therapy and prescription drugs. sort of a pharmaceutical cold shower for her overheated libido. do you still have those urges? or are you just better at controlling them? >> i don't think i have those so much at all now. i also make sure that i'm not in the situation where there's only me and a bloke, you know. i just make sure that that never happens, really. >> reporter: they're now celebrating more than 20 years of a marriage that truly tested nearly every vow. >> some say it might sound fun or funny at first. but could you live like that? use #abc2020. >> and another thing that you said you could relate to. >> we'll tell you what it is when we come back. next, she has the man, and the dress. but also a paralyzing fear that

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many would ask, why would a young woman be terrified of getting married? >> she suffers from a phobia that affects millions of women, previously suffering in silence. because it was frankly embarrassing to admit. and i was one of them. to stand at the center of jessica mellen's world is to live in the heart of primal fear. heart racing. >> you don't know why it's happening. >> reporter: blood pressure rising. >> you really don't know how to stop it. >> reporter: every sight and sound around her distorted by her terror. >> you feel like you're just going to snap and go nuts. >> reporter: jessica is one of more than 40 million americans who suffer from anxiety disorder. its symptoms all over youtube. >> i can't stop hyperventilating. >> reporter: intense panic attacks triggered by anything

from driving a car, to flying in a plane, to riding in an elevator. >> open! >> reporter: jessica is afraid of all of these things. but her most powerful phobia, the one that fills her with the most dread is this. >> if someone was like you can either be shot in the leg or throw up once, i would be like just shoot me in the leg. i would really pick that. >> reporter: you would choose being shot in the leg? >> absolutely. >> reporter: jessica is intensely afraid of vomiting. >> to me that's one of the worst things that could happen to me, if not the worst. >> its called emetophobia and millions of people have it. including me. i've had it all my life. i would do anything for my two children. i would die for them. but if one of them vomits, i run. and it's very embarrassing to admit it. >> i thought i was crazy. i didn't know that there were other people like me suffering from this. >> reporter: a lot of people like you.

jessica's entire life is choreographed around protecting herself against the possibility of throwing up. taking every precaution against catching the flu from co-workers. >> i would be like, are you sick, is it a stomach thing, is it something you ate? >> reporter: to the pharmacy in her purse armoring her against throwing up. >> i do carry extra medications. >> reporter: antacids, tummy drops, cough drops, hand sanitizer. >> take one of these tablets once a day. >> reporter: do you ever feel frustrated -- >> absolutely. >> reporter: that you're this out of control? >> every day. the fear just engulfs and it swallows everything around you. >> reporter: everything, even the lifelong dream she and her fiance share. >> i have never been this scared in my entire life. >> reporter: jessica is so terrified of getting morning sickness, she's told the man she loves she won't get pregnant. and that's putting the most important relationship in her life at risk. you know how extreme that is, right? to give up bringing your own baby, your -- another life into this world simply because you're afraid you might have morning sickness and throw up. >> yes, i know. sorry.

>> reporter: that's okay. why are you crying? >> because i don't want to feel that way and i don't want to miss out on something that could be really special between the two of us because of my phobia. it's not fair to him either. >> reporter: but right now you simply can't? >> i can't. >> reporter: marvin and jessica met and fell in love while working at a restaurant they own together in philadelphia. >> we just automatically clicked right off the bat. >> reporter: everything was going well until they started planning a wedding. how fraught did your relationship get as a result? >> i told him that if he felt like he couldn't continue with this relationship because i might not be able to do this. but i would have to let him go. i am scared where if i can't get to this point where i feel like i'm okay to get pregnant like what it's going to mean for us in our relationship. >> jess. it's not ideal.

okay? but neither are a lot of things in life. >> reporter: in the beginning did you think it was funny? like, "are you kidding?" >> i just thought that she essentially didn't care enough to try. i'm like, you're not willing to even risk throwing up to have a kid with me? i mean, i took offense to it. >> reporter: and now she's researching a surrogate. how much would that cost? >> between $40,000 and >> reporter: desperate to conquer her phobia, she chooses a radical path. the treatment we are allowed to tape is rarely shown on camera. her doctor is steven tsao. dr. tsao is talking about "exposure therapy". >> he's throwing up into a toilet.

>> reporter: the goal, to de-sensitize jessica to her fears by directly confronting them. >> i feel like i can smell it. >> reporter: suddenly, her eyes fill with tears as a memory she's completely repressed surfaces. >> i think i'm starting to remember why i'm so scared of it which is making me really upset. the last time i got sick when i was younger i threw up so bad i couldn't breathe and it was really scary. >> reporter: it's the first major step towards learning to control her phobia. >> you should be really proud of yourself. >> thank you. >> reporter: over the next five months, the attack is relentless and targeted. from pictures of people throwing up, to eating food she thinks is unsafe and will make her sick, time and again he forces jessica past her comfort zone. but with just weeks until her wedding day, she's still afraid of getting pregnant. >> i can't have a child until i feel better about this. i'm tempted to make myself throw up. >> reporter: jessica is

horrified when dr. tsao asks her to do exactly that at their next session. >> is it this one or the next one? >> reporter: down this hall and into the claustrophobic confines of a tiny bathroom, jessica is about to take a leap of faith. but after an hour and a half of tears and frustration -- >> i can't do it. >> reporter: she may feel defeated, but the goal was never about actually throwing up. >> the goal is all the anxiety that comes with throwing up. i want all that to go. >> i know you're trying hard. you don't have to say. >> reporter: marvin still hopes she'll someday have his baby, but for now is willing to wait. >> the more i realized that she is actually like deathly afraid to throw up, the more it becomes like real for us. you know?

>> reporter: the therapy has helped a little and anxiety was only a brief guest at the wedding. what happened when you waited there in that gorgeous dress of yours? >> the anxiety started to climb. started to increase 'cause i was like, "okay. my turn's coming up. my turn's coming up." my mom walked me down the aisle and i said, "mom, i'm having a panic attack." i'm like, i need a drink of water" and the woman at the venue was 'we don't have time," i'm like, i don't care, i'm going to make it. i felt like i was choking. >> reporter: despite those moments of panic, jessica was no runaway bride. >> i just have the keep trying my best. >> reporter: it was marvin who was an emotional wreck at the altar. >> it's for me and it's for him and it's for us. but at the end of the day, it's for me. >> i now pronounce you husband and wife. mr. and mrs. marvin and jessica graaf. [ applause ]

next, from crazy fun to just crazed, with a medical mystery. >> i tried everything and nothing seems to stop it. >> confessing her secrets to a camera. when my strange affliction returns. mes breathing air can be difficult. if you have copd, ask your doctor about once-daily anoro ellipta. it helps people with copd breathe better for a full 24hours. anoro ellipta is the first fda-approved product containing two long-acting bronchodilators in one inhaler. anoro is not for asthma. anoro contains a type of medicine that increases risk of death in people with asthma. it is not known if this risk is increased in copd. anoro won't replace rescue inhalers for sudden copd symptoms and should not be used more than once a day.

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it's what makes a subaru, a subaru. up to 11 million americans, mostly women, are affected by our next strange affliction. but only one has had the courage to bare it all on camera and become an internet superstar doing it. >> hello, everyone. >> reporter: welcome to the high-octane, technicolor world of beckie o.

>> here we go. hello. >> reporter: those quirky antics won her thousands of youtube fans, but what blasted beckie o to fame was going public with the most private of secrets. >> this is something i can't talk about. i've tried everything and nothing seems to stop it. >> reporter: she, like 10 million americans, suffers from a compulsion to pull out her own hair. >> it's something i can't stop. that video exploded. it had hundreds of thousands of views. it just -- it really opened my eyes to how big the condition was. >> reporter: you didn't know anybody else who pulled their hair? >> nobody at all. i thought i was on my own. >> reporter: for rebecca, it's tough living in a culture obsessed by hair, surrounded by women crowned with long, shining locks. so she took her battle to the internet, vlogging about her struggle with a disorder called trichotillomania, literally the mania to pull out hair. she calls herself a trichster.

is it a relief or release to pull? >> pulling makes me feel better. but then when you see the damage afterwards, then you think, "oh no, okay, that's actually making me feel worse." >> reporter: you would have a bald spot the size of -- >> yeah. >> reporter: -- your fist? >> this is the most hair i've had in five years, and that terrifies me. >> reporter: why does it terrify you? >> because i'm always worried i'm going to lose it. >> reporter: as a child, she often played with her hair. but the vlogs of her teenage years reveal a habit spinning dangerously out of control. >> i just pull out my hair. i have hair surrounding the keyboard. i remember when i was 12 and i was with a counselor, and she said to me, "when you're stressed, where do you feel it in your body?" and i remember my answer. i remember holding my hands up and going, "in my fingers, it's -- it's here." >> reporter: it's not here, it's here? >> it's here. i want to do things with my hands. most weirdest thing about pulling is, it feels like my fingers are magnets, and they're attracted to certain parts of my head. >> reporter: nothing could keep

her fingers from pulling out her hair. from tying her hair up in a turban to greasing her eyelashes and eyebrows with vaseline. even the most extreme measures failed to help. >> i found just tying my hands to tables or chair legs or to my tummy, when i was at school, and it didn't stop me getting to the hair. you're just so desperate. >> reporter: that desperation was often driven by the hurtful comments from her peers at school. >> if i'd had the hair, if i then people wouldn't have treated me so badly. >> reporter: worst of all was the criticism from friends, and even family, which she repeated in her vlogs. >> you'll never get a job looking like that. looks like someone went too far with the tweezer. no one wants a bald girlfriend. >> reporter: there were a lot of really -- >> yeah, every single thing in that -- >> reporter: -- harsh comments. >> trichsters receive such severe backlash. >> reporter: why is that, do you think? >> i think people don't appreciate that you literally cannot stop. it's not -- it's not even a choice.

i can't leave it alone. >> reporter: it had been a six-year rollercoaster of frustration documented in this astonishing video diary. >> on the third of february 2011, i decided to shave all my hair off. when i shaved my hair, i thought, "right, that's it. the hair's gone. i'm not going to pull again. it's all good." but then i attacked my eyebrows. and they vanished within a week. >> reporter: rebecca, now a superstar in the trichster community, caught the attention of jillian corsie, who was casting for a documentary on trichotillomania. what's the biggest misconception? >> that it's rare. that people who have trichotillomania are freaks. the people i've spoken to feel isolated or like outcasts, like they don't belong. >> reporter: jillian's documentary, called "trichster," explored the destructive force of the disorder to both mind and body. unlike most trichsters in the documentary, sophie ehrmann pulls not from her head, but from her body. >> the difference between me and a lot of people that just have trich, i'm digging under my

skin. >> reporter: sophie is a photographer and documented her struggle with trichitillomania in a series of disturbing photos. to her, each tiny hair in her leg is a monstrous flaw. what is this? >> this is literally how close i look at my body. those are -- like, hairs, that are literally, like, growing. it's gross. i don't like the hair on my body, so -- >> reporter: any of it. >> no, none of it. i'd rather just be like a baby. >> reporter: so in this effort to get rid of these hairs, you think you see growing, you're essentially gauging at your own skin. and making it -- >> worse. >> reporter: so if you were to take your tights off for me today, where on your legs would you have scars? >> like, everywhere. >> reporter: she showed me the raw wounds that force her to hide in tights or jeans, even in the hottest days of summer. >> see how, like, there are all these dots? >> reporter: yeah. >> so those are the hairs. >> reporter: there must be a lot of people who cannot understand

why you're doing this to yourself. >> join the crowd, like, i don't really know exactly what i'm doing to myself. i know that i'm doing it to relieve anxiety, but what made me choose to pull out my hair? i have no clue. >> reporter: the cause of trichotillomania is still a mystery. and doctors are still baffled about why it's primarily women who suffer from it. sophie and rebecca both doubt whether they will ever be "pull free." >> do i want to stop? absolutely. can i? i don't know. >> reporter: do you think you'll ever stop doing this, pulling? >> no. >> reporter: really? >> i feel i will be pulling till the day i die. i've been doing it 20 years, i don't know, but it's part of me. >> reporter: rebecca may never have the long, blonde hair that she dreams of, but she's learned to love what she has and, for now, better controlling the urge to pull. >> there was a point where i remember for the first time in years, i felt the wind go through my hair, and it just pushed the fringe back, and i was like, "oh, wow, happiness."

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journey. >> they travel to austria to reveal the secrets of "the sound of music." to the way the von trapps escaped. don't miss this, wednesday at 10:00 p.m. eastern. so many stories. it was my favorite movie. and tomorrow night, david and i will be back for a special "20/20" saturday, on a different kind of road trip. watch this one before you hit the highway again. i'm elizabeth vargas. >> and i'm david muir. we'll see you tomorrow night. good night.