Aneela Idnani presents Aneela, Where Are Your Eyebrows? with Lily Percy

Do you pick your skin, bite your nails, pull out your hair? This memoir - and event - is for you.

A piercingly honest and vulnerable memoir of one person's journey to heal from a hidden mental health disorder, find her purpose, and bring awareness to others.

Aneela Idnani has a secret to tell--a secret that she's held onto for more than twenty-five years. Starting at the age of twelve and continuing into adulthood, she has struggled with chronic hair pulling, also known as trichotillomania. In this compelling memoir, Aneela shares her story of living on the sidelines with a misunderstood and underdiagnosed mental health disorder, her attempted suicide as a result, and how she ultimately found peace and purpose.

Aneela's hair pulling was subconscious and compulsive. As she grew older, she learned to hide this bad habit from her family and friends. She struggled with shame and guilt. And she felt very, very alone. After her father's death from leukemia, her urge to pull intensified. And after her first pregnancy, her mental health began a frightening downward spiral. That's when Aneela made the life-changing decision to spread awareness about the disorder, and she and her husband created the HabitAware program.

By shining a much-needed light on body-focused repetitive behaviors (BFRBs), Aneela encourages fellow sufferers to come out of hiding and into healing. Sharing the insights and strategies that helped her recover, Aneela takes the reader on a profound journey from the depths of confusion, fear, and shame to a place of hope, healing, and purpose.

For nearly three decades, Aneela Idnani hid a secret: she compulsively pulled out her hair. What began as a childhood struggle with trichotillomania became a journey through grief, shame, mental health challenges, innovation, motherhood, and breast cancer.

In Aneela, Where Are Your Eyebrows?, Idnani shares how one simple question from her husband sparked a transformation—from hiding her condition to co-founding HabitAware and inventing award-winning technology to help others reclaim awareness and control. With vulnerability, humor, and hope, her memoir explores what happens when we stop fighting ourselves and start leading with love.

Lily Percy is a senior producer for MPR News. Her journalism career spans more than 20 years as an editor, reporter, and producer, including work at StoryCorps and NPR. Lily was part of the founding team of four at the On Being Project, where she produced On Being with Krista Tippett and co-created Poetry Unbound and This Movie Changed Me, which she also hosted. Before joining MPR News, she was Head of Production at Gimlet Media/Spotify and executive producer of Death, Sex & Money and Bigger Picture, a media start-up founded by Tim Shriver.

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