Let Down Your Hair

Hello reader.

I am going to be very honest in today’s post when I talk about something that has been bothering me for a very long time. Perhaps bothering is the wrong word to use. It’s much more than a little niggle on the edges of my conscience.

I shall be very frank and say that I am losing my hair. I truly am. I thought I was two years ago, and perhaps I was, but now it is more pronounced.

It is an odd phenomenon. It is happening so slowly, but I know it is worsening as the months tick by.

Two years ago I could leave my hair down in a side parting. I could braid it into lots of small little plats and they would be thick little plats. I didn’t have to worry that people would look at my scalp and see nothing but scalp.

It was thin, even thinning, but I had a bottle of coconut oil and I thought it was temporary. You know, one of those ‘things’.

I have been to many doctors over the past two years. One in particular was terribly helpful, and that was uplifting for me. But she left and all the others dismiss me as a ‘cosmetic problem’.

It is extremely traumatising. I know that seems like such a vain thing to say, but it truly is. I am only twenty years old. I am a female. Hair is very important to females.

It is very important to me. Sometimes after I shower and my hair is all thick and voluminous, and I give myself a side parting to hide the balding patch right in the front, I almost think I am normal. You know, with lots of glorious hair to style and leave out and just look fabulous with.

I know I could look fabulous if only my hair was thicker.

It IS about looks, really. I can’t tell myself that it is not about looks. It really is. I have been feeling more and more depressed about it as the months pass by. I find myself watching people’s hair in films, rather than the person acting the character. I envy men with long luscious locks. I think, ‘why do they have hair. They don’t need it as much as I do’

I look at how much hair all the women have and I think, ‘Where’s my share of that?’

It is really getting me down. I don’t really want to go into the particulars on medication and treatment. This is something that I am weary of speaking about. I have spoken about it until I have drained the subject. And it still pops up all the time.

I guess I am just feeling especially upset about it today. I saw a remarkably large circle of shiny scalp today in the bathroom. My hair looked like it had a lot of volume but it was cheap volume.

It doesn’t look like other people’s hair. It stays put without mousse, because there isn’t much of it. I used to have masses of glinty ringlets. I used to break hair bands because my hair was so thick.

What happened? Will this stop? Will it carry on, despite my best efforts, until I am bald? I want to cry.

Do I deserve this, somehow?

I don’t know. I never really speak about it. I push the rising panic down to a place where I don’t have to face it. I turn a blind eye to the scarcity of my hair. I comb it gently, I deep condition it with natural ingredients, I buy organic, SLS-free shampoo, I use hair tonic and I take hair and nail strengthening tablets. I ignore it daily, I use a protein powder over my head so it looks like my scalp is normal like everybody else’s. I kid myself that it is okay. That I am okay.

And yet I am so insanely jealous. I look at hair all the time. I am always thinking about hair. I always look at people’s hair, furtively, so they don’t see me do it. I can’t help it. I feel awful doing it but I can’t stop staring, wishing, wondering.. what are they doing that I am not?

What is it in their bodies that is working, that isn’t working in mine?

I feel really sad, internet. I know this is a sparse post, but it is one that is heartfelt. I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I don’t want to think about hair anymore. I am in a vicious cycle and I am trapped.