It has probably been half a year since I have written. It all comes and goes. My thoughts and feelings towards alopecia change like the crazy unpredictable winter we have been experiencing. This fall, I had the feelings of triumph. There were weeks that would go by and I would not even think about alopecia. It felt like a distant past, a hurdle that I had overcome. Then with it’s usual personality, back it came out of nowhere with a big taa-daa! I’m not pulling out handfuls of hair, and it’s nothing like it was over a year ago. Just lately the hairline behind my right ear has been changing it’s usual direction, and creeping upwards a little too much for my own comfort. Not to mention a new patch above my left temple, and one at the nape of my neck too. However, all of them are totally disguisable, so it’s my little secret. For now. But just as if all my alopecia-related thoughts were inside a dormant volcano for the past few months, they have definitely just erupted. There’s no way to know how much hair is going to fall out, or how long these patches will stay with me, or what caused them. But if I were to ignore everything that I’ve heard from friends, family, loved ones, doctors, teachers, websites, and just focus on what I feel in my gut, this is what I’d say. I’m tired of searching for ways to “accept” my alopecia. Whether that be with wigs, steroid shots, anything that is focusing on the “hair” part of the problem. When I think about accepting it, it validates that there is something to accept, something inherently wrong about me. I know perhaps this could be thought about in a different way, but this is how I think. And there is nothing inherently wrong about me. Everyone has something they deal with, one of my issues just happens to sometimes be visible to the world. With that fact there are a bunch of psychological burdens, but none of it is my fault. Giving myself the power to believe that there is nothing to accept feels like a load of emotional bricks has just been taken off my shoulders. What I want is to gain control of my worries. My worries that plague my mind, and make me feel like I’m drowning in stress. These worries are constantly with me, regardless of the hair forecast on my head, but whenever there is a change of weather up there, my stress levels become even more noticeable to me, to a point where I often try to dream up my next solution to calm them. And I do believe that the alopecia and my stress levels are linked together. But what I don’t believe is that if I can manage to control my stress that that will automatically ward off any future outbreaks of alopecia. I think that stress inflames the alopecia, but I don’t think that having no stress means that I will have no spots. I’ve gone through periods of low stress levels since my large break out over a year ago, and yet my leg hair and arm hair have not grown back that much at all. In fact, perhaps I am a crazy person, but to this day I notice bald spots on both my legs and arms. So, as for my current action plan, I am trying to deal with my anxiety and stress. I’m working with a traditional Chinese medicine doctor, as well as doing some gestalt therapy. Both seem to be helping me in a new way, and I’m excited about them both. Thanks for reading :)
