A personal rant on Hair Loss from Reddit (12/12/19)

Just want to preface this by saying that I’m all for fighting hair loss in any way you want if it’s what you wanna do. I’m genuinely not here trying to sway anyone one way or the other. That’s why I’m not even gonna mention what I’m doing/not doing for my hair loss. Just wanted to comment on how some people in the hair loss community might have a bit of an unhealthy relationship towards balding and I think we all torture ourselves more then we need to.

I had to say that I had a very enlightening talk with my therapist and also spoke with some of the good people on the r/bald sub and it was quite enlightening for me. I’d realized that it was super unhealthy to obsess about image and my hair to the extent that I was doing it (in the back of my head at all times, sucking all joy out of my life at the worst moments)

realized that a key for me was to not catastrophiez hair loss more then it needed to be and to realize that even the one thing I was fearing most in the whole world (being bald) is not something that’s that bad.

If we wake up bald tomorrow our family will still love us, our friends will still be there, we will still enjoy every hobby, tv show, movie, video game, book, interest that we had prior. It will be an adjustment period sure, it’ll be weird to look in the mirror and you’ll have to relearn to like how look the same as when you had hair and also for a little while after our loved ones will have to get used to the new look. But then after a few months at most, life will go on just how it was before. Having that mentality of ‘whatever happens it’ll be ok’ is so important in this situation.

I think most people who lose hair young torture themselves much more then they need to by making the stakes in their head so high. If you think being bald is a death sentence then of course you are going to stress over it 24/7 and drive yourself mad. If you think balding is just a natural part of life that happens to many people, just like wrinkles or skin sagging or any other changes our body goes through over the course of our entire life. If you convince yourself that if it happens to you it won’t be a huge deal, then you will have a much healthier perspective and be much more comfortable, whether you decide to fight your hair loss or accept it. Bring down the stakes a little, it’ll be a weight off your shoulders:).

So yah I think this sub is great and that if you want to fight your hair loss then by all means, more power to you. I just think that some people on here could tone down the animosity and negativity regarding certain topics and I know that if people had a healthier perspective and relationship with their hair loss and overall body changes then they might be a lot happier and more calm with whatever they decided to do. Even the worse case scenario for us would be ok so we don’t need to be as terrified as we think.

Wanted to get this off my chest because I recognize a lot of myself in the people on here with how I see them stressing so much with this all or nothing mentality and making the stakes so high in their heads that they spiral into bouts of depression.

Again nothing wrong with taking finasteride or whatever other method if that’s what you want and you’ve balanced the sacrifice/reward in your head. Just want people to know that they should do this because it’s something they want that would bring them pleasure, not because they should feel like they absolutely have to or else their life will be over because that can lead to being in a bit of an unhealthy place mentally.

This is all, thanks to anyone who read this far, wish you the best