I will always, until the end of my days remember this, the summer of 2004 as undoubtedly the single worst period of my life. Almost on cue with the end of the spring college semester, in the waxing days of June I began to suspect something was wrong with my hair. My younger brother had made some completely benign joke about going bald and paranoia began creeping into mind what a terrible prospect losing my hair would be. I began obsessing over my hairline with a burgeoning conviction it had receded all along the front. I confided with only half-seriousness in my brother who laughed and rejected the notion summarily. I laughed along and agreed. It was ridiculous. All my life I'd been a hysterically paranoid hypochondriac, and this was just the latest instance. I was that little kid in kindergarden who just knew that lump in his leg was a malignant tumor while other children didn't even know the meaning of the word.
As it turned out I was technically wrong looking at a hairline which hadn't really receded at all, but in a horrible coincidence my obsessiveness led me to stumble on exactly what I'd been dreading. Oddly enough, a month earlier in May I'd noticed an extremely slight bit of thinning in my temples but with an overstuffed mind preparing for finals gave it barely the slightest bit of acknowledgement and assumed it had always been that way. Now with an empty head, my mind had created something to occupy itself and led me to the truth. While I fawned over the size of my forehead in relation to everyone else's I, again, noticed the thinning in my temples. This time it stuck. I dropped the imaginary receding hairline and wrapped my brain around something substantial, something real. I became gradually more and more despondant and obsessive over it. I began surveying my friends and family incessantly, still half joking but this time with more seriousness. It was an evermore thinly veiled way of guarding myself against the possibility I was still wrong, that I was just acting hoplessly neurotic. That it was still "all in my head". Denial is a powerful thing, and even at this time when I began neglecting myself, stopped going out, and spent most of my time hopelessly staring at my hair in mirror driving myself positively mad over whether it was or wasn't thinning I only gave myself a 3 to 1 chance of actually losing my hair. I needed to make an appointment with a dermatologist and find out once and for all. I couldn't make this decision on my own. I knew myself well enough to know I'm completely unreliable. So I make the appointment, tough out a few more weeks of almost unbearable uncertain agony and go, fearing the worst but content to at least have an answer, good or bad. With barely a cursory glance at my head the doctor tells me she can't diagnose me one way or the other. That she hadn't seen my hair before so she had no basis for comparison. I poured out a confession of my hopeless neorosis and practically begged her for respite, but she gave me none. My heart sank into my stomach and I left, more fearful and uncertain than ever.
I returned to my pattern of constant, isolated self analysis and finally, undeniably came to the conclusion that I was definitely losing my hair. I wish I could say it was as the final result of all my fruitless self-diagnosis. That after examining my hair from different angles, and under different lighting I made the informed and responsible decision that it was happening. But in truth, it was horribly because it had thinned out enough in the past month as to move beyond denial. I had made every attempt to convince myself I was simply pulling my hair back in self-deceptive, unflattering ways. I looked at old pictures of myself and clung desperately to the belief my hair hadn't changed even a bit. But it was all in vain, even my friends who, for a time, had actually become annoyed by my constant prodding questions about whether it looked thin to them or not began conceding that yes, it did look pretty thin.
I was crushed. I had been teetering on the edge of depression and now fell in completely. I went for a week or more at a time without shaving or leaving the house, and often spent the entire day, with no exaggeration and the exception of going to the bathroom, in the same chair watching TV. Not really paying attention to anything on, simply cursing my bad fortune in almost catatonic despair. I carried little or no hope for the possibility of rogaine or propecia helping at all. I had even said in the past "I'd rather just embrace baldness than use that sh*t and cling to scraps. I'm not clinging to scraps." But remembering what my dermatologist (Who I've since realized was completely worthless to begin with) said about propecia being effective only for the back of the head, and the possibility of rogaine helping should I come to the conclusion my temples were thinning I looked it up online. The stats on the rogaine site certainly seemed impressive. So I ordered some.
My depression began to lift. Even the huge proclamation on the box that rogaine, like propecia, was "FOR VERTEX ONLY" hardly dampened my rebounding spirits. At least I was doing something, and there was hope. Not only that but I spoke with my father and learned that he began thinning when he was 18 and slowly progressed to a Norwood-2 over the next 4 years. Even now at almost 50 he's only about a Norwood-3 with a larger thinning (not balding yet) spot in the back. I wish I could end my story there, with the prospect of Rogaine helping and genetic guarantee that my hairloss would be slow and relatively benign. Afterall, I'd always considered my father the bald-gene carrier since my maternal grandfather still has a full head of hair and is barely a Norwood 2 at 80, my maternal uncles are a Norwood 2 and a 3 both in their late forties. Even on my father's side, my grandfather (who died young) lost little hair, and the uncle on that side is still a Norwood 1.
Unfortunately for me, some recessive genes must have worked their way in. Who knows, maybe Kojak (sp?) was on TV while I was conceived and his genes somehow found his way in the mix by proxy, or osmosis, or whatever. Because while my father's hair thinned slowly in the front over the course of years and fell out, mine is progressing much faster, and at this rate I will have lapped him ten times by the age of 50. My mood dimmed greatly, very recently when after about a month of minoxidil. my hair began shedding rapidly. 40-50 hairs fall out each day in the shower, and when I apply rogaine my hands return from rubbing it into the scalp covered in strands. I was again horrified and, again, sank back into depression. I tried to Propecia myself up once more with false hope, trying to believe that it was simply a sign the rogaine's working. In reality I was aware my hairline was already receding and those lost hairs weren't being replaced by thicker ones but a scorched path of vellus hairs left in the wake of what's apparently blisteringly fast hairloss. After only 3 months I was sprinting headlong into a Norwood-2.
Yet somehow I managed to cope with it, the worst of the shock was over with the realization I was losing my hair at all, and quite simply I think I had little grief left to burn. It hurt, bad, but there was still hope. Things could get better and so I lifted my chin and squared my shoulder to the task ahead. I bit the bullet and decided to order some finasteride and try nizoral as well. I'd go all out and leave no room for regrets or dubious anxiety over what I "could be doing". If I continued to lose my hair, I'd have to simply accept it was inevitable and try to cope.
Again, in a cruel turn of fate this positivity didn't last. Yet another horrible realization just the past few days has sent me spiraling back downwards. My hair is starting to thin in the back too, and quickly. I'd looked at it extensively in the very beginning and even in my hyper-critical state assessed there was nothing wrong back there and refocused on the front. But now there's a shockingly large thin spot developing on the crown and the ups-and-downs of hairloss seem uncommonly cruel to me. It's one thing to face bad news in a single dose and move on. But to have it drug out in this most agonizing way is unbearable. I absolutely hate to sound melodramatic, but the truth is I've been honestly contemplating suicide ever since this whole ordeal began.
If I were anyone else I surely wouldn't be anywhere near suicide, but I have some bad problems to begin with. I'm pretty sure I have an anxiety disorder that, knowing me, will probably go undiagnosed and untreated my entire life. I'm painfully, painfully self-conscious and insecure to begin with. I've had trouble fitting in my entire life, and now in social situations I know I won't be able to ever keep myself from thinking about anything other than my hair, and I doubt this will ever lessen to an acceptable level. On top of it all, is my scant lack of love-life. I have really low self-confidence, but in an oddly oxymoronic, ironic, or hypocritical way actually consider myself pretty good looking. This confidence would never, ever have come from within but exists only because of external reinforcement. Girls, complete strangers have come up to me fairly often and just asked me out, point blank. But as is usually the case with such girls I always thought them either too unattractive physically (f*****g irony eh?), or personally. So while I never accepted any of those offers I was always way, way too shy to approach any of the girls I actually liked, and so I've been very lonely for a very long time. And now, with baldness literally looming overhead I feel utterly doomed, completely hopeless and powerless to do anything but accept a life of lonely, anxiety ridden, self conscious pain. I don't even know if it's worth it. I know you guys hate this kind of stuff and I'm sorry, but I can't help it. I just feel so sad about it I can barely function. I'm actually moving away to school in just a couple of weeks, yet I'm still reeling over this. Hairloss has stolen my entire summer, my last summer at home, and I can't even imagine the freedom of spirit I took for granted before, which I would still be experiencing if I hadn't been faced with this shitty lot.
As it turned out I was technically wrong looking at a hairline which hadn't really receded at all, but in a horrible coincidence my obsessiveness led me to stumble on exactly what I'd been dreading. Oddly enough, a month earlier in May I'd noticed an extremely slight bit of thinning in my temples but with an overstuffed mind preparing for finals gave it barely the slightest bit of acknowledgement and assumed it had always been that way. Now with an empty head, my mind had created something to occupy itself and led me to the truth. While I fawned over the size of my forehead in relation to everyone else's I, again, noticed the thinning in my temples. This time it stuck. I dropped the imaginary receding hairline and wrapped my brain around something substantial, something real. I became gradually more and more despondant and obsessive over it. I began surveying my friends and family incessantly, still half joking but this time with more seriousness. It was an evermore thinly veiled way of guarding myself against the possibility I was still wrong, that I was just acting hoplessly neurotic. That it was still "all in my head". Denial is a powerful thing, and even at this time when I began neglecting myself, stopped going out, and spent most of my time hopelessly staring at my hair in mirror driving myself positively mad over whether it was or wasn't thinning I only gave myself a 3 to 1 chance of actually losing my hair. I needed to make an appointment with a dermatologist and find out once and for all. I couldn't make this decision on my own. I knew myself well enough to know I'm completely unreliable. So I make the appointment, tough out a few more weeks of almost unbearable uncertain agony and go, fearing the worst but content to at least have an answer, good or bad. With barely a cursory glance at my head the doctor tells me she can't diagnose me one way or the other. That she hadn't seen my hair before so she had no basis for comparison. I poured out a confession of my hopeless neorosis and practically begged her for respite, but she gave me none. My heart sank into my stomach and I left, more fearful and uncertain than ever.
I returned to my pattern of constant, isolated self analysis and finally, undeniably came to the conclusion that I was definitely losing my hair. I wish I could say it was as the final result of all my fruitless self-diagnosis. That after examining my hair from different angles, and under different lighting I made the informed and responsible decision that it was happening. But in truth, it was horribly because it had thinned out enough in the past month as to move beyond denial. I had made every attempt to convince myself I was simply pulling my hair back in self-deceptive, unflattering ways. I looked at old pictures of myself and clung desperately to the belief my hair hadn't changed even a bit. But it was all in vain, even my friends who, for a time, had actually become annoyed by my constant prodding questions about whether it looked thin to them or not began conceding that yes, it did look pretty thin.
I was crushed. I had been teetering on the edge of depression and now fell in completely. I went for a week or more at a time without shaving or leaving the house, and often spent the entire day, with no exaggeration and the exception of going to the bathroom, in the same chair watching TV. Not really paying attention to anything on, simply cursing my bad fortune in almost catatonic despair. I carried little or no hope for the possibility of rogaine or propecia helping at all. I had even said in the past "I'd rather just embrace baldness than use that sh*t and cling to scraps. I'm not clinging to scraps." But remembering what my dermatologist (Who I've since realized was completely worthless to begin with) said about propecia being effective only for the back of the head, and the possibility of rogaine helping should I come to the conclusion my temples were thinning I looked it up online. The stats on the rogaine site certainly seemed impressive. So I ordered some.
My depression began to lift. Even the huge proclamation on the box that rogaine, like propecia, was "FOR VERTEX ONLY" hardly dampened my rebounding spirits. At least I was doing something, and there was hope. Not only that but I spoke with my father and learned that he began thinning when he was 18 and slowly progressed to a Norwood-2 over the next 4 years. Even now at almost 50 he's only about a Norwood-3 with a larger thinning (not balding yet) spot in the back. I wish I could end my story there, with the prospect of Rogaine helping and genetic guarantee that my hairloss would be slow and relatively benign. Afterall, I'd always considered my father the bald-gene carrier since my maternal grandfather still has a full head of hair and is barely a Norwood 2 at 80, my maternal uncles are a Norwood 2 and a 3 both in their late forties. Even on my father's side, my grandfather (who died young) lost little hair, and the uncle on that side is still a Norwood 1.
Unfortunately for me, some recessive genes must have worked their way in. Who knows, maybe Kojak (sp?) was on TV while I was conceived and his genes somehow found his way in the mix by proxy, or osmosis, or whatever. Because while my father's hair thinned slowly in the front over the course of years and fell out, mine is progressing much faster, and at this rate I will have lapped him ten times by the age of 50. My mood dimmed greatly, very recently when after about a month of minoxidil. my hair began shedding rapidly. 40-50 hairs fall out each day in the shower, and when I apply rogaine my hands return from rubbing it into the scalp covered in strands. I was again horrified and, again, sank back into depression. I tried to Propecia myself up once more with false hope, trying to believe that it was simply a sign the rogaine's working. In reality I was aware my hairline was already receding and those lost hairs weren't being replaced by thicker ones but a scorched path of vellus hairs left in the wake of what's apparently blisteringly fast hairloss. After only 3 months I was sprinting headlong into a Norwood-2.
Yet somehow I managed to cope with it, the worst of the shock was over with the realization I was losing my hair at all, and quite simply I think I had little grief left to burn. It hurt, bad, but there was still hope. Things could get better and so I lifted my chin and squared my shoulder to the task ahead. I bit the bullet and decided to order some finasteride and try nizoral as well. I'd go all out and leave no room for regrets or dubious anxiety over what I "could be doing". If I continued to lose my hair, I'd have to simply accept it was inevitable and try to cope.
Again, in a cruel turn of fate this positivity didn't last. Yet another horrible realization just the past few days has sent me spiraling back downwards. My hair is starting to thin in the back too, and quickly. I'd looked at it extensively in the very beginning and even in my hyper-critical state assessed there was nothing wrong back there and refocused on the front. But now there's a shockingly large thin spot developing on the crown and the ups-and-downs of hairloss seem uncommonly cruel to me. It's one thing to face bad news in a single dose and move on. But to have it drug out in this most agonizing way is unbearable. I absolutely hate to sound melodramatic, but the truth is I've been honestly contemplating suicide ever since this whole ordeal began.
If I were anyone else I surely wouldn't be anywhere near suicide, but I have some bad problems to begin with. I'm pretty sure I have an anxiety disorder that, knowing me, will probably go undiagnosed and untreated my entire life. I'm painfully, painfully self-conscious and insecure to begin with. I've had trouble fitting in my entire life, and now in social situations I know I won't be able to ever keep myself from thinking about anything other than my hair, and I doubt this will ever lessen to an acceptable level. On top of it all, is my scant lack of love-life. I have really low self-confidence, but in an oddly oxymoronic, ironic, or hypocritical way actually consider myself pretty good looking. This confidence would never, ever have come from within but exists only because of external reinforcement. Girls, complete strangers have come up to me fairly often and just asked me out, point blank. But as is usually the case with such girls I always thought them either too unattractive physically (f*****g irony eh?), or personally. So while I never accepted any of those offers I was always way, way too shy to approach any of the girls I actually liked, and so I've been very lonely for a very long time. And now, with baldness literally looming overhead I feel utterly doomed, completely hopeless and powerless to do anything but accept a life of lonely, anxiety ridden, self conscious pain. I don't even know if it's worth it. I know you guys hate this kind of stuff and I'm sorry, but I can't help it. I just feel so sad about it I can barely function. I'm actually moving away to school in just a couple of weeks, yet I'm still reeling over this. Hairloss has stolen my entire summer, my last summer at home, and I can't even imagine the freedom of spirit I took for granted before, which I would still be experiencing if I hadn't been faced with this shitty lot.
. This past summer I noticed a huge bald patch in the crown...I wasn't balding..I was bald. It feels good to say it....I"M BALD!!! GO ahead..try it! I had a choice..this could have been the worst summer of my life and I could dwell and dwell on it. Instead it was the best summer (for my development anyway) I lost 20 pounds, started working out, eating healthier, getting some nice clothes, shaving my head almost every second day and going out as often as possible. In a span of 3 weeks I've had a goodlooking waitress at a bar wait until her shift was over and then she came to talk to me after flirting with me all night. I;ve had my sisters friends say "damn..you like hot little guy!" I was at the bar ( i drink a lot btw) and new people came to sit at the table so I had to make room and the best looking girl there pulled me to the chair beside her and saod "youre sitting next to me hot stuff" Even old women at the bar (cougars) were calling me things like "sexy." I also got a pretty good looking girl friend who when I'm around, I don;t think about hairloss. I'm not bragging, hell..I'm the farthest thing from a chick magnet there is..I even admitted it. And granted these women may have just been being nice, but I didnt get that tyoe of attention 5 years ago. Women and your peers love confidence (not cockiness) I'm fine, I'm enjoying life....I used to sit and stare all day and squint at the mirror into making it look like I had more hair (yeah...theres a life!) Given the choice between the 2 lifestyles..I'll take the first one. The choice is Yours.