johnnyhatesjazz
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Guys,
I haven't visited this site in over a year now. The only reason I decided to take a look tonight was because I got a bulk email from the webmaster, and I figured I'd see if there was anything new going on. Read this if you get a chance. You may find it useful.
I'm 24 years old. I've been losing my hair since I was 20. I've been losing it at a rather slow rate, but losing it none the less. I don't have to tell any of you how agonizing, frustrating, and traumatic the whole thing is. I don't have to tell any of you about losing interest in, well, EVERYTHING, and feeling like women are bloodthirsty monsters waiting to tear you apart the moment you go to talk to them. I don't have to tell you about the countless hours/days wasted in the mirror, and I don't have to tell you about the loss of identity, and how it seems that you can't even enjoy your OWN THOUGHTS because the guy in your head simply doesn't look like you any more. I know about it all, and this is my story, and what I do about hair loss...
I'm an actor and a musician. My chosen career DEMANDS that I am physically appealing. So you can imagine the effect that hair loss had on my already frail 20-year-old-psyche. I stopped taking gigs. I stopped auditioning for roles. I became irritable, moody, withdrawn. Up until I was about 23, I must have tried every product on the market. I bought the laser comb, which I had to return because it aggravated a rather large blood vessel in my head, causing migraines. I shelled out a fortune which I did not have on propecia, rogaine, revivogen, spironolactone, etc, and tried them all in every concievable manner, varying dosage, combination, schedule, whatever. "Give it time", the doctor said. I force-fed myself finasteride for two months AFTER the point I knew it wasn't for me, and everything I tried either gave me some godawful side effect, or was way too much trouble to go through just to POSSIBLY solve the problem.
I spent every waking minute on the internet, neglecting my job(s), household duties, friends, family, sifting through one bullshit useless study about mouse testicles after another, thinking I was going to cure hairloss myself, reading the forums, etc, etc...
Until one day I came across this one post on some obscure forum from this guy who said he was about 30 and had spent the past 8 years of his life trying to find a cure, was just about completely bald, and still spent every day on the internet. At that moment I could see myself winding up exacly like that poor guy, and I had to take a moment's repose. I came up with two certainties: One, I am going to go bald. Two, it has absolutely nothing to do with the person that I have spent the past 24 years trying to become.
We are men, and I don't have to tell any of you guys that men feel their best when they can solve their problems. This, I feel, is the fundamental trauma of baldness: we simply can't control it. Though I do believe that science will one day eradicate the problem, or produce an acceptable facsimile, baldness is largely uncontrollable. So what you have to do is start thinking of things in your life that you CAN control, and then putting them in to action. Hair loss may be a shitty deal, but it's YOUR shitty deal. You have to own it, and if it puts you in a rut, YOU have to get yourself out of it. Here's what I do, and have done:
1) DO NOT NEGLECT YOUR PASSIONS. I spent years not doing the things that I love to do most in this world simply because I thought I wouldn't look good doing them. Now I wish I had that time back far more than I wish I had my teenage hairline. Every time you feel discouraged, or you find yourself in the mirror again, go spend an hour with something you love to do. Five minutes in, and you won't even be thinking about your hair, guaranteed. Furthermore, people around you are far more interested in what you have to offer the world than in how you look. I know I am.
2) HIT THE GYM! Even if you thought you never would. Even if you can't stand to be around macho assholes. It is a scientific fact that working out raises your level of endorphins, which reduces stress, and seriously boosts your confidence, and that's what this whole thing is about. When you feel confident, you just stop giving a sh*t what other people think about you. We all love confident men, especially women. What do you think a girl wants more, a calm, strong, collected bald man, or a feverish, paranoid little clot of self-absorption with a beatiful head of hair? Also, the reduced stress will go a long way to slowing down your hair loss.
3) GET A HAIRCUT YOU LIKE. Shaved, buzzed, or simply a neat trim. Don't hide or supress it, work with it.
4) GO CLOTHES SHOPPING. You think I'm kidding, but whenever women feel bad about themselves, the go for a pamper. You'll find that caring for the way you look instead of hating the way you look will go a long way to reversing the thoughts of inferiority. Obviously, don't try to overcompensate for your thinning hair, but take an interest in the part of you BELOW your neck. "The clothes make the man" -Oscar Wilde
5) COMMIT A SELFLESS GOOD DEED EVERY DAY. This is important because it takes the focus off of yourself. It helps you break that incessant string of negative thoughts that stop you from living your life. It also makes you feel less isolated from those around you. It's awfully hard for someone to make cracks about your hairline when you're giving them direction, or changing a tire on their car. The person-to-person contact will not only make you feel better, but it will make the world around you a better place. Besides, you'll go a long way to dispell the myths about baldness!
6) TALK TO THE LADIES!! I'm very serious about this one. Obviously, don't be a chauvanist a**h**, but you need to see that YOU CAN DO IT, especially to the ones you're attracted to. And I don't mean "hit on them", either. I'm talking about an honest-to-god, sincere, heart-felt compliment. The kind that makes a woman feel special and significant. Don't say it if you don't mean it, and if you do say it, mean it. More than anything in the world, women want your attention. They want you to be confident enough to care for them and about them, and they want you to take the initiative. NO WOMAN LIKES TO BE HIT ON AIMLESSLY, even if you have the thickest head of wavy locks imagineable. And no self-respecting woman would ever short-change a man that had the guts to be sincere. If she does, she probably isn't worth your time.
PERHAPS THE MOST IMPORTANT TWO
7) ALWAYS MAKE EYE CONTACT. The eyes are the windows of the soul. Eye contact communicates strength, poise, approachability, and above all CONFIDENCE - I can't stress the "C" word enough. It makes people, male or female, feel like you have nothing to hide. It also does something for YOU. It lets you see inside of people, and it lets you see that there really isn't anything to be afraid of instead of living in your own head, imagining that the whole world thinks you look like a light bulb. It also intimidates the living hell out of any gutless turd who would dare make in fun of you for something beyond your control.
8 ) DON'T TOLERATE BALD CRACKS. You are a person. You deserve respect. You deserve humanity. Your suffering, however menial in the eyes of others, is not fodder for sport. If someone says something about your head, even if they don't mean it maliciously, and you don't like it, correct it ON THE SPOT. You don't have to get upset, but I recommend this: sraighten your back up, put your arms to your side, look the person dead in the eye and ask, politely but firmly, "please don't make fun of me, I don't appreciate it". If you get any sh*t, repeat yourself. If you still get sh*t, they owe you an apology. The first person that ever made fun of my receding hair line was my OWN FATHER. To this day it hurts my feelings, but if I won't tolerate my own dad making comments, I certainly won't take it from anyone else. Similarly, don't feel like YOU ever have to make jokes about it your self. If you do, that's your business, but you don't ever have to.
In closing, I'm not trying to say that if you find a program that works for you, and takes care of your hair loss, you shouldn't follow throught with it. By all means, try anything and everything available to you. I certainly did. I don't even mind admitting that I'm planning on starting to save up some money for a transplant when I turn 30. My favorite uncle did, and he has no complaints. I just want everyone out there to know that hair loss is not the end of the world, of your youth, or even of your life as you know it. Once you start putting your life into action, and start getting on in spite of the trauma, you'll find that you don't obsess about hair loss nearly as much, if at all. Like I said, it's been about a year since I even glanced at this site. If anybody wants to know or share anything more, please feel free to post or contact me. Thanks for reading, good luck. We all care.
I haven't visited this site in over a year now. The only reason I decided to take a look tonight was because I got a bulk email from the webmaster, and I figured I'd see if there was anything new going on. Read this if you get a chance. You may find it useful.
I'm 24 years old. I've been losing my hair since I was 20. I've been losing it at a rather slow rate, but losing it none the less. I don't have to tell any of you how agonizing, frustrating, and traumatic the whole thing is. I don't have to tell any of you about losing interest in, well, EVERYTHING, and feeling like women are bloodthirsty monsters waiting to tear you apart the moment you go to talk to them. I don't have to tell you about the countless hours/days wasted in the mirror, and I don't have to tell you about the loss of identity, and how it seems that you can't even enjoy your OWN THOUGHTS because the guy in your head simply doesn't look like you any more. I know about it all, and this is my story, and what I do about hair loss...
I'm an actor and a musician. My chosen career DEMANDS that I am physically appealing. So you can imagine the effect that hair loss had on my already frail 20-year-old-psyche. I stopped taking gigs. I stopped auditioning for roles. I became irritable, moody, withdrawn. Up until I was about 23, I must have tried every product on the market. I bought the laser comb, which I had to return because it aggravated a rather large blood vessel in my head, causing migraines. I shelled out a fortune which I did not have on propecia, rogaine, revivogen, spironolactone, etc, and tried them all in every concievable manner, varying dosage, combination, schedule, whatever. "Give it time", the doctor said. I force-fed myself finasteride for two months AFTER the point I knew it wasn't for me, and everything I tried either gave me some godawful side effect, or was way too much trouble to go through just to POSSIBLY solve the problem.
I spent every waking minute on the internet, neglecting my job(s), household duties, friends, family, sifting through one bullshit useless study about mouse testicles after another, thinking I was going to cure hairloss myself, reading the forums, etc, etc...
Until one day I came across this one post on some obscure forum from this guy who said he was about 30 and had spent the past 8 years of his life trying to find a cure, was just about completely bald, and still spent every day on the internet. At that moment I could see myself winding up exacly like that poor guy, and I had to take a moment's repose. I came up with two certainties: One, I am going to go bald. Two, it has absolutely nothing to do with the person that I have spent the past 24 years trying to become.
We are men, and I don't have to tell any of you guys that men feel their best when they can solve their problems. This, I feel, is the fundamental trauma of baldness: we simply can't control it. Though I do believe that science will one day eradicate the problem, or produce an acceptable facsimile, baldness is largely uncontrollable. So what you have to do is start thinking of things in your life that you CAN control, and then putting them in to action. Hair loss may be a shitty deal, but it's YOUR shitty deal. You have to own it, and if it puts you in a rut, YOU have to get yourself out of it. Here's what I do, and have done:
1) DO NOT NEGLECT YOUR PASSIONS. I spent years not doing the things that I love to do most in this world simply because I thought I wouldn't look good doing them. Now I wish I had that time back far more than I wish I had my teenage hairline. Every time you feel discouraged, or you find yourself in the mirror again, go spend an hour with something you love to do. Five minutes in, and you won't even be thinking about your hair, guaranteed. Furthermore, people around you are far more interested in what you have to offer the world than in how you look. I know I am.
2) HIT THE GYM! Even if you thought you never would. Even if you can't stand to be around macho assholes. It is a scientific fact that working out raises your level of endorphins, which reduces stress, and seriously boosts your confidence, and that's what this whole thing is about. When you feel confident, you just stop giving a sh*t what other people think about you. We all love confident men, especially women. What do you think a girl wants more, a calm, strong, collected bald man, or a feverish, paranoid little clot of self-absorption with a beatiful head of hair? Also, the reduced stress will go a long way to slowing down your hair loss.
3) GET A HAIRCUT YOU LIKE. Shaved, buzzed, or simply a neat trim. Don't hide or supress it, work with it.
4) GO CLOTHES SHOPPING. You think I'm kidding, but whenever women feel bad about themselves, the go for a pamper. You'll find that caring for the way you look instead of hating the way you look will go a long way to reversing the thoughts of inferiority. Obviously, don't try to overcompensate for your thinning hair, but take an interest in the part of you BELOW your neck. "The clothes make the man" -Oscar Wilde
5) COMMIT A SELFLESS GOOD DEED EVERY DAY. This is important because it takes the focus off of yourself. It helps you break that incessant string of negative thoughts that stop you from living your life. It also makes you feel less isolated from those around you. It's awfully hard for someone to make cracks about your hairline when you're giving them direction, or changing a tire on their car. The person-to-person contact will not only make you feel better, but it will make the world around you a better place. Besides, you'll go a long way to dispell the myths about baldness!
6) TALK TO THE LADIES!! I'm very serious about this one. Obviously, don't be a chauvanist a**h**, but you need to see that YOU CAN DO IT, especially to the ones you're attracted to. And I don't mean "hit on them", either. I'm talking about an honest-to-god, sincere, heart-felt compliment. The kind that makes a woman feel special and significant. Don't say it if you don't mean it, and if you do say it, mean it. More than anything in the world, women want your attention. They want you to be confident enough to care for them and about them, and they want you to take the initiative. NO WOMAN LIKES TO BE HIT ON AIMLESSLY, even if you have the thickest head of wavy locks imagineable. And no self-respecting woman would ever short-change a man that had the guts to be sincere. If she does, she probably isn't worth your time.
PERHAPS THE MOST IMPORTANT TWO
7) ALWAYS MAKE EYE CONTACT. The eyes are the windows of the soul. Eye contact communicates strength, poise, approachability, and above all CONFIDENCE - I can't stress the "C" word enough. It makes people, male or female, feel like you have nothing to hide. It also does something for YOU. It lets you see inside of people, and it lets you see that there really isn't anything to be afraid of instead of living in your own head, imagining that the whole world thinks you look like a light bulb. It also intimidates the living hell out of any gutless turd who would dare make in fun of you for something beyond your control.
8 ) DON'T TOLERATE BALD CRACKS. You are a person. You deserve respect. You deserve humanity. Your suffering, however menial in the eyes of others, is not fodder for sport. If someone says something about your head, even if they don't mean it maliciously, and you don't like it, correct it ON THE SPOT. You don't have to get upset, but I recommend this: sraighten your back up, put your arms to your side, look the person dead in the eye and ask, politely but firmly, "please don't make fun of me, I don't appreciate it". If you get any sh*t, repeat yourself. If you still get sh*t, they owe you an apology. The first person that ever made fun of my receding hair line was my OWN FATHER. To this day it hurts my feelings, but if I won't tolerate my own dad making comments, I certainly won't take it from anyone else. Similarly, don't feel like YOU ever have to make jokes about it your self. If you do, that's your business, but you don't ever have to.
In closing, I'm not trying to say that if you find a program that works for you, and takes care of your hair loss, you shouldn't follow throught with it. By all means, try anything and everything available to you. I certainly did. I don't even mind admitting that I'm planning on starting to save up some money for a transplant when I turn 30. My favorite uncle did, and he has no complaints. I just want everyone out there to know that hair loss is not the end of the world, of your youth, or even of your life as you know it. Once you start putting your life into action, and start getting on in spite of the trauma, you'll find that you don't obsess about hair loss nearly as much, if at all. Like I said, it's been about a year since I even glanced at this site. If anybody wants to know or share anything more, please feel free to post or contact me. Thanks for reading, good luck. We all care.
