I have been struggling with alopecia areata all of my life and it has made me definitely suicidal. My suicide and depression was at a level of no fear and full commited plans on how to do it. I would feel terrible for my family and especially my brother in elementary school but I knew honestly deep in my heart that even though I'm alive, with this disease I am not living. The daily pain I have overcomes the guilt I would cause on those who loved me. I am lucky to even have lost my virginity and have experience with girls, it basically had to do with the placement of my bald spots being in spots I could strategically shave or cover with marker, powder, and gelled hair layered on top. My spots change every few 3-5 years and I have just been lucky that during most of my highschool and my first year in college, I could mostly hide it with long hair and bald fades. I had to learn how to cut my own hair and the days I do it is a pain in the a** because it takes an hour and I have to hold a mirror up to do the back. Up until recently, my plan of action was to first try every single solution to get my hair back: elimination diets, supplements, weird stuff rubbed on my head, special shampoos, oral/topical drugs, steroids, and experimental drugs. Before I would go ahead and kill myself, I planned to atleast give everything a shot (which I still will do but now the success won't determine if die) to see if I can cure my disease because if it can be "cured"/treated then killing myself obviously would literally be throwing a possibly regular life away.
I don't know about you guys but for me, being in public is fine because I'm wearing a hat/beanie all of the time and the 1 offs where you take it off for a flag salute or someone snatches a hat off your head (in a playful manner) are anxiety causing but no problem in the bigger picture. The real problems that aren't one offs are what make me want to end it though, for example: having to take my hat off during church, do you know how f***** up it is to literally not feel comfortable and welcomed in the house of God. That is like the place where if you are religious, you should be feeling the most love, comfort, and good vibes. I don't care if you are religious or not or what religion you are, but even though theoretically nobody is judging and they are focused on their connection with God, instead, I'm just thinking about how I look like a circus freak and just confused on why I was made this way if God is supposed to make everything perfect. If I'm being honest, my belief in God is very strained and it upsets me because other people always talk about their religious connections with words like love, peace, belief, strength, but the words to describe my experience are anger, skepticism, confusion, and sadness. More problems are weddings and funerals, can't wear hats for those. Even worse, job interviews and some college exams where hats aren't allowed. Now I am looking weird during the interview with no confidence and I can't concentrate on my test because I'm thinking about my head. And the two absolute worst parts, relationships and careers with dress codes, they are mostly out of the picture, best I can do is dark drunken one night stands and maybe finding a boss who is accepting of a hat or getting a doctors note to beat dress codes. The struggles are daily and I've done some bad stuff because of it, punching walls and pillows, drugs, crying myself to sleep, you name it. I know a lot of people preach acceptance here and I hope you can accept yourself but for me, there is no way I can accept AA, it is not me. I don't care if it sounds vain, shallow, or superficial, atleast for me personally, being normal is extremely important for me. If I say I accept my aa, I would 100% be lying to myself and what is the use of that.
Now here is the thing, while a full head of hair is the goal, I am totally fine with being completely bald, my problem is being in this inbetween zone of "patchy sideshow circus freak". This brings up the question, "Why don't you shave your head?" and the answer to that is that I'm fair skin with black hair and even an against the grain straight razor shave shows shadows which means not only am I bald, but still patchy too. Waxing my head would have the same problems but with just more time in between and more pain. It sounds weird but I am even slightly envious of AT and AU even though they don't like how they look either. Yeah being bald kinda sucks, but atleast you aren't outcasted. I mean if you are a guy and put on some muscle, you can still be considered not just normal but even attractive, think about the rock, vin diesel, mr. clean, saitama, pornstars, high fashion models, agent 47, the list goes on. So what does being full bald have to do with this? Well as a final backup, if I couldn't get my hair to grow back with all the other remedies listed above, I would check my DNA for male pattern baldness and then try to accelerate it so that I have a smooth bald head instead of a patchy ugly bald head. I would be satisfied with this scenario, but if at this point my DNA reveals that I don't have the ability to lose all my hair, then I would kill myself without a question.
Now this has been my plan for many many years, either get hair, lose hair, or die trying. As you can imagine, the depression I have had has torn me up but now here is the reason I have decided not to kill myself. I discovered that I can permanently laser remove the hair follicles and get the shiny bald backup plan I wanted. I know this might be anti-climatic and maybe my writing style goes everywhere and is bad, but this is a big deal to me, now I have a real solution if all else fails since the other solutions aren't guaranteed. Now I'm not stuck between hair, bald, or killing myself, it is just hair and bald. I know it sounds vain, but the relief that this gives me is so strong, I know that at some point in the future I will guaranteed have a normal life and this has really brought me out of the pits. And even if I do go bald, I could totally get a hair tattoo if I wanted.
This is my first post and I just wanted to vent my emotions out that I have some sort of relief now, sorry for the scatterbrains, I just feel good for the first time ever that I don't feel like I have to kill myself because I have a real guaranteed option for once.
I don't know about you guys but for me, being in public is fine because I'm wearing a hat/beanie all of the time and the 1 offs where you take it off for a flag salute or someone snatches a hat off your head (in a playful manner) are anxiety causing but no problem in the bigger picture. The real problems that aren't one offs are what make me want to end it though, for example: having to take my hat off during church, do you know how f***** up it is to literally not feel comfortable and welcomed in the house of God. That is like the place where if you are religious, you should be feeling the most love, comfort, and good vibes. I don't care if you are religious or not or what religion you are, but even though theoretically nobody is judging and they are focused on their connection with God, instead, I'm just thinking about how I look like a circus freak and just confused on why I was made this way if God is supposed to make everything perfect. If I'm being honest, my belief in God is very strained and it upsets me because other people always talk about their religious connections with words like love, peace, belief, strength, but the words to describe my experience are anger, skepticism, confusion, and sadness. More problems are weddings and funerals, can't wear hats for those. Even worse, job interviews and some college exams where hats aren't allowed. Now I am looking weird during the interview with no confidence and I can't concentrate on my test because I'm thinking about my head. And the two absolute worst parts, relationships and careers with dress codes, they are mostly out of the picture, best I can do is dark drunken one night stands and maybe finding a boss who is accepting of a hat or getting a doctors note to beat dress codes. The struggles are daily and I've done some bad stuff because of it, punching walls and pillows, drugs, crying myself to sleep, you name it. I know a lot of people preach acceptance here and I hope you can accept yourself but for me, there is no way I can accept AA, it is not me. I don't care if it sounds vain, shallow, or superficial, atleast for me personally, being normal is extremely important for me. If I say I accept my aa, I would 100% be lying to myself and what is the use of that.
Now here is the thing, while a full head of hair is the goal, I am totally fine with being completely bald, my problem is being in this inbetween zone of "patchy sideshow circus freak". This brings up the question, "Why don't you shave your head?" and the answer to that is that I'm fair skin with black hair and even an against the grain straight razor shave shows shadows which means not only am I bald, but still patchy too. Waxing my head would have the same problems but with just more time in between and more pain. It sounds weird but I am even slightly envious of AT and AU even though they don't like how they look either. Yeah being bald kinda sucks, but atleast you aren't outcasted. I mean if you are a guy and put on some muscle, you can still be considered not just normal but even attractive, think about the rock, vin diesel, mr. clean, saitama, pornstars, high fashion models, agent 47, the list goes on. So what does being full bald have to do with this? Well as a final backup, if I couldn't get my hair to grow back with all the other remedies listed above, I would check my DNA for male pattern baldness and then try to accelerate it so that I have a smooth bald head instead of a patchy ugly bald head. I would be satisfied with this scenario, but if at this point my DNA reveals that I don't have the ability to lose all my hair, then I would kill myself without a question.
Now this has been my plan for many many years, either get hair, lose hair, or die trying. As you can imagine, the depression I have had has torn me up but now here is the reason I have decided not to kill myself. I discovered that I can permanently laser remove the hair follicles and get the shiny bald backup plan I wanted. I know this might be anti-climatic and maybe my writing style goes everywhere and is bad, but this is a big deal to me, now I have a real solution if all else fails since the other solutions aren't guaranteed. Now I'm not stuck between hair, bald, or killing myself, it is just hair and bald. I know it sounds vain, but the relief that this gives me is so strong, I know that at some point in the future I will guaranteed have a normal life and this has really brought me out of the pits. And even if I do go bald, I could totally get a hair tattoo if I wanted.
This is my first post and I just wanted to vent my emotions out that I have some sort of relief now, sorry for the scatterbrains, I just feel good for the first time ever that I don't feel like I have to kill myself because I have a real guaranteed option for once.
Last edited: