Cotton Candy Hair
“Even as I sit here and begin to write I feel a sense of dread and mild sickness at the thought of sharing my feelings about this.
I remember being 8 and having that ultra straight ultra thick hair of dreams. It was beautiful. And I loved having it brushed and styled.
Then, I remember being 15, sat on the sports field at high school and noticing that my hair was starting to thin. To my friends, I immediately blamed the highlights and the bleach I had already subjected my hair to in the last year but truthfully I knew the issue potentially ran much deeper.
There is female pattern baldness in my family and I knew that it could be in my genes. I knew that my time with my ‘good’ hair was potentially limited and as I stood in front of the mirror at age 15 I felt a punch in my gut at the thought that one day I might be able to see my scalp through my hair. This was genuinely one of the biggest concerns of my teens.
Fast forward to now, at the grand old age of 37, and the fear has indeed become my reality. When I look in the mirror now, I see my scalp. I cannot do much with it anymore without the scalp showing through. And it is painful. It brings me a feeling of shame and has created a sense of a loss of identity. If you can believe it I won the “Best Hair” at College award when I was 19 and now I can hardly bear to look at it. And it is even more painful because between the ages of 30 and 34 I had been lulled by a false hope. Pregnancy had created long, strong and thick locks that I had convinced myself I could hold onto. But alas, all that fell out and what I am left with is hair that resembles cotton candy on a good day.
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Now I spend a ridiculous amount of time sorting out my ‘combover’ so that you can’t see my scalp when I style it. I worry about someone taking a photo of me when it is windy. I loathe the feeling of my thin straggly ponytail and my inability to wear my hair down because it just floats around my face. It is practically weightless and I so long for that weighty feeling on my shoulders that my friends complain about.
I consider my options on a daily basis. Wigs, extensions, hair pills, the full on shaved look. There is the very appealing state of mind I find myself hypothetically living in where I free myself from the attachment I feel to my hair. One where I shave the wispy locks and embrace the bald look. But then I remind myself of my slightly sticky out ears and my very round head and I worry that I won’t look like one of those cool bald models you see.
I spend hours fantasising that I walk into a fancy salon and I unclip my hair and it cascades down my back. That when the hairdresser begins brushing my hair I don’t catch a glimpse of pity. That when I get my hair washed in the basin I can’t feel their hands scraping my scalp a little too easily. That I am free from spending excruciating hours and pounds at the salon whilst they attempt to turn my cloud of hair into something cool and fashionable. And that they don’t inevitably fail.
But as yet, I have not reached that point. I am attached to my locks, regardless of the lack of joy they bring me. At least I have some. But this doesn’t stop my unhealthy habit of spending an appalling amount of time looking enviously at other women’s hair. And I don’t discriminate. I don’t care about the grey, or the frizz, or the roots. All I look at is the size of the bobble when it is wrapped around their hair. Naturally the bobble often strains against all those strands of hair and I am brought back to my own wisps and the fact that this morning the thinnest smallest bobble that I used on my toddler daughter’s hair slipped out because there wasn’t enough hair to keep it in.”
This was a very personal piece for me to write. I felt it was important to share my feelings around my thinning hair in the hope that it might help other women know they are not alone. I cannot offer any solutions sadly but sometimes knowing there are others, just helps. I notice people looking at my thin hair and it crushes me. Any off hand comment about my hair leaves me spinning for months. Our relationship with hair is a lifelong emotionally charged one. Without a doubt, it is a vessel for confidence, self-esteem and identity. So without it, there is a constant feeling of inadequacy and shame and embarrassment. I have felt very alone in this because I have really struggled to talk about it. Mostly because I don’t like bringing any attention to my hair but also because I don’t want to upset the one person in my life who would feel 100% devastated about this. In the meantime I hope that talking about it can raise awareness and reduce shame of female baldness.
