Control

Control is a funny topic when it concerns alopecia, as it comes and goes at the oddest times and is so totally outside of a person’s power to direct. Don’t get me wrong – I believe that we can make generally healthy choices which impact our overall wellbeing and likely alopecia as well, but I simply can’t make this disease go away and I certainly can’t control its ferocity or when it decides to make itself known.

My natural hair is dark – quite dark, actually. What that means is that since I do not have alopecia totalis (100% hair loss on the scalp) but instead quite aggressive alopecia areata, I almost always have at least some areas that are dark brown butting up against pale white bald spots. I basically think I look like a calico cat most of the time. This drives me fully nuts. I have wished and wished that this hair would either come or just go. Make a choice, alopecia! I don’t have a terrible head shape – maybe I would rock the bald look with more confidence if it was just clearly, fully bald. Instead I’m working with this middle ground, and it doesn’t feel like there’s a very good answer here.

So, what does control look like in this situation? For me it looks like a lovely set of hair clippers that my husband uses to cut his own hair every week. A few years ago I finally got them out and, using them without a guard, cut every last stray hair down to the shortest length possible. Do you know what happened? I LOVED it! In an odd way, I looked more like myself to myself with no hair at all than I have for years and years of wearing a wig and having patchy hair. Suddenly, somehow, I looked like “me.”

I mentioned earlier that my hair is all of a sudden starting to grow back. I would love it if that meant it was growing in a lovely, uniform, even way on every inch of my head, but it doesn’t. It is still patchy, but much, much better than before. My sister saw it this week after being apart for 6 months and she was immediately amazed and excited about it. Love her! Because of this, when I told her I was heading to bed early so I could cut my hair and take a shower, she immediately protested (thinking I was going to cut it all as close as possible again). While I am delighted to have a reason to use a guard on the clippers, I still want to use them… there is something deeply peace-giving to me about having a say in anything, even if it’s just a say in having a uniform length to these miscellaneous hairs.

Interestingly, I have found that the joy in this comes from doing it myself. Once I did ask my husband to cut it for me, since he is master with the clipper set on his own head. It was the worst. The poor guy… he was helping me out, per my request, and I cried the ENTIRE time. I’m sure he hated every second of it. It turned out to be super depressing to allow the one man I truly want to look attractive for to cut my alopecia hair. Why should this matter, you ask, since he obviously sees me AND my alopecia every single day? I have no idea. But it totally did, and I never, ever asked him to do that again.

When I cut it myself, I feel stronger, more powerful, and more in control. Cutting it on a regular basis reminds me repeatedly that I have some kind of say – any say! in this crazy ride I am on. I am thankful for that.

Alopecia or otherwise, what works for you when you want to have power over something you can’t really control? Tell me what you’ve learned!