It is only hair loss.

[mark-1]

Hi everyone.

I read this in the problem column of a popular UK tabloid today and it really wound me up.

Reader wrote:
My husband used to be outgoing and sporty but since he has lost his hair he has become very withdrawn.

He is only 27 and the baldness set in early, at 22.

He now seems to be suffering from depression. He's chain-smoking and says he's trying to destroy himself as he can't bear what he sees in the mirror. He refuses to believe that I love him.

His doctor gave him antidepressants but he won't take them as he discovered a side-effect can be thinning hair.

I'm so worried for him.

Columnist wrote back:
My feeling is underlying depression is the real problem, of which the reaction to hair loss is just a symptom.

Suggest he asks his GP for a different antidepressant, encourage him to start exercising again and give him lots of compliments.

Now is it just me or do medical professionals and head shrinks tend to deny the devastating effects that hair loss has on some people? The columnist (a psychologist of some sort I presume) completely denied the fact that guy is depressed because of his hair loss despite the reader clearly stating that he only became depressed after hair loss set in. This is complete BS.

I relate to this guy as I have similar feelings towards my own hair loss. I cannot look in the mirror, cannot motivate myself to do the things I enjoy doing. In fact, other than work, my life is pretty much at a complete stand still. I don't go out unless absolutely necessary and every day tasks are an absolute nightmare for me. Take showering for example, completely mundane for most people but absolute torture for me. Just watching what seems like hundreds of hairs disappear down the drain and feeling the ever-lessening density of head hair gives me a deadened feeling in the pit of my stomach.

When you desperately want something to not happens it does anyway (slowly, everyday and right in front of your eyes) how can this not depress you?

What the reader described I see posted here on a regular basis. Hair loss is that big a deal for some people. Its almost like a fear.... some people are terrified of heights and some people are not. I think is completely wrong of the columnist to write off the guy's feelings like that.

I am sure that if someone with a magic wand came along and reversed the guys balding, he would not be depressed anymore and could actually live his life again. In fact I am sure that if there was such a magic wand then all of us bald truth posters would be able to live our lives to 100% again.