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The Psychological Menace of Hair Loss
How losing hair, or the threat of it, can drive you mad
I was 31, standing in the bathroom of my hotel room in Crete when I first noticed my hairline was changing. The former strong line of hairs, like the well kept edge of a forest on a Royal estate, had begun to look akin to the jutting edges of a wild wood.
It was subtle, but I could see it, the strip light above the mirror shining down upon the gaps that weren’t there only a week previously.
I’m now 41. Each day of the 10 years that have passed were stained with hair loss paranoia. Sometimes, it was all consuming, sometimes I barely acknowledged it, but it was always there, the quiet background hum of entropy, slowly eating up my hair follicles. If I concentrated hard enough I was sure I could feel it happening in real time.
Hair loss is the haunting menace that plagues and pursues men through their years.
Its quiet arrival is never felt at first, until that moment; a photo, the mirror, a friend with loose lips, the cold terror of realising your hair is changing, going, is under attack.
It comes with the first moments of feeling truly mortal. The clammy hand of Father Time resting upon the shoulder, the loss of something that was once there, never to return.
