Mental Health Monday: Hair Loss

Last year was rough for me.  After 10+ years taking one kind of medication for anxiety and OCD, it stopped working.  This is not uncommon- often, a medication that worked wonders for years will stop being effective. I started noticing the difference in the way my brain was working months before I did anything about it.  I kept telling myself to wait until the summer so I wouldn't have to deal with the possible side effects of starting a new medication.  This was the wrong move.  My anxiety got so bad that I started having full blown panic attacks.  They were the most terrifying thing I'd ever experienced.  The first one caught me completely off guard. I was in choir practice and my heart started racing.  It continued at 120-130 bpm, even after I laid down.  I felt dizzy, faint, numb, and scared out of my mind. Two doctors in the choir organization decided it would be best to take me to the emergency room to get it checked out.  I can't describe what it felt like; suffice it to say, I thought I might be dying. 

Gratefully, through therapy and a long overdue medication switch, the panic attacks decreased and I started getting my normal life back again.  But my body took a huge hit. Among other things, I lost a LOT of hair.  It came out in handfuls and clogged my sink and shower drains.  I took the picture above to show my mom and sisters how I styled my hair for the show I just finished, but realized the hair loss was noticeable.  My sister, Anna, recommended taking a Biotin supplement (thanks Jamberry) to help my hair regrow.  It worked for her- after she had Guillain-barre Syndrome, her hair stopped growing. The Biotin helped her hair become healthy again.  I just started and I'm hopeful it will help me, too.    

But this story is not about Biotin or tips to gaining a great head of hair.  It's about what brought me to the place where all my hair started falling out and how to avoid going there again.  One thing I worked through with my therapist this summer was how to meet my personal needs without guilt.  Here is a prime example.  Our choir rehearsals on Thursdays are 2.5 hours long.  Because our choir organization is so huge, we don't take any formal breaks.  We can get up as needed to take care of water, bathroom breaks, etc.  I have a really difficult time sitting and focusing for the entire rehearsal; however, I used to always avoid taking breaks on my own for many reasons, including (but not limited to) the following: 

• I hate making people in my row stand up for me so I can get out.
• I hate making people stand up for me so I can get back to my seat.
• I am afraid people will judge me.
• I feel guilty for missing rehearsal time.  
• Everyone else seems to be handling it just fine- why can't I?
• I don't actually need to go to the bathroom- I just need a mental break.  

All of these feelings were building up inside me. I'd struggle through rehearsal after rehearsal, avoiding breaks and feeling resentful and frustrated.  One of the hallmarks of scrupulosity (a branch of obsessive compulsive disorder) is creating your own code of ethics and forcing yourself to live by it.  No one ever said we couldn't take self-directed breaks.  But I decided in my head that taking a break was the weak, loser thing to do and if I wanted to avoid being a weak loser, I had to sit through the entire rehearsal without a break.  I felt angry with myself for not having a better attitude and not enjoying myself more in rehearsals.  In therapy, however, we made goals for me to take breaks.  It was liberating.  I could still be a valuable human in the choir even if I took a few minutes to walk around in the middle of rehearsal or to pull out a coloring book for a little while until my mind could focus again.  I had to stop worrying about what other people thought of my choices because I needed to meet my needs and avoid getting to the place of such intense anxiety that my body would rebel and I'd start having panic attacks or losing hair.  

To my friends who suffer with me from anxiety and mental illness-  there are serious physical repercussions when we don't take the steps to control our anxiety.  There is no shame in things like medication or therapy to reduce the anxiousness we feel.  Yes, sometimes we will have to do things to meet our needs that other people don't have to do, like crawling over everybody in the row to get out when we need a minute to breathe, or take medication every day for the rest of our lives. It sucks.  But it's not just about how much we can handle mentally- it's about keeping our bodies physically healthy as well.  Anxiety, depression, OCD, mental illnesses of every kind- they are exhausting.  Often, we have no idea just how much our body is suffering until one day, it suddenly shuts down and stops functioning properly.  And from there, the road back to health is often long and hard.

Let's get cheesy and cliche here: as new hair grows in to replace the hair I've lost, it's symbolic of the new me who is stronger, healthier, and willing to do things that might be uncomfortable or hard in order to ensure that my mind is free from feelings of guilt or fear.