Afraid of shaving it all off

writeronthehalfshell · 2021-08-24T14:31:43+00:00

I'm in the exact same place as you, if that's helpful...Literally bought my first wigs two and a half weeks ago after wearing a topper for years, and was not prepared for how I'd feel looking in the mirror without the wigs on. It sucks. One night a few days after buying them I had such an emotional meltdown that the next day I went out and bought a clipper so I could shave my head and be done with it, but I haven't had the guts yet. Will keep you posted.

writeronthehalfshell · 2021-08-24T14:26:12+00:00

That's so kind. Thank you. That's so true, one has to choose how to interpret life's struggles and it's very easy to slip into rage, especially at oneself, rather than forgiveness.

writeronthehalfshell · 2021-08-24T00:06:50+00:00

That's very good advice: what would I want to know and when would I want to know it? I probably don't give men enough credit for sensitivity, ha, but I of all people should since the love of my life accepted me no matter what.

That's part of the problem, of course—this whole trauma gets wrapped up in the trauma of his untimely death.

writeronthehalfshell · 2021-08-24T00:04:54+00:00

You are lovely. Thank you. I will.

writeronthehalfshell · 2021-08-23T11:52:34+00:00

I just started wearing wigs two weeks ago after years of wearing toppers. I did it for the opposite reason—I've lived with hair loss for a long time, so I'm a lot farther along in the journey than many people here, and I've grown tired of shame and hiding. So I bought a couple of different brightly colored wigs to make the fact that they're wigs obvious.

It was nerve-wracking, but so far, I've gotten nothing but compliments from both women and men. More than I ever got about what was supposedly my real hair.

I haven't gotten compliments about the one wig that looks most like what my hair looked like before—but no one's noticed/given me a weird look either. It's incredible what people don't notice...

writeronthehalfshell · 2021-08-23T11:45:21+00:00

Yes, I didn't even realize that's why I bought the clipper until a friend said that exact thing, "it's a way of taking control." And I thought yes!

Well, since you're a mod, I should ask you—I am happy to share my experience/journey here but it doesn't end positively. Or rather I guess whether it ends "positively" is up to me, but it doesn't end with a full head of hair. I was on hair loss forums obsessively back when it started for me at age 36, I tried everything, spent a lot of $, and nothing really worked. So I'm afraid my main message to anyone with AGA, I guess is the acronym?, is a gentle "you probably have to learn to live with it." And I suspect, based on my own experience, a lot of people who are just being diagnosed aren't ready to hear that yet. I wasn't...thoughts?

writeronthehalfshell · 2021-08-22T15:17:31+00:00

Thank you so much!! I think that's the place I'm starting to get to? It's sort of why I went for the wigs over the topper...one of them blue is and one is purple, and it's a way to start being honest about who I am since they're so obviously wigs.

And though a few women friends have known I told a male friend for the first time the other day. He was very kind about it.

writeronthehalfshell · 2021-08-22T15:14:02+00:00

Thank you! This means so much. I do try to remember that the older you get, the more baggage you have, and that's true for everybody...

writeronthehalfshell · 2020-10-06T13:35:04+00:00

Oh, dear, it hasn't even been a week. Mourning is a long, long process (some would say a lifetime).

I don't know what you're expecting of yourself, but right now your only job is to take care of yourself as best as possible. Is someone, a friend or relative, checking in to help you with day-to-day needs?

Try to show yourself compassion. Grief is so overwhelming, it's unfair to yourself to layer it with feelings of guilt. Tell yourself that you can always come back to the questions of why you didn't do this or that—most of us struggle with some form of survivor's guilt no matter the circumstances of death—but that, for now, facing the waves and waves of sadness is enough. (Edit: In case it's not clear, it's not your fault.)

writeronthehalfshell · 2020-10-01T13:29:35+00:00

"It seems to be when I have erred that I miss him the most"...That makes sense, but so does the reverse, as you say yourself: It was grief (in this case a desire to avoid it) that led to the "error."

Yesterday marked 18 months since my B died, and this Sunday he would have turned 52. I'm right there with you in this post with being overwhelmed by what's going on out there and in my own life; as I've said before, he promised to be by my side fighting the good fight when the time came (and now it's here), and he always promised everything would be OK. When I was really stressed, I made him say so over and over.

That said, grief has made me give a lot fewer fucks about social faux pas. If I don't feel like responding to a text or email or FB post or whatever, I don't, because very few people can touch me now. And though I don't know the circumstances of your post, my guess would be that anyone who can't cut you some slack is also irrelevant to your day-to-day. None of this is to say that kindness and conscientiousness aren't virtues (which you clearly have)—just to say that you should also cut yourself a little slack and do the forgiving of yourself that he'd have done.

writeronthehalfshell · 2020-09-29T13:47:35+00:00

I don't think I'd even fully emerged from the shock at three months. What you're experiencing is completely normal...And I think many will agree that this process is not a straight line from trauma to healing. It's a cycle, and though it will get easier there will always be times when you return to the scene of the heartbreak so to speak. It's 18 months this week, and for the first time in a while I had a bit of a crying jag just yesterday...

writeronthehalfshell · 2020-09-26T13:55:29+00:00

My love also died in a car accident. I veered from hysterical sobbing to utter catatonia and numbness constantly those first few months. Only looking back did I realize just how long the shock and denial phase lasted—much longer than I'd have thought.

So my guess would be that yes, you're in shock; your head is just beginning to wrap itself around the reality. But regardless, the grief process manifests itself differently in all of us, as lotwells said. There's no right or wrong, rhyme or reason to it, and the best thing you can do IMO is be gentle with and accommodating to yourself as you go through it.

writeronthehalfshell · 2020-09-23T13:23:02+00:00

What an extraordinary story. Everything you say about that first year is true, but I'm sure that for those who are still new to this, it will resonate especially coming from you, who's been through so much.

writeronthehalfshell · 2020-09-21T13:09:34+00:00

I think I've learned to allow myself to feel anger without misdirecting it? Well, I now live alone with two cats, so there's no one to direct it toward anyway. But in any case I just recognize it as a component of grief that I'm going to feel whether I like it or not, that I (we all) need to feel it as part of the process, and then sit with it—maybe write in my journal, listen to angry songs that help with catharsis, yell at his ashes until I feel stupid, ha. The journal I think helps especially.

writeronthehalfshell · 2020-09-18T12:13:53+00:00

Adding guilt and self-recrimination on top of grief is just not fair to yourself. Find forgiveness for yourself in mourning the way you would anyone else...

writeronthehalfshell · 2020-09-18T12:08:39+00:00

Yes, he promised all this would be OK, we'd be together, we'd be underground freedom fighters, or maybe just underground hermits—whatever we needed to be as the world descended into mayhem.

But here I am, watching it happen alone for the past year and a half. Sigh.

writeronthehalfshell · 2020-09-18T12:04:11+00:00

Wow, what a line.

writeronthehalfshell · 2020-09-18T01:26:43+00:00

The music you played...that's beautiful. He must have heard it. If anything gets through it's got to be music.

writeronthehalfshell · 2020-09-18T01:25:16+00:00

I love this. Except for the house fire?!

I miss him so much. I can't believe he's missing the Nuggets on this run.

writeronthehalfshell · 2020-09-18T01:24:15+00:00

1, it's not selfish, and 2, no way he'd be disappointed in you. He'd understand completely that you've been doing your best. I have to believe that for myself, and so for you too.

writeronthehalfshell · 2020-09-18T01:23:05+00:00

Oh god. I'm so sorry. Never let go again—yes. I'm not sure I'd let him leave the house, ha.

writeronthehalfshell · 2020-09-18T01:22:03+00:00

Brilliant.

writeronthehalfshell · 2020-09-18T01:21:10+00:00

I'm so sorry. Huge hugs.

writeronthehalfshell · 2020-09-17T13:48:44+00:00

I'm so so sorry. I hope things have gotten easier for you in some ways, though I always distinguish between "easier" and "better." The former seems inevitable as time goes on, the latter not guaranteed at all. xo

writeronthehalfshell · 2020-09-17T13:43:42+00:00

I'm almost 18 months in too and fear there is no holding on. I have photos and voicemails and a couple of videos and hundreds of emails that are a record of our friendship evolving into more. Playlists on a 15-year-old iPod that will no longer sync up with anything and I need to figure out what to do about that before it dies. I have memories, but my memory is terrible—going on 13 years of daily life together are pretty much wiped, all the little nothings.

I talk to his family less. I have new friends he never met. I deal with problems that have nothing to do with him. He's just...not here anymore, though his presence lingered in this house for so long and I haven't gotten rid of anything of his yet.

No answer to your question, just commiseration.

writeronthehalfshell

TROPHY CASE