Susan Beausang's Posts - Alopecia World2024-03-29T15:54:53ZSusan Beausanghttps://alopeciaworld.com/profile/SusanBeausanghttps://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2192192362?profile=RESIZE_48X48&width=48&height=48&crop=1%3A1https://alopeciaworld.com/profiles/blog/feed?user=2bqzk11f5sycv&xn_auth=noHair Obsession!tag:alopeciaworld.com,2010-06-08:2022678:BlogPost:4410752010-06-08T17:36:41.000ZSusan Beausanghttps://alopeciaworld.com/profile/SusanBeausang
Has anyone else out there tuned in to any of last week’s Today Show series on women and hair, titled “It’s All About Hair”? I happened to catch the Thursday, June 3rd piece discussing why women are obsessed with their hair. I’d like to share some of the thoughts and responses I found myself sharing with the television.<br />
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According to a poll cited by The Today Show, women in the U.S. spend $7.5 billion/year on hair care products alone, and according to a British survey, the average woman spends…
Has anyone else out there tuned in to any of last week’s Today Show series on women and hair, titled “It’s All About Hair”? I happened to catch the Thursday, June 3rd piece discussing why women are obsessed with their hair. I’d like to share some of the thoughts and responses I found myself sharing with the television.<br />
<br />
According to a poll cited by The Today Show, women in the U.S. spend $7.5 billion/year on hair care products alone, and according to a British survey, the average woman spends 2.5 years of her life trussing, mussing and fussing with her hair. Clearly, these are astonishing statistics that provide evidence of our obsession with our hair, but is that really the whole story of who we are as women and what priorities guide us?<br />
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As I watched my television screen, I became more and more offended. There they were, three media faces,two VH1 television hosts and the editor-in-chief of Glamour Magazine, attempting to represent all of us with their voices and hair obsessions. Missing were all those women who do not have a personal make-up and hair styling crew, who head off to a job each morning that does not include appearing on 10’s or 100’s of thousands of televisions screens across the U.S. and/or globe in hopes of selling a magazine, a TV show, stocks in the corporately owned television stations, or beauty products. Missing were the business owners, moms, school teachers, grandmothers, dentists, soccer coaches, grocery story cashiers, marathon runners, political activists, scientists, doctors, etc, etc, etc that we are. So since The Today Show left us out, I thought I’d bring us into the discussion as I believe WE are the majority.<br />
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I would be the last woman to argue that a woman’s hair is not hugely significant to her identity or that how a woman wears her hair does not play an important role in how she projects herself to others. Having lost all of my hair to Alopecia Universalis, I know better than most what contribution my hair previously made to my overall sense of femininity, beauty, and self-confidence. I talk about it and write about it all the time. But even as a woman who faces the lifelong challenge of feeling “normal,” feminine, and beautiful without hair, I have to challenge the total lack of balance and shallowness that these women portrayed with the preposterous notion that they were representing all of us. Here are just a few examples…<br />
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“Nothing says more about a woman than the way she wears her hair…” said a NYC male hair stylist interviewed for The Today Show piece.”Oh really?” I loudly responded to the television screen.How shallow that this male stylist could state that a women’s hair speaks greater volumes to her personality than her role in society as a mother, daughter, doctor, or judge? Does hair convey more than the car she drives - Hummer vs. Prius? More than the dreams she holds for herself and her family? More than her religious beliefs? Do people really believe that more than anything else, it’s how we wear our hair!?<br />
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According to one Ms. VH1 Host, hair is a woman’s shorthand way of telling the world what type of woman we are, whether we are an individual, wash-and-go, empowered, etc. In other words, you can’t be wash-and-go and still be individual or empowered. Apparently empowerment is having a hair styling crew and spending $7.5 billion on hair care products, all of which include an endless blend of carcinogens and health-damaging toxins. Is it really possible to believe that it is not through personal achievement, but by endlessly copying celebrity images that we become empowered, that we discover our individual worth? Wow. These ladies had quite the manicured hairdo’s, but I’m glad I don’t live in their world. They might look at Lady Gaga and see “creative” or “happy,” but I see a mask and stage costume. Of course Lady Gaga is a real person with blood, a heart, a brain, and human stories I could identify with, such as - once a little girl, wishes to be loved, now speaking openly with Larry King about an autoimmune disease like Lupus running in her family. If I want to know what type of person someone is, I don’t look to their hair, I look to their heart. I feel sorry for those who think it’s all in the hair or more generally, on the outside. I wonder if true friendship and human connection is something they ever get to experience.<br />
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I had to laugh when Meredith Vieira made the statement “hair makes a political statement.” After each of her previous statements, her three representatives would immediately burst with an endless string of statements reinforcing ten times over how “we women equal our hair” and, my personal favorite, “our hair is us”. As for “political statements,” I did hear a speechless breath from one of her representatives. Unfortunately, not one of them had a word to add so Meredith had to fill in her own response. That said it all, these women may equal their hair and they may define other women by their hair, but I am thankful to report that there’s a whole lot more going on both outside and inside the rest of us.<br />
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It will be interesting to watch the remaining segments of “Hair Obsession”. Thank goodness I don’t live life in front of a camera.<br />
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Susan M. Beausang<br />
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4women.comA little eyebrow history!tag:alopeciaworld.com,2010-05-21:2022678:BlogPost:4350892010-05-21T20:16:06.000ZSusan Beausanghttps://alopeciaworld.com/profile/SusanBeausang
Have you ever considered why your eyebrows are such an important feature on your face? Consider this - almost 50% of communication is done non-verbally. We tend to use many parts of our body to communicate, however, our face is arguably the most expressive part of our body. Our eyes alone can reveal many emotions such as anger, fear, or sadness but one feature that is often overlooked is the important role our eyebrows play in our ability to communicate non-verbally. Our eyebrows are actually…
Have you ever considered why your eyebrows are such an important feature on your face? Consider this - almost 50% of communication is done non-verbally. We tend to use many parts of our body to communicate, however, our face is arguably the most expressive part of our body. Our eyes alone can reveal many emotions such as anger, fear, or sadness but one feature that is often overlooked is the important role our eyebrows play in our ability to communicate non-verbally. Our eyebrows are actually the most expressive facial feature that we have! Personally, I never gave much thought to those small patches of hair over my eyes until I lost them to Alopecia Universalis. It is only now that I am”eyebrowless” that I care to learn more about the function of brows in our culture.<br />
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It surprised me to learn that the fact that we have two brows may be the remnants of our evolutionary ancestors. Full facial hair slowly gave way to two bushy brows that evolved for a degree of protection from shielding our eyes from rain, dirt and sweat irritation. Of course, our eyebrows play a very important role in facial recognition and as a means of communication.<br />
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Today, our tweezed, plucked, waxed, trimmed, pierced and painted brows are clearly associated with beauty. Even men are trimming away fly away brow hairs for a neater appearance. My research enlightened me to the fact that 18th century women believed that full and bushy eyebrows were quite attractive. Women would go through great lengths to enhance their existing brows by securing bushy hair attachments to their wispy brows. Today the benchmark for fashionable brows seems to be a thin high arched line, quiet different from the 18th century bushy variety!<br />
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We can express our feelings with our facial expressions but it is our eyebrows that can relay specific moods or emotions. Eyebrow movement can express fear, surprise, aggression, astonishment or even sadness to name a few. Raised eyebrows can express an acceptance or un-acceptance for social behavior, or may indicate confusion. Lowered eyebrows can express annoyance or displeasure or even deception. It’s amazing the level of non-verbal communication power held by a 2 inch strip of hair!<br />
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Another role for our brows is aiding in facial recognition amongst a wide diversity of faces. One can usually discriminate between male or female by just looking at one’s brows! So what does all of this mean to those of us who are “eyebrow deficient”? Personally, I think eyebrows are over rated! I’ve lived without them for 9 years and I will challenge anyone with brows to a non-verbal communication contest on any given day. With a brush of a stroke, I can draw angry brows, sad brows, condemning brows, happy brows - depends on my mood - or I can go sans brows and remain anonymous. I have options - I can have thick brows - I can have pencil thin brows. I don’t require any tweezing, plucking or waxing. I’m brow maintenance free! The brow has sometimes been referred to as the “face’s forgotten feature”. I’ve truly forgotten what it feels like to have normal brows but it’s really okay! Either way it is an interesting topic.<br />
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Susan M. Beausang<br />
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President, 4Women.comMay 9th - A Day of Appreciation and Awarenesstag:alopeciaworld.com,2010-05-07:2022678:BlogPost:4319102010-05-07T15:04:24.000ZSusan Beausanghttps://alopeciaworld.com/profile/SusanBeausang
Mothers Day is a day to reflect on our love for Mom and to recognize that nothing else contributes to our own strengths, confidence and ability to love than having been loved deeply and unconditionally by our Mothers. Mothers Day has also become a day of activism among women and families touched by cancer.<br />
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This year Mothers Day has been designated as “Women’s Health and Cancer Awareness Day”! Individuals, teams, organizations and communities everywhere are using this day to advocate for the…
Mothers Day is a day to reflect on our love for Mom and to recognize that nothing else contributes to our own strengths, confidence and ability to love than having been loved deeply and unconditionally by our Mothers. Mothers Day has also become a day of activism among women and families touched by cancer.<br />
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This year Mothers Day has been designated as “Women’s Health and Cancer Awareness Day”! Individuals, teams, organizations and communities everywhere are using this day to advocate for the well-being of Mothers. Mothers Day has also become a time to get out and get moving in solidarity, in memory of loved ones and in an effort to raise the funds that will enable us to defeat cancer.<br />
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Ten years ago, my sister was diagnosed with breast cancer. I traveled to NYC on Mothers Day weekend to join her team in the Revlon Run/Walk for Women, a premier event to raise money for the fight against women’s cancer. I began this race with a heavy heart as this was my second sister to be diagnosed with breast cancer. It was quite an emotional event for me to see so many thousands of participants with a common mission - to support a mother, sister, aunt or just a friend in the battle against women’s cancer. I was enveloped in a massive sea of strangers, all deeply connected by a determination to beat cancer. This event opened my eyes to the empowering and inspiring roles these events play in our collective experiences with cancer.<br />
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This massive movement to raise awareness through athletic endeavors has been steadily growing over the past decade as well as the notion that moderate exercise during cancer therapy is not only safe and possible, but it can actually improve physical functioning and quality of life! Many cancer care teams are now urging their patients to be as physically active as possible during their treatment. Participating in a cancer awareness event may be just what you need to transform exercise into a source of fun, stress relief, hope and a sense of solidarity and empowerment. Time to get moving to “unite and fight” and together we can do our part to try and banish cancer from our lives and those of our children.<br />
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Some premier events worth noting:<br />
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Yoga Unites for Living Beyond Breast Cancer, Revlon Run/Walk for Women, Walk to Empower (held in 10 Cities), Mother’s Day Classic (Australia), Susan G Komen Mother’s Day Race for the Cure - held in many cities!<br />
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Susan M. Beausang<br />
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4women.comCOLOR ME HAPPY, PLEASE!tag:alopeciaworld.com,2010-04-26:2022678:BlogPost:4291292010-04-26T18:38:11.000ZSusan Beausanghttps://alopeciaworld.com/profile/SusanBeausang
Color, color everywhere - what does it all mean? Color is an integral part of our lives from the age of 2 months when we begin to distinguish individual colors as well as the rest of the world! Our color memory is filled with associative hues from birthday balloons, cupcakes, the 4th of July, spring flowers, or the parade of bathing suits, to name a few. For millennium the human race has employed the light spectrum for our visual pleasure, but have you even considered that colors have more than…
Color, color everywhere - what does it all mean? Color is an integral part of our lives from the age of 2 months when we begin to distinguish individual colors as well as the rest of the world! Our color memory is filled with associative hues from birthday balloons, cupcakes, the 4th of July, spring flowers, or the parade of bathing suits, to name a few. For millennium the human race has employed the light spectrum for our visual pleasure, but have you even considered that colors have more than an aesthetic appeal? Why is it that you prefer one color over the hundreds of others, or why some people feel better surrounded by light blue versus dark green? Brain stimulation obviously plays a central part in color cognition, but how, and why?<br />
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The science of the use of colors to affect physical and psychological states is called “Chromotherapy”. This concept attempts to explain the emotional connection we have to colors and perhaps explain how we come to have “favorite colors” and why. For example, bright pops of color usually illustrate enjoyable and happy moods, while darker colors are often associated with melancholy atmospheres. It has been shown that colors we see every day, such as those in advertising campaigns, films, magazines, and even food packaging, actually do affect the way we feel.<br />
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Aside from the scientific aspect of light, energy and electromagnetic radiation, there is no doubt that colors play a huge part in how we interpret different experiences and environments. Perhaps one of the most important times to remember this is when dealing with a debilitating illness or tragedy. Lifting your spirits during such times can help enormously with the coping process. Take a look at the chromotherapy based interpretations, and see if any analogies arise between these interpretations and the actual way these colors make you feel!<br />
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Red: Brings warmth, energy and stimulation, therefore good for energy, fatigue, colds, chilly and passive people.<br />
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Orange: Warm, cheering, non-constricting. Orange has a freeing action upon the body and mind, relieving repressions.<br />
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Yellow: Helps strengthen the nerves and the mind. It helps awaken mental inspiration and stimulates higher mentality.<br />
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Green: The color of nature and the earth! Green is balance and harmony in essence and possesses a soothing influence upon both mind and body.<br />
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Blue: Cooling, electric, astringent and brings tranquility.<br />
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Indigo: A great purifier of the bloodstream and also benefits mental problems.<br />
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Violet/Purple: Colors of transformation - bring spiritual insights and renewal.<br />
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White: The perfect color as it is all colors - perfect balance and harmony.<br />
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Magenta: Strengthens contact with your life purpose, stimulates adrenaline and heart activity.<br />
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Pink: Heals grief and sadness, restores youthfulness, brings you in contact with your feelings.<br />
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Turquoise: Increases intuition and sensitivity, tones the general system, builds the skin, relaxes sensations of stress.<br />
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Just color me happy, please!<br />
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Susan M. BeausangInspiration and Courage from ‘Across the Pond’!tag:alopeciaworld.com,2010-03-30:2022678:BlogPost:4216682010-03-30T20:18:42.000ZSusan Beausanghttps://alopeciaworld.com/profile/SusanBeausang
<p style="text-align: left;"><img alt="" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2220374465?profile=original"></img></p>
All over the world, there are women blazing a trail towards more acceptance for women with medical hair loss. Danielle Baer is one such brave beauty from ‘across the pond’. Danielle, who lost all of her hair at age 18, speaks on British television about the impact Alopecia has had on her. She explains that she grieved the loss of her hair but now actually likes the way she looks bald. Sadly, though she feels comfortable with her baldness, she feels…
<p style="text-align: left;"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2220374465?profile=original" alt=""/></p>
All over the world, there are women blazing a trail towards more acceptance for women with medical hair loss. Danielle Baer is one such brave beauty from ‘across the pond’. Danielle, who lost all of her hair at age 18, speaks on British television about the impact Alopecia has had on her. She explains that she grieved the loss of her hair but now actually likes the way she looks bald. Sadly, though she feels comfortable with her baldness, she feels the need to cover he head in public due to the public’s reaction to bald women. As a result of such public pressure, she continues to grieve the loss of her confidence, but is a strong, beautiful example for the many women walking her same path. This is an inspiring <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIi66rw5q38" target="_blank">interview</a> from a true brave beauty!<br />
Susan M. BeausangBald Lovetag:alopeciaworld.com,2010-03-17:2022678:BlogPost:4178362010-03-17T15:30:00.000ZSusan Beausanghttps://alopeciaworld.com/profile/SusanBeausang
MOTH AND BUTTERFLY by Terese Weir<br />
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Ever look in an empty cocoon as a most glorious butterfly leaves it? I’ll bet there’s a mirror in it.<br />
When a woman loses her hair, which for her has been a safe haven and the only part of her body she truly believes is spectacular, she desperately wants to trust that her husband loves her for who she is, not for the dead protein on the top of her head. But when rage replaces reason, no soft whisper or kiss at the back of her now hairless neck is going to…
MOTH AND BUTTERFLY by Terese Weir<br />
<br />
Ever look in an empty cocoon as a most glorious butterfly leaves it? I’ll bet there’s a mirror in it.<br />
When a woman loses her hair, which for her has been a safe haven and the only part of her body she truly believes is spectacular, she desperately wants to trust that her husband loves her for who she is, not for the dead protein on the top of her head. But when rage replaces reason, no soft whisper or kiss at the back of her now hairless neck is going to convince her that she is anything but a ghost of the woman she was.<br />
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Grief is inglorious. My mirror offered only heartache. The refection lied; the face I saw was a stranger’s. I had no passion in me for my husband’s touch. I wanted intimacy only with my fantasies, which were rich with beauty and wild hair and flirting, and being irresistible to any man who saw me. I ached for an embrace in our darkened bedroom to comfort me, but I wouldn’t allow it. I turned away from the one person I needed the most.<br />
My husband continually encouraged me to remember “Terese” and learn to embrace me again as changed, but not absent from life. It took years but slowly I woke to the possibility of discovering who I was under all that hair. My security lay firmly in the strong hands of the man I’d vowed to love until my death. He carried me over many lost days. I healed.<br />
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Ironically, sadly, as the mirror stopped watching me and I began looking back, as I emerged from my cocoon to fly, I lost something. My husband left me. I listened shakily as he assured me that his decision to end our twenty years together had nothing to do with alopecia, but he admitted that my struggle with hair loss had drained him more than he’d let on. As I write this, I am still reeling and scared to pieces, (changes again), but I know as surely as anything that I will never forget all the hits he took for me as I railed at the world, pounded my fists and wondered why me, why me.<br />
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Now, I am what my darling man always called me – a cute bald chick – and the rest of my life is waiting.<br />
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As poignantly expressed in the above vignette, a woman’s hair loss can put significant stress on all of our social relationships, but especially our most intimate relationships. In the midst of a drastic and stressful change in our appearance, how many of us possess the strength to consider the impact of our hair loss on those who love us? In some cases, it is only with hindsight that we realize that we are not alone with our hair loss or our emotions.<br />
Imagine for just a moment - you are a woman who has recently lost all of your hair. You don’t recognize the person staring back at you in the mirror. You feel you have lost an import part of yourself and with it, your identity, your femininity, your self-esteem. You lose all interest in being social because doing so means either hiding the new you or exposing yourself to public stares, thoughtless comments, or prying questions. At least you have your significant other, the one person you are safe to be the true you around and still feel loved and accepted.<br />
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Now imagine - what if your significant other instead tells you they can’t accept the sight of your bald head? What if the person you’ve slept next to night after night through so many of life’s up’s and down’s now tells you they need you to wear a wig to bed to be acceptable in your sleep? What if you’ve finally come to terms with your hair loss, you’ve learned to love your bald self, but your partner just can’t handle the sight or reality of your baldness? You wouldn’t be alone.<br />
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Imagine yet another possible scenario, you’ve lost your hair seemingly overnight. You are devastated. Your partner hardly seems to notice and insists you are loved for you, not your hair, that you remain beautiful, that after all, it is just hair. Try as he might to support you, his lack of reaction leaves you feeling alone, isolated, as if your emotions are not valid, angry at everyone, including the one person you trust most.<br />
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We’d all like to believe that the feelings our significant others have for us are based on who we are inside and out. No one’s appearance freezes in time on the day we fall in love, and ideally, love is far more permanent than our looks. Sometimes it is a dramatic change in our appearance that ultimately reveals the true colors of our significant others and their feelings for us. It’s the ultimate insult to the emotional assault of hair loss.<br />
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Just as each woman responds somewhat differently to her hair loss and a sudden, drastic appearance change, each of our life partners will also respond in their own way. In the end, some relationships will be strengthened by the storm, while others ultimately may not weather the storm.<br />
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4Women.com conducted two surveys exploring the emotional side of medical hair loss for women - one among women losing or having lost hair due to chemotherapy and in the context of fighting cancer, and the other among women who have lost their hair due to other conditions - Alopecia (autoimmune), genetics, or the many, many women experiencing hair loss with no clear explanation. The survey responses revealed many similarities and many differences in women’s experiences with medical hair loss. They also provided insights into the similarities and differences in how our significant others react to our hair loss or sudden baldness and what their reactions mean to us. As always, there is so much we can learn from those who have walked the path before us.<br />
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In the context of chemo, hair loss is temporary, whereas Alopecia and many other medical hair loss conditions are permanent conditions. Women who lose their hair during chemo are fearing for their lives, but are often reminded by others that their hair will grow back. Loved one’s sometimes have an especially difficult time witnessing a woman’s chemo-induced hair loss because it is such a visible reminder that their loved one is battling cancer.<br />
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Women with other medical hair loss conditions are often reminded by others that at least they’re healthy, even if their condition means lifelong baldness (as if this is insignificant). If a woman is completely bald (though healthy), she is often assumed to have cancer. If she simply has severe thinning, many of her peers and loved one’s will claim not to notice, leaving her feeling as if she’s obsessing over something less than real.<br />
What unifies all of these experiences is that for women, hair loss has a major negative impact on their body images, self esteem, and quality of life.<br />
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I learned a great deal from our survey respondents about how our partners respond to our hair loss, our emotions, and how their responses might vary. There are those significant others who are confident and complete enough in their own bodies, lives and relationships to see and feel far beyond the loss of their partner’s hair or any major appearance change. There are also those significant others who have unacknowledged, unexplored, and unresolved issues with themselves, their pasts, and/or their individual life experiences. As a result, they cannot handle changes that challenge their sense of control over life or force them to confront their own fears and insecurities. In reacting to their partner’s hair loss, they may be reacting to their own fears - fears of mortality, fears of being alone, fears of aging, fears of change, and so on. At least this is how I’ve made sense of the heart-breaking number of survey accounts of husbands who insisted their wives (more often than not, women battling cancer) wear wigs at all times, including to bed, and even made demeaning comments about their wives’ appearances as bald women.<br />
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More often than not, our partners seem much less impacted by our hair loss than we are. On the surface this is helpful, but the difference in perception brings its own challenges. Our partners may remind us that we are still the same person, we are more than our hair, or they love us, not our hair. This might be reassuring, but many of us will still feel insecure and wonder whether they still find us attractive. Too much reassurance can even be a source of frustration, indicating that our partners simply don’t get it, don’t understand why it’s such a big deal, don’t understand what it feels like to be a bald woman in our extremely appearance-conscious society. Rather than feeling supported, it may feel like our support-person is running, not truly listening, or even invalidating our feelings.<br />
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Let’s face it, change isn’t easy for most of us. Major appearance changes require that we all adjust, and we’re likely to each do so in our own way and in our own time. As for those of us going through the major appearance change, what we most need is for our partners to try to understand what we are experiencing, not to criticize us or attempt to sweep the whole issue under the rug and make it disappear. We are grieving a loss. By simply acknowledging our pain, listening to us and validating our feelings, you can help us adjust.<br />
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We are not alone. We bald or balding women need to remember that our emotional stress impacts those who love us and that if we shut them out or refuse to let them adjust because we have not, we run the risk of alienating them to the point that they are forced to move on without us. Our double challenge is to let them know that they are not alone either, that our love for them did not disappear with our hair.<br />
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Susan BeausangLoving Our Bald Selvestag:alopeciaworld.com,2010-02-19:2022678:BlogPost:4089012010-02-19T19:00:00.000ZSusan Beausanghttps://alopeciaworld.com/profile/SusanBeausang
<p>If we can face life’s challenges feeling good about ourselves, we can
often meet those challenges with more<br />
clarity, more determination, and more<br />
understanding. At no time is such love<br />
of self more important than when fighting<br />
cancer. Yet many women find their<br />
love of self becomes compromised by<br />
the emotions stirred when they find a<br />
bald, “sick-looking” person staring back<br />
at them in the mirror. Even women who<br />
rise above self-deflating thoughts must<br />
guard against the public stares, looks…</p>
<p>If we can face life’s challenges
feeling good about ourselves, we can<br />
often meet those challenges with more<br />
clarity, more determination, and more<br />
understanding. At no time is such love<br />
of self more important than when fighting<br />
cancer. Yet many women find their<br />
love of self becomes compromised by<br />
the emotions stirred when they find a<br />
bald, “sick-looking” person staring back<br />
at them in the mirror. Even women who<br />
rise above self-deflating thoughts must<br />
guard against the public stares, looks of<br />
pity, and unsolicited comments that remind<br />
them that they visually represent<br />
cancer, simply because they lack hair.</p>
<p><br/></p>
<p>As our awareness of the relationship between emotional well-being and
physical healing grows, cancer care is<br />
gradually expanding to include emotional<br />
and appearance support. Nonetheless,<br />
there is still very little real understanding<br />
of the emotional impact of medical<br />
hair loss. Without hair, many women<br />
feel stripped of their identity and femininity,<br />
making it even more difficult to<br />
maintain the sense of positive optimism<br />
that is so important for healing. Those<br />
women need to know that hiding is neither<br />
the only option nor the best option.<br />
Women who lose their hair during chemo<br />
want to continue living, not just coping.</p>
<p><br/></p>
<p>Among those women who lose their hair due to chemotherapy, some consider
it the least of their worries, insignificant,<br />
or even liberating. Women’s<br />
responses are as diverse as the women<br />
themselves. Some women find it to be<br />
one of the most (or even the most) difficult<br />
aspect of cancer. Those women<br />
find little or no resources to assist them<br />
in dealing with the emotions triggered<br />
by hair loss, and they have little time<br />
and energy to seek out those resources<br />
or support.</p>
<br />
<p class="tagLine"><br/></p>
<p class="tagLine">Without hair, many women feel stripped of their identity and femininity.</p>
<br />
<br />
<p><br/></p>
<p>Well-meaning friends and family may minimize or dismiss their feelings,
wrongly assuming that it is a somehow<br />
separate and less traumatic issue than<br />
the cancer itself. As a result, women<br />
may suffer in isolation and be made to<br />
feel vain, guilty, or out of touch with<br />
what matters most, if they express their<br />
emotions or show their true grief. Before<br />
a woman loses her hair to chemotherapy,<br />
she will often put much of her energy<br />
into maintaining a sense of normalcy<br />
for the benefit of loved ones, especially<br />
children. Many women find it is their<br />
hair loss that pushes their parents, partners,<br />
and children over the edge with fear.</p>
<p><br/></p>
<p>Rather than face the emotional side of chemo-induced hair loss alone, women
need more understanding, more resources,<br />
and more options for coping<br />
with the drastic assault on their self-esteem<br />
that often accompanies hair loss.<br />
Because there is no “one size fits all”<br />
means of addressing women’s emotions,<br />
the first step is to acknowledge the fact<br />
that hair loss can be of deep emotional<br />
significance to women. When women<br />
find comprehensive emotional understanding<br />
and support for coping with<br />
cancer-related hair loss, the healing journey<br />
will be that much easier.</p>