So, I haven't posted on here for a long while. I suppose I've been busy doing other things.

For about 1 year now I've been seeing a Psychologist. It started last year with a referral for a completely different problem (not alopecia) from my GP. The actual problem I went to her about, we only discussed twice. Since then it has been about a range of things - most commonly coming up being my ex boyfriend, alopecia and the two things relating to eachother.

Just to be clear, my ex never said anything negative about my alopecia. He was for the most part supportive and accepting of my look - he'd never known me with anything else and I never wore wigs with him, ever - not even for my belly dancing. He was however a control freak, critical of other personality traits and things I did and had a personality the size of a small country.

What I've discovered is that I lost my identity while with him. I was young and he overwhelmed my existence, till I had no idea who I was or who I wanted to be. At an age when I should have been evolving and learning about myself, I was subconciously fighting to be who I wanted to be and who he wanted met to be - which is something I wanted so badly, to the detriment of everything else in my life.

The impact of this on my life now - is becoming more apparent to me now, even though the biggest impact has bee the last 2.5 years. I've drifted absently since we broke up. Ruining another relationship in the meantime and feeling like I've achieved nothing.

The impact on my ability to deal with alopecia is also becoming obvious to me. Whilst a number of other things have also occurred this last year to make me question how I deal with my alopecia (see my post about my new hair from last Christmas), I know my loss of identity has made it harder.

At the moment, I want hair. Even though I've never had it - I don't want to feel underdressed and uncompleted when I leave the house. I've taken to wearing hats again recently (my Pysch thinks this is a transition thing - something my boyfriend vehmently disagreed with, but that's another argument). Often it's just because I don't want to feel nake leaving the house.

I read all these blogs online (now I've opened myself up to that world), and all the amazingly beautiful crafty ones are run by these gorgeous girls with amazing locks who (for all apperances - I'm generalising and being judgemental now) have never even considered what the world would be like if they couldn't portray this perfect, cute and beautiful appearance to world. And whilst I love their blogs and thoroughly enjoy their content, I find it so hard to enjoy reading them because I spend the time telling myself I'll never compare to them, and that if I had hair I could be as cute, as popular as amazing - but I don't, and it's holding me back! I find myself getting angry at "style" blogs that don't make allowances for readers without hair. I get annoyed at blog posts about DIY around the house tasks, that mention a hairstyle or hair things. It's ridiculous.

I then feel like this horrible person because I really have nothing against these girls, except I want to be them. That's always been my problem. I don't think I've ever actually 'admired' anyone, I've always just wished I was them.


I'm not new to dealing with alopecia - I feel like I'm going through something similar to what I did when I was 12 and never wanted to take my hat off and then when I was 16 made the opposite decision to not hide who I was and just be me. That decision was important to me and I have clung to it for an inappropriate amount of time.

Things are changing, hopefully I have the guts to change it actively, to make my new self, build who I am and not just be this transitory mess I feel like I've been for the last 3 years. I'm a lazy person (I admit that openly) and I don't like change a lot, and I don't like difficulty. I feel like everything is difficult some days.

I'm feeling negative today, despite the last two days being days I've gone out without my hat. Maybe I'm getting a little better again - braver, more determined to just deal with this stuff again. Maybe the whole of the last 3 years has been a transitory stage and I'm coming out the other end. Maybe seeing a Psych is helping. Either way, I needed to get this out of my head and into the ethers. Holding it inside is not helping me process the information at all.

So here I am. Posting again. Feeling like I'm going in circles and I'm 12/16 again. Evolution is a normal. Change is ongoing. Self Development is continual. Hopefully - this is progress.