I went to work that fateful morning in a daze. My mind just repeated itself over and over again. “What is going on?” I had no idea where my hair had gone or why it fell out so quickly.

I didn’t see any excessive clumps of hair on my pillow. Didn’t notice any unusual large amounts in the drain after my shower. Although I did note that I had noticed more hair than usual in the drain for the last few months. But with as much hair as I had, I didn’t think anything of it until now.

You would think a woman who wakes up missing chunks of her hair would hop right on the internet to do some research but I didn’t. Instead, I tried to do my best to act like nothing was wrong while drumming up every imaginary explanation possible in between my daily duties consisting of answering phones and retracting paragraphs in music entertainment contracts. I don’t think that I really wanted to know because if it caused my hair to just fall out like it did, it couldn’t be good news.

Later that night, I met up with my boyfriend, Jonathan*, for dinner. It seems completely ridiculous now, but at the time, it seemed like a plausible answer. Or at least I couldn’t think of a better one in my dazed and confused state. So I asked. “Last night...,” I trailed off. I remember Jonathan perked up by the reference of our night together. “Did you happen to notice…,” and then I trailed off again, not knowing how to ask the question.

Jonathan patiently waited a moment before he gave me a raised eyebrow wondering where this could be going and invited me to proceed with his inquisitive “Yes.” Finally, I blurted, “Did you happened to see any of my hair in your hands?” Jonathan’s expression moved from interested to confused in a microsecond. Of course, he was confused. Who would really expect that question?

So I attempted to clarify. “Last night. You pulled my hair. You know, in front of the mirror. Did you have a clump, a chunk rather, of my hair in your hand?” His initial response was a tad defensive like I had accused him of assaulting me. “No, I didn’t have a chunk of your hair in my hand. What is this all about?” I didn’t blame him for being defensive. After all, he had just been accused of pulling a woman’s hair out of her head - in chunks for that matter.

I confessed my situation recounting what had occurred just this short morning ago. Concerned, he wisely advised me to see a doctor - advice that most would wisely have followed that very next day. I, on the other hand, decided to be too busy to go to the doctor for two weeks.

But then there was no returning stubble. No little black dots of pigment seen beneath the skin. There was just smooth, bald skin that had never seen the sun until two weeks ago. After a couple weeks of those pale crescent moons on either side of my head, something told me this thing that occurred overnight wasn’t going to just go away as quickly as it came.