Why I am Bald

To cut a long story short, this is the number one question I get asked on Instagram; Why do you shave your head?

I would love to say "The lockdown made me do it" or "Because I wanted to" but the truth is if you asked me 13 years ago if I would shave my head I would of laughed in your face. I loved my hair, it was down to my shoulders and I wore that like a crown.

When I was around 3 or 4 years old, I started to twiddle my hair in my fingers until it became so tangled I had no choice but to snap the hair to free myself and it was always the hair at the nape of my neck. I was unconsciously twiddling when I would get engrossed in a tv show, if I read a book and got absorbed by that or when I was in bed falling asleep. It got so bad that my mum had to make the decision to keep my hair short, so that I wouldn't be able to cause more damage.

When I started high school My concentration had to be switched on for longer periods and I was fighting a battle with my attention span. So developed the trichotillomania. I started by finding a single hair on the crown of my head and if it didn't feel right or damaged in any way then I would pull it out and search for the next one. The only time I did it was when I had to focus and it was an automatic unconscious response to this.

Well as you can imagine the kids around me, the hormone driven, got to be popular, it's you-or-me adolescents picked up on this pretty quickly, almost as quickly as my bald spot was growing. And not long after they noticed it my mum noticed I was acting depressed and questioned me until I broke.

So at the ripe old age of 14 I headed off to my very first shrinks appointment. Over the coming weeks, my shrink decided I was doing it as a form of selfharm or attention seeking behaviour. I went to see many other proffessionals over the years but they all said the same thing. I had to learn about Trichotillomania from a segment on a day tv show years later.

Life happened and I just accepted that the trich was part of me. I tried various therapies but nothing worked. My almost-hubby loves me for who I am not my hair so it wasn't a big deal until after the birth of our daughter and my pulling was out of control, all those feeds gave me the opportunity to drift off into daydreams and my hand would wonder to my head.

Soon the patch was out of control so I decided my hair had to go and I meant all of it!

Once I had this idea in my head nothing was letting go, I needed to do this and soon but I needed a reason that didn't require explanation.

I decided to shave my head for Bowel Cancer UK, it seemed the obvious choice as I was working closely with bowel cancer patients at the time. I set the date 4th July 2014, I set up a justgiving page and I counted down the days.

Just before Shave Day

The day of the shave came round and it was the most freeing experience of my life. The weight dropped from my head and I could feel the cool breeze wafting across my scalp.

I finally felt free, the trich couldn't affect me anymore.

Since that day, I have shaved my head hundreds of times and everytime is just as freeing as the first. The only difference now, is that my confidence and self esteem have sky rocketed and I am the happiest I have ever been. Trich can't get me now!

So there it is! The reason I am bald... x