When I was 22 I started getting alopecia spots on the back of my head. They’re round, perfectly hairless spots that expand outward, like throwing a pebble in a pool. It’s just a cosmetic thing but for me it’s definitely related to extreme stress/prolonged negative situations in which I don’t feel like there’s any end in sight or that I have any way of grasping (like severe unmedicated depression, etc)

Anyway after a while it got really bad, the spots in the back started meeting and I had these giant, completely smooth bald expanses. The hair falls out at the follicle so there’s no shadow, no nothing, you can bic the surrounding area and still see the spot. It was impossible to tell if it would eventually cover my whole head, stop at my head or  continue to my body, how long it would last, if it would last forever, etc. Doctors can’t tell you, there’s very little research on alopecia since it’s not threatening to a person’s health (except possibly their emotional well-being over losing hair, of course.) It is an auto-immune disorder though, so research into it might reveal info about other, more harmful auto-immune disorders. The “treatment” for it is expensive, painful, and doesn’t necessarily work, and I didn’t really give a fuck so I shaved the rest of my hair off and prepared for the most extreme version of alopecia. This made me feel like I had some control over what was happening. 

I also covered a case in photos of bald people who I thought were lovely, and I kept my clippers and bathroom stuff in the box. That’s where these scans come from.

Eventually the spots shrank and my hair started growing back in. Every couple of years I get a little spot on the back of my head still, but nothing as extreme as that first round. 

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   story behind it is moving &...engaging - I’m sucked in by it,

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