Many moons ago, I was at my regular hairdresser’s appointment and she discovered a bald spot. My heart skipped a few beats. She could sense my panic and quickly added that it was probably nothing and maybe some stress causing it. But I was not convinced. I’d been stressed many times but it hadn’t triggered bald spots.

After I returned home and Googled ‘hair loss’, the panic continued to rise. The thought of losing my hair was pretty wild (and not the sort of wild as in, wow that party was wild). But I tried hard not to get ahead of myself.

My fears were confirmed though a few weeks later when biopsy results were returned to my dermatologist. I had something called lichenplanopilaris, a rare autoimmune disorder that is a type of scarring alopecia and causes bald spots, itching, and scarring on the scalp. The scarring part means hair lost won’t grow back. Eeek!

And so began my spiral into anxiety and trying to find out the root cause of the issue. Because while the dermatologist could confirm what symptoms I’d likely experience, he had no insight into what caused this lichenplano thing to rear its ugly head. He literally said treatments were a ‘hit and miss’ because the condition was a ‘bit of a mystery’.

I tried some alternative health practitioners. They put it down to my immune system being imbalanced, but couldn’t pinpoint a specific trigger.  They did offer to help me become as well as I could so my body would potentially stop attacking its own hair follicles. And sure enough, many of the things I introduced (eating more greens, meditating, supplementing the nutrients I was lacking), really helped me feel better within myself.

What helped even more was good mental health support. It was tough learning that I might potentially go bald. I’d had long blonde hair all my life. The sort of hair people noticed, and the sort of hair I could hide behind when I felt worried or afraid. So the more I saw it fall out, the more I felt like I was losing myself. I became so anxious it impacted my daily life and I was diagnosed with generalised anxiety disorder.

The point of revisiting this here is to share how my own experience has made me passionate about great mental health care. 

I know what potential clients look for. I know what encourages and inspires them to say, ‘yes, I’d like to see that practitioner and see what their service could do for me!’