Emotional Effects of Hair Loss

Hair loss is known as a medical problem, but it can easily become emotionally troublesome, as hair loss has been known to cause extreme emotional distress. This is because our hair has a deep effect on how we feel about inner and outer selves.

Hair loss is especially difficult for women, as many women judge their sexual appeal and self worth by their outward look. The sudden loss of hair has been reported to make women feel worthless, ugly, and unwanted. While the women often wear wigs in public at home they know their husbands or boyfriends will see the balding and even if the man completely understands this is likely to make the woman feel insecure.

For children who lose their hair due to medication or illness the fate can seem like a death sentence in itself. Other children simply don’t understand the effects of chemotherapy, and if they do, they tend to be afraid of the sick child because they’ve never been exposed to severe illness or death. For many children losing their hair may also mean losing their friends.

Even though it is more acceptable for men to bald, they too have issues about the loss of their hair. Perhaps this is because hair loss is seen as a sign of aging. It doesn’t help much that the balding usually begins about the time a man is entering the middle of his life and is beginning to rethink what he has and has not accomplished. For men, the balding seems to reaffirm the fact that they are old and that their life is coming closer to an end.

Coping with these feelings is different for everyone. Covering the balding will give one more confidence but it may not alleviate all the feelings that the balding originally caused. For this reason further coping mechanisms are often needed.

Women may need therapy. This will help them find self worth in things other than their physical appearance. While many women may not want to see a therapist, it is important that they do what it takes to feel important and appreciated with or without hair.

Children have found peace in the past through friends or family members who have shaved their heads too while the child was bald. Mothers and family friends who shave their heads can donate their hair to be made into wigs for bald children. This proactive decision will make the child feel happy, proactive, less strange, and more accepted.

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