On Balding and Death

To lose one's hair without losing one's self

Once every six months I convince myself I’m losing my hair, and about once a year I actually decide to do something about it.

I’ll buy Rogaine on Amazon and stare at the box in my bathroom cabinet until it expires because I’m too freaked out to use it.

I’ll try the biotin gummies with saw palmetto being hawked by an influencer with $500 hair extensions. I’ll take the survey on one of those subscription-based websites that also sells sildenafil and Cialis and panic before adding anything to my cart.

I’ll fall down the cosmetic-tourism YouTube rabbit hole of Turkish hair transplant videos as if watching enough of them will restore my hairline to it’s 20 year-old high water mark.

But typically this aesthetic panic only lasts a week or two. I’ll get a haircut and realize that nothing has actually shifted and wait another 6 months to start the cycle again.

This year was different.

This year I finally wen’t full scorched earth— a daily, doctor-prescribed chewable tablet that contains finasteride and minoxidil - the Flintstone vitamin of your midlife crisis.

It’s not going well.

For whatever reason I am a perfect storm of side effects- weekly blinding migraines, swelling in my hands and feet, brain fog, and perhaps the most pronounced - depression and anxiety.

The first few weeks I assumed it was just an adjustment period, but the headaches are increasing in their intensity and frequency, and I will likely be quitting this intervention after I talk to my doctor about it (for some reason I feel it’s important to disclose that my doctor is bald).

Of course, one is forced to ask themselves what is worse:

The dog shit mental health from losing your hair or the dog shit mental health from trying to fix it?

I don’t think the aesthetic of being bald is a bad one - The Rock has been bald for most of his career and it never once stopped someone from seeing one of his movies. But I also don’t think that most men understand the root of the dread that comes from losing their hair - it is irrefutable proof that we are dying.

And it is likely the first time we have been confronted with our own mortality in such stark and unsympathetic terms - the version of you with hair is dead, and the one that is left is closer to death than the one before. Truthfully, there is little room for the weight of such grief in modern masculinity (“Just shave your head or wear a hat and get over it, etc”).

Of course there is the irony that this is exactly the pressure and anxiety that is thrust upon woman everyday. That I have made it to the ripe age of 42 and finally have to shell out some money and discomfort to uphold the aesthetic standards of our society (ironically, standards largely set by men). That my wife has had to play this game since she was 14 and now has the warmth and patience with me that men likely have never had with her.

While I don’t love that it’s happening (while I’m not even really sure that it’s happening?) I am grateful for the perspective it has provided me.