No one dies from hair loss, do they?
"Two years ago, over a course of about eight months, I lost all my hair," a seventeen-year-old wrote to me. "I was put on antidepressants and tried to commit suicide three times. I hated the way I looked. I hated the way others felt bad for me."
Every day in America, 30 million women—one out of every four—are coping with hair loss, and, for the most part, they are suffering like this young woman, alone and in silence.
Consider these figures from the American Academy of Dermatology (AAD): For every five men with hereditary hair loss, there are three women who are also losing their hair. But women’s hair loss, the organization says, "remains a‘taboo’ subject for the media, the public and patients," and worse, the medical profession often does not take it seriously.
[Excerpted from Breaking the Silence on Women's Hair Loss by Candace Hoffmann]
I didn't start out with the idea of becoming the poster child for women's hair loss, and hopefully, I still won't be. But I did set out to write a book -- Breaking the Silence on Women's Hair Loss -- to help the millions of women like me who are dealing with hair loss or frank baldness.
If that means I become the poster child for a subject that is still pretty much closeted then so be it.
I want to know what you would like to see in this Web site. If you've already read my book, then you understand that my mission is to give women's hair loss a voice.
Without a voice, we cannot be heard, if we are not heard, we cannot hope that a solutions and an eventual cure will be found.
If you are experiencing hair loss, how do you feel about it?
Many of the women who wrote to me felt ashamed. Some like the young women above, teetered on the brink of suicide over it. Others felt unfeminine, ugly, or scared.
While hair loss is not life threatening the way heart disease or cancer is, it is life altering.
Some women, especially young women, asked me at what point when dating should they reveal they are wearing a wig? Others were juggling the option of taking drugs that help their hair loss with getting pregnant, because the drugs would harm the fetus.
Hair, what's a woman without it?
Some brave souls lose their hair to disease, and society sees them as heroic for appearing in the open with bald heads, visible, albeit silent testimony to their fight with cancer.
But what of the woman who is just losing her hair?
Just losing her hair...
... Just losing her identity....
... Just losing her "womanliness."
Let's face it. In a society that wants us to look forever young, forever thin, forever perfect, going bald doesn't really fit the rubric, does it?
So let's start a dialogue.
Let's break the silence.
We're losing our hair and don't want to be silent about it anymore.
Breaking the Silence on Women's Hair Loss is just the beginning and I hope you will read my book.
It is available on www.Amazon.com and most other Web sites that sell books such as www.Barnesandnoble.com or you can order it from your local bookstore.
Break the silence!!
Peace,
--Candace Hoffmann
