not shaking the grass

Alec I've been wanting to anon you since you posted that pic of you and your dog (cute btw!!). As a female undergoing treatment I'm finding it impossible to go outside looking how I do. Maybe you can't relate as your being a male but for me it helps seeing you post pics because it's encouraging. My family always tells me to stop being miserable about hair and looks and concentrate on other things. How do you get to where you feel good enough about yourself?

Anonymous

Oh, I can relate. I can relate down to the smallest unit of relatability, except in that you, as a female, have it much harder than I have it, you’re right about that.

Once as a kid in treatment I lost my mind and one night in a surge of furious adrenaline I punched and kicked holes along my bedroom wall, ran to the bathroom mirror and literally yanked what was left of my hair out of my scalp while bawling uncontrollably. I just absolutely lost it.

Most assume that one who’s been so sick couldn’t possibly be distraught over his/her appearance. He/she should be too thrilled just to be alive to worry about such relatively trivial things, right? Well, it doesn’t quite work that way. Dramatic hair loss and/or weight loss after illness — they change how you feel about yourself and how you relate to the world outside. It screws up your sense of identity in a big way, especially if you’re very young.

Don’t let anyone make you feel bad for feeling bad. Don’t let anyone get to you when they say “It’s just hair!” and toss that kind of hollow talk out the window just as soon as you hear it. Don’t let anyone guilt or shame you, including yourself.

Instead, force yourself to leave your house or apartment, force yourself to hold your head and eyes up and project your voice when you speak. How you feel about and deal with your personal battles is no one else’s business but yours unless expressly invited, and be sure to invite the right people in.

Don’t invite people in who would enable your self-pity, but don’t invite people in who would negate your battles either.

There’s always someone who has it worse than you have it, but that doesn’t mean you’re not entitled to feel like shit every now and then. We’re not heroes here, we’re human goddamned beings and we’re doing our best. Period and finis.

Just don’t let yourself sink to where you quit interacting with the world altogether or you’ll get very comfortable very quickly with self-isolation, believe me, and that won’t do. Sometimes you have to force the issue and just go outside, whether you want to or not; make it a habit, and in time you’ll start feeling it within yourself how relatively trivial it is. Until then, take care not to sink too far by pulling yourself in the other direction with the assistance of the right people.

You can do it.

Friday December 7th