Confidence and Success > How to Build Confidence

I lost all my self confidence

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karmapolice:
Hello, I am new here. I found a video on youtube which brought me here. I hope that this is the right thread. Please help me. I know it's a long text but I don't know what to do.

I am getting bald since I was 16 (I am now 29) and people can see it now very clear, in fact since 4 years it is very obvious. It's mostly on the top of my head from front to back. I really feel so bad about it, my self esteem went totally down and I can't be happy anymore.

In my youth I was a happy person, enjoyed life, could talk and laugh with girls and I thought that I can survive in this world, that I am strong and nobody could beat me. I was really self confident and I found my self attractive. And many girls found me attractive. I had never problems to meet a girl, to speak to hear, to make hear laugh and I felt great. When I started to go bald and it was not so visible in the beginning, I could hide it and had still most of my self esteem and self confidence. But I knew that I will later suffer which I do. I really feel that it's all over.

I can't even watch girls or women any longer in the eyes. When I am on my way to the university in the train or bus, I can't sit next to or in front of a girl. I feel like I am so ugly that I can't expect her to bear my look. I can't talk to them because I feel not worthy because of my lost hair. I really miss the days when I had a girl friend, had a fulfilled sex life, could joke with for example the sales girl or the person next to me in the bus. But no longer. It's like I don't have the right to talk to beautiful persons any longer because I don't belong to their world. My last relationship is 3 years ago. In the last 3 years I had no sex. I don't even want to go to prostitutes because I feel it's an impertinence for them to sleep with such a person with hair loss. It will probably sound crazy for you and when I was 16,17 I would have laughed if somebody told me that I would become the person I am today. It's so sad.

I became really depressive because of it, I feel lonely but I don't know what to do against it. I feel that every girl or woman likes full hair on a man's head, they want to go with their fingers through their hair and not through the "bird's nest" on my head. Please don't think that I am superficial. I never cared about the look of a person but always their character and behaving. I would never judge somebody because of their look. Never! But I feel like we are living in such a world, in such a society where beautiful people have better chances in life. I really would like that hair loss matters nothing to anybody but I feel that it's not the case. 2 years ago I didn't wear any caps and I had the feeling that everybody looks on my hair, my head and can see it.

It went so far that I stared the people all the time in the eyes, just waiting that their pupils go up. I never could spot them how they watch at my hair but I continued to think that they would look when I am not watching them in the eyes. I'm aware too that women like self confident men but I don't have it any more. I go through the streets with my head down, I wear now caps all the time, no matter if it's summer or winter because I am so embarressed by the "thing on my head".

I just hide it all the time. It's the only way for me to go out of my house. Otherwise I would be all the time at home. It's so embarrassing to write about it, I don't know if I had the strength and courage to tell somebody this face to face. Often I think maybe it's better that I never meet somebody again and have a family because then my bad genes would die off with me.

A hair transplantation would never be a solution for me. I feel it's like cheating on mother nature. I would fear that people could see it and it's embarrassing that my friends and family would know that I suffer so much that I had to do this. This would never be an option for me.

My ex-girlfriend saw that I was going bald and said to me that I should be lucky to have her because when I were bald no girl would want me because bald men are ugly. One of my friends told me once when I wanted to date a girl that I should always keep my head up so that she wouldn't see my bald spots. Otherwise this could scare her. Another friend told me that almost no girl likes bald men, only if they are rich like Bruce Willis.

It's so frustrating that this one thing has to ruin my whole life.  I really don't know how to get my self esteem, my self confidence back and how accept it. How can I "forget" this problem and say to the world "**** off if you have a problem with my hair loss". How can you be so confident with a shaved head? What are your secrets? I would be really thankfull if anybody could write how to become confident with the situation. Thank you.

Sorry if there are spelling or grammatic errors. I had English in school but I mostly speak German.

Mike E. P.:
Karma police-
I was a lot like you.  When I was in my teens, girls thought my best feature was my hair.  I had a lot of blond, Zak Efron-like hair.  I started to recede at 17 and for many years I was extremely depressed about losing my hair – it was all I could think about some times.  It was torture.

Like you I could disguise it for a while, but eventually I would drive myself crazy wondering if people could tell.  And like you, I had a really hard time looking people in the eye.  I especially had a hard time looking at my girlfriend – I don’t know why.  I think I felt like I wasn’t worthy or if I looked her in the eye I would see some sort of truth or she would.  I don’t know, it was just crazy.

You said that you would not judge a person by their looks and that you are not superficial.  I have found that most people are like you and look beyond looks.  That girlfriend you had was not worthy of you.  And it is not true that most women find bald men unattractive.  In my experience, most women want to find a man that is kind and good and who treats them with respect.
I am now 50 years old.  By about 35, I had had enough of the so consuming bullsh_t of worrying about my hair. I had a big bald spot in the back and had receded a lot and was very thin in the front. I didn’t like the way I looked and so I buzzed it extremely short(we called it a crew cut then).  Most of my friends had to take time to get used to it, but it was the best thing I ever did.  I felt better and didn’t have to worry about arranging my hair to look like I had more.  As the years have passed, I have lost more and more hair, but I kept cutting my hair shorter and shorter. Now I am almost always completely shaven or close.  I like the way I look and so does almost everyone.

Everyone says, “Why didn’t I do this sooner?” I say the same thing.  When I shaved my head and accepted myself, I gained more confidence, liked myself again, and found that no one really cared about my hair.  When you have that confidence, making friends and finding love is not an issue.
I waited way too long to do something, but in the end, this is no longer an issue for me and this can be you.  I hope you don’t wait as long as I did to accept yourself and find that confidence.

slymyke:
Karmapolice,

Thank you for your honest post.  Going bald is not something any man wants to deal with.  However, many of us have to.  You have come to the right place to get support from other guys like yourself.  

I can only say that my confidence was so much improved when I shaved my head.  If you think about it, your confidence will have to be better with a shaved head than with a balding head.  Shaving is more intentional, so it gives the impression that you are taking control.  The most important person to realize that you are in control is YOU!   Nobody else really cares as much about our balding as we think they do.  A few people may have made some nasty comments to you, but don't let that get you down.  There are always going to be people who tell others mean things.  Even the most handsome men have jealous people telling them things just to make them doubt themselves.  

When you are in control, you will be more confident.  

Marshal S.:
You say you would never judge someone by appearance and you think that is wrong to do.  Do you think you are the only person who believes this is true?  No, most people feel as you do.  So what you are doing is just negative self talk. 

The thing your ex girlfriend said to you was humiliating and meant to make you feel small.  She thought she controlled you with that statement.  You were not lucky to have her though because you could find a much better person than someone who would say this to you.

Razor X:
I think you'll find -- as most of us have -- that being bald is a lot better than baldING.  The constantly changing appearance can be startling and Mother Nature usually makes a sloppy job of it. But once your hair is gone and your look stabilizes, things get a lot easier. Hang in there.

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