Hair Loss and the Pieces of Ourselves We Find

This week, I started shedding again. Not metaphorically, but physically—my hair. It’s the fifth serious round of hair loss since I got sick with Long COVID. For most of this year, I had a glimmer of hope. My hair was growing back. It was finally getting long again, like it used to be. I almost felt like me again—just for a moment.

But now, it’s falling out in clumps. Again.

Long COVID has been a thief, robbing me of so many pieces of what I thought made me “me.” My stamina. My energy. My ability to plan a day without weighing every possible consequence. And yes, even my hair. These things feel small until they don’t. Until they’re gone. Until you’re looking in the mirror and wondering who you are without them.

Hair isn’t just hair

For me, hair has been a connection to the version of myself that existed before this illness took root. When I was healthy, my long hair was a piece of my identity. It flowed behind me when I danced, tangled in the wind when I stood on the shore, and framed my face in ways that made me feel whole. Regrowing it was more than just vanity—it was a step toward reclaiming that version of myself.

Watching it fall out again feels like losing more than strands of keratin. It’s losing the sense of progress, the belief that I was on my way back to a life that felt recognizable. It’s mourning, over and over, for something I didn’t realize I’d lose when this all began.

There are so many aspects of living with Long COVID that make me feel like I’m not me anymore. But I’m learning to ask: who am I now? Without the things I used to take for granted, what’s left? And maybe more importantly—who do I want to be?

Long COVID has taken, but it has also forced me to look deeper. Beneath the surface, beneath the hair, beneath the energy and the plans I can no longer make. It’s made me sit with the pieces of myself that remain when everything else is stripped away. And I’m finding that those pieces are resilient. They’re brave. They’re enough.

If you’re reading this and you know what it’s like to lose parts of yourself to chronic illness or disability, I want you to know—you are still you. Even when it doesn’t feel like it. Even when you’re unrecognizable to yourself in the mirror. You are enough.

• Topics:
• Long Covid