When you're in your twenties and you stand in front of a mirror and see a strip of scalp — defined, deliberate-looking, following the hairline from ear to ear — it triggers something beyond concern. It's panic. It's grief. It's the kind of thing you sit with until 2am reading about, already knowing what it is before you find the name, and discovering that knowing the name doesn't make it easier to look at.
She was already off work by then. Long-term sick leave — not a vague burnout, but a body that had genuinely stopped cooperating. The eyes had gone first: burning, chronically dry, corneal erosions bad enough to keep her from screens. She'd noticed they improved when she was off work. That detail mattered, though she wasn't sure how yet. Then the rosacea deepened. Then the hair. Her GP had run bloods. Everything came back within range. She wasn't reassured. She was right not to be.
She'd had blepharitis since childhood. Digestive sensitivity since her teens. A gut that bloated, that reacted, that had always required managing. She'd been on the pill for six years. None of it had seemed connected — until the summer of 2024, when a new high-responsibility role added a pressure that never fully switched off, and her system finally ran out of capacity to absorb it. The symptoms weren't new. They were familiar patterns, finally exceeding the threshold her body had quietly held for years.
She came in not looking for reassurance. She wanted to understand the mechanism — and she wanted her life back. She got both.