In October of last year, my hair suddenly began to shed. My skin felt numb, and I could literally pluck hairs out of my scalp like blades of grass. Then, in November, I was told I had Alopecia universalis, a rare disorder in which the immune system mysteriously attacks the body’s hair follicles. By early January, I had lost all my body hair completely – eyebrows, eyelashes, everything. Friends stopped recognising me, and every morning when I looked in the mirror, I didn’t either. It was terrifying, although, in retrospect, it did give me a glimpse into how what’s-his-face (what is his face called?) must have felt like in that show Quantum Leap.

At age 34, I felt trapped and was at breaking point with my job, family and career, but had held all that frustration in. The whole experience reminded me of a line from Woody Allen’s Manhattan: “I don’t get angry. I have a tendency to internalise. That’s one of the problems I have. I grow a tumour instead.” Losing my hair had hit me hard, but it wasn’t life threatening. And I also knew I didn’t want to think about my appearance any more. It was exhausting. I had to be ruthless and make serious changes to my life if I wanted to get better. My journey of self-discovery, was about to begin. (Please note: you are allowed to vomit here before we continue.)

So, I cut myself off from my family, the major cause of my anxiety. Whoever claimed “blood is thicker than water” probably didn’t have my family in mind. If they did, I think they’d say something like: “Water is nice and good: choose water.”

I also quit my job as a radio comedy producer – a job I wound up in after working as an actor and a standup. People would often exclaim, “Wow, that’s the dream job”, and my heart would always sink. I was living someone else’s dream. In fact, during this whole ordeal, I cried only once. Two weeks after my diagnosis, I collapsed on my bed and sobbed uncontrollably. Since the age of 12, all I ever wanted was to be an actor, but after this happened, I thought: “That’s it. It’s over. Who is gonna cast me? It’s over.” My father used to mock me for being good at theatre. I would win acting awards, and he would laugh. He had killed my confidence once as a kid, and right when I was about to pursue acting wholeheartedly a second time, it got killed again. And I couldn’t take it. It was too hard.

So, with no job, hope or hair, off I flew to Peru, for an eight-day ayahuasca retreat. “My life has been leading to this …” I thought, like an imbecile. Eight days, four ceremonies, and many hours of vomiting and pooping later, and I hadn’t experienced a thing. Thanks, ancient plant medicine! So I walked away with the sage knowledge that I should never rely on drugs to solve my problems. A lesson that only cost me a smooth £1,850. WORTH IT! (Sobs.)

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Arnab Chanda on his way to Machu Picchu. Photograph: Arnab Chanda

But I did other things, too. I backpacked around South America and discovered people treated me exactly the same as before (could it be that people were actually kinder to me than I was to myself?). I went to eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (EDMR) therapy and broke down for the first time over a fairly traumatic childhood (maybe I was capable of actual human emotion). I finally got a bike in London, which still cheers me up, I began to meditate (I think I’m doing it right, but who the hell knows?), and started taking immunosuppressants, which gave my body a chance to grow hair again.

One month ago, my eyebrows did grow back. Some friends high-fived me as if I had discovered the human genome (at least, I imagine that guy got high-fived a lot). But I was wary of celebrating. I knew they could go again. The whole experience had forced me to re-think self-worth and where to get it from. Before my dad passed away in 2012, shortly after having a stroke, I remember visiting him in India, him standing in front of his bookshelf full of medical journals, and saying: “I think a doctor lives here.” He had studied medicine since he was 18, yet had now completely forgotten what he had done his entire life.

That moment stayed with me. I realised that as long as you have your mind, you should really try to use it. Write crap songs. Write crap jokes. Do crap acting. It doesn’t matter. The scary thing is that our bodies do not serve us, but you don’t need hair or legs or sight or hearing to create. Life is really, really hard, and it only gets harder, but I think the trick is to somehow remain positive without turning into a delusional Californian psychopath. I still haven’t spoken with my family, although I’m back in therapy trying to figure out how to begin a new relationship with them, but I am excited to finally pursue that childhood dream of being a struggling actor/director/writer full-time. I’d like to think this has helped prepare me for that.

I’ll tell you what though. I really wish that goddamn ayahuasca had worked. God, I miss that £1,850.

September is Alopecia Awareness Month .