My family does not have a history of early baldness. My father's hair was full until middle age, and my grandfather on my mothers' side had a decent amount of hair while living well into his 90's! I am a variation in my genetic trend.

I was given warning. When I was 20, I spent hard-earned finance internship money not on a holiday or a phone but to get a DNA test with 23andme, which had been relentlessly advertised on podcasts I listened to during through the internship.

The experience was surprisingly scary. Weeks after you send them your saliva in their provided kit, you receive an email telling you your tests are ready. Upon logging in, you receive several warnings that the information you're about to be presented with cannot be un-read. The information they give you might significantly alter how you perceive your life.

Although they provide a report on things such as your eye colour, capacity to taste certain bitter foods and whether you're genetically predisposed to being a sprinter or endurance athlete, they also test for whether you carry the genes associated with serious genetic disorders. These include sickle cell anaemia, cystic fibrosis, genes associated with dementia and so on. To my knowledge, no-one on either side of my family had ever had their genes tested.

Thankfully, my genes did great. I had zero active or recessive genes associated with any disorders or diseases that were tested.

However, one of the cosmetic tests flagged up that I had the male pattern baldness gene. At the time, I didn't really worry about it. Some research confirmed that lots of men had this (presumably men in my wider family), and often it only expressed itself later in life.

Ha.

When I saw the process accelerating, I sought out a doctor - not only because I was concerned for its own sake, but it may have been a symptom of something more serious. The doctor told me it was most likely simple male pattern baldness. Further, he said the acceleration was most likely due to stress. He told me I should focus on avoiding stress and getting 8 hours or more sleep every night. At the time, I was working in a management consultancy job and had been posted in Porstmouth. I was struggling to maintain a medium distance relationship, and I was generally quite lonely. I was stressed and sleep deprived. Not by choice, and it was difficult to take the doctor's advice and avoid that situation.

Even as my work changed for the better, the next 12 months brought on all kinds of new stress in my personal and professional life. I was sad, and as I've written before, I sought out help. While I improved emotionally, my head didn't reflect it.