by Neil
Any music critic will tell you that music and image go hand in hand. Let’s face it, what would Michael be without his white glove, Cobain without his flannel shirts, or Lady Gaga without her RIDICULOUSLY goofy self-made outfits!
But image is not always about a certain piece of clothing you wear, it’s about your body as a whole. Body image is one aspect of you that derives confidence, and the level of confidence one has affects performance.
As the lead guitarist for the Alternative/Rock band, Redline Addiction, performing is my job and the difference between a good or bad performance determines the whole outcome of my success. So to say that body image plays an important role in my life is a VAST understatement. Body image is something I’ve had to struggle with my whole life and continue to do so today. My story begins early on.
The beginning of the end:
I had just finished the sixth grade where I conquered elementary school with flying colors and was getting ready to start the next chapter of my life in seventh where I would take the middle school world by storm! But a funny thing happened. Little did I know that an itty bitty hormone deficiency would rock my world and would forever alter my course in life. You see, at the ripe age of 11, my hair started thinning causing me to have issues with male pattern baldness as a child. To this day, I haven’t met one other person who had to deal with hair loss at that age. Now add puberty to this equation. I was completely SOL! A little bit of background. I’m an Indian American (that’s dot, not feather). Genetics alone tends to give my people dark features including dark hair and lots of it! Picture this, an 11 year old Indian boy with glasses who is the first to have a mustache and chest hair in his grade and looks like he’s bald. Was this a cruel joke from God?!? Being Hindu and believing in reincarnation, I was sure I was a serial killer in my past life. God: “As punishment, I’m going to take Neil and make him the hairiest bastard possible and just to mess with him; I’m not going to put any on top of his head. HA!”
At first I tried ignoring it hoping no one would notice, but as we all know, kids can be cruel. It started off with class mates sitting behind me noticing my bald spot and announcing it to the rest of the class. From there, it spiraled into a frenzy of old man jokes and constant teasing. Who could blame them…I was a walking bull’s eye. Always being an extrovert, I still had lots of good friends but I started noticing that even they would stare up when they were talking to me like my head and thinning hair was the center of the next great battle between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. I tried ignoring my impairment but the damage was already done. And my complex had already been built.
This filtered on to high school all the way through college where it never got any easier. I became more introverted and less active in social activities because of my hair. My passion for music and learning the guitar was my only outlet and I spent countless hours practicing in my room away from the public eye and scrutiny. My parents tried taking me to several doctors as a child to help explain why this had happened to me at such a young age but to no avail. It wasn’t until later in life that I discovered that a hormone deficiency causes my hair follicles to be spread further apart than the average human causing my hair to look thin.
The ability to wear hats was my only savior but this self image complex I had built constantly haunted me… to the point where it controlled my actions. I wouldn’t leave the house without a hat and if I misplaced or lost it, I wouldn’t go out at all. My hats were my safety blanket and I felt lost without one. Dates and formal occasions were awkward for me as I constantly worried about what a girl would think…even getting intimate was tough as I was so embarrassed on what they would say if they saw what was underneath my hat.
The change:
A decade and a half later, I had been three years out of college and had a new found look in life. I was exercising regularly and eating healthy. For the first time in my life, I had felt healthier than I had ever been. My girlfriend at the time, who was a hair stylist ironically, urged me to start shaving my head. I was reluctant at first but decided to give it a chance. With the likes of Vin Diesel on the rise, it had become a socially accepted look and people thought it was a natural cut for me. It took me a while to adjust but after a short period of time, I never gave it a second thought and became more and more confident with my looks inside and out.
But life is ever changing and battles just keep on coming.
Enter Adulthood:
It’s a funny thing getting older…it’s like a switch goes off and your body just says “no” to anything you want it to do. For me, that switch went off three weeks ago on my 30th birthday. Simple tasks like lifting up a small box or walking the dogs puts you out of breath. Your stomach starts to hurt in the middle of the night from the diner you stopped by on your way home from the bar. And that drinking tolerance us guys worked so hard building since puberty?!? Forget about it! You’re ready to pass out after a few beers.
The older you get, the more responsibilities you have.
Anyone who knows me will tell you that I’m the self proclaimed “busiest man on the planet.” I have a tendency to take on more than I can handle and am constantly moving from one project to another. Between a full time job, touring in a band, graduate school and personal commitments to family and friends, it’s hard for me to find a balance between commitments to others and find time for my personal well being. I tend to lose focus on other important aspects of my life such as dieting and exercise. In fact, it barely allows for it at all.
This in return has caused another battle with body image in which it’s hard to maintain my ideal weight and health. Being as busy as I am, my options are limited when it comes to cooking healthy meals or providing my body with the proper exercise and dieting it needs. As a result, I have gained weight in the past years and feel excess fatigue when it comes to work and playing shows.
Finding balance:
What I’ve learned in my lifetime is being confident and successful at what you’re working towards takes great discipline and balance. Maintaining that balance is always difficult to do but there is always a way to do so if you work hard enough towards it. I now make it a priority to include exercise and dieting with my other commitments and value it as important as anything else in my life. I have always gone through struggles with body image that affected my confidence and I guarantee there will be more to come. Part of being confident which affects your overall performance is to understand your limitations. It took me a long time to come to terms with my limitations being it not having hair or not being my ideal weight, but I understand them and accept it for what it is. Knowing these limitations, I always strive to the best I can at what I can do instead of worrying about how to change what I can’t. In time, I have come to be comfortable with my body image and now let my confidence be dictated by my performance rather than the other way around.
