#alopecia

Something different for a change, because I have been struggling the past few weeks and it has been consuming all my thoughts. Might delete later :)

I’ve had alopecia since I was four years old. It’s always been a part of my life, I grew up with it. Over the years I learnt how to live with it and it became normal. Accepting that this was me after spending my teenage years worrying that no guy would ever like me, bla bla bla. I am truly fine with not having hair (or so I thought!)

Life has a funny way of reminding you that even things you’ve accepted can still hurt. For as long as I can remember, I’ve always had my eyebrows and eyelashes with the one small exception of losing them all when I was nine years old and my grandpa died. They were never perfect, but they were mine!! They framed my face, made me recognise myself in the mirror and made me feel like myself.

Over the past two weeks, they suddenly started falling out after I was convinced my hair was coming back (I‘m pretty delusional apparently). I didn’t expect how much this would affect me. Every morning I sit down to do my make-up and I just burst into tears before I’ve even finished. One second I’m trying to draw on an eyebrow, and the next I’m crying and have to take a little break to calm down again.

My boyfriend always comforts me. I feel awful that he has to watch me go through this because I know it worries him.

I’m incredibly lucky to have such a wonderful support system. My family, my friends, and especially Ben, have been reminding me every single day that I’m still beautiful, that I’m still cute, that I haven’t really changed and that nobody else would even notice the difference as much as I do.

I want to believe Ben! I‘m sure he really feels this way, and part of me does believe him when he says this.

But another part of me just can‘t. Not because I think he‘s lying to me, but because when I look in the mirror, all I can see is everything that’s different. Ben is looking at me with love, but I’m looking at myself through fear.

The hardest part isn’t even losing the hair itself. It’s looking in the mirror and feeling like I’m looking at somebody else.

People often say that hair doesn’t define you, and I know they mean well. They’re right, in a way. My personality hasn’t changed. The people I love are still here. I’m still the same person I’ve always been.

But when you don’t recognise your own reflection anymore, it’s difficult to believe that.

It feels like a small piece of my identity has disappeared. Like someone erased the face I’ve known for years and replaced it with one that doesn’t quite feel like mine.

I think people often underestimate how deeply appearance is connected to identity. It’s not about vanity. It’s about familiarity. We spend our whole lives looking at the same face in the mirror.

The past couple of months have been difficult health-wise. I’ve gained around 10kg in a surprisingly short amount of time without really changing how I eat, and I haven’t felt like myself for a while now. I’ve been exhausted, worried and constantly wondering if something else is going on.

I finally went to my doctor this week, cried to him about my hair loss and they took blood samples. I’m hoping to hear back on Monday. I almost hope they do find something. Not because I want to be ill, but because at least it would explain why I’ve been feeling so unlike myself lately. If everything comes back completely normal, I honestly don’t know where to go from there.

Alopecia has always been unpredictable, and maybe one day my eyebrows and eyelashes will come back. Maybe they won’t. I might be going crazy!