Oxford English Dictionary definition of alopecia:
Partial or total loss of hair from the head or other part of the body; baldness; an instance of this. Also (in later use frequently with distinguishing English or scientific Latin word): any of various disorders or diseases resulting in this; (in early use) spec. †a form of leprosy (obsolete).
I don’t have leprosy.
Okay, here it goes:
I have been struggling with alopecia areata since I was in Grade One. Back then, my bald spot was at the back of my head, at the end of my part, and I couldn’t see it. I believed that everyone’s scalp gets a little rounder towards their crown, and despite my mother insisting otherwise, I didn’t think there was anything wrong. I was also missing hair where my hairline should have met my neck. This again, I couldn’t see, so it didn’t really bother me.
I don’t remember much from that time, but I think my mum had to put ointment on these spots, which bothered me much more than the hair loss itself. Eventually the hair grew back, and I never thought about alopecia again…
UNTIL… high school, I think. I remember my mum mentioning that when I put my hair in a high pony (my favourite everyday hairstyle at that time) that my hairline at the back of my head was weird. She suggested that my alopecia might be creeping back, but I shrugged it off. It was small enough that only my mother seemed to notice, and that woman notices every little detail so I wasn’t worried.
Eventually my Bobie (pronounced like “Bubbie,” but no one understands the reason behind her chosen spelling) noticed too, but my mother is her daughter, and the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. People who think my mum is detail-oriented have clearly never met my Bobie Rickey, so again I didn’t worry.
Then my dad noticed a small nickel-sized spot situated close to the top of my head. This was concerning. My father is a very smart man and observant in his own way, but him noticing a small bald spot on my scalp meant the world was noticing a small bald spot on my scalp.
Luckily, I had a way of dealing with my problems: ignoring them. If you haven’t tried it before, it’s a life-changer. If you think about it, that phrase does not always have to mean something positive.
My alopecia was easy enough to hide. Almost nobody pointed it out. Even my closest friends from high school had no idea that I was dealing with it. I remember one day casually mentioning it to one of my best friends at the time, and she had no clue what I was talking about. I showed her the spot a couple months later, as well as my boobs just for fun, and she was shocked… at the alopecia I mean. She knew I had boobs; from what I’m told, I’m not very good at hiding them.
It’s hard to remember all the details. There were ointments, creams, etc… I was never good about any of it. In my memory, it’s a kind of chicken-or-the-egg thing. I don’t know if I was applying them and got frustrated when I didn’t see results, or if I stopped using them because I just really hated it. Wait, how is that the chicken-or-the-egg thing?
Whatever. Either way, I kept losing my hair, to the point where I was really struggling to cover it up. I got an appointment with a dermatologist, and was put on pills to help with hair growth. Along with these pills, a new treatment appeared: steroid injections. To me, steroids are just something that Chris Colabello did in 2016, which really ruined his dog’s Instagram career as the unofficial Blue Jays mascot (a very common and timely reference), but apparently steroids can also encourage hair regrowth. Well guess how these steroids were injected. Did you say needles? Yup, it was needles. I got poked in my head with a needle twenty to thirty times a session, one session every three to six weeks. After a few months, I still didn’t see much change.
In the spring of 2023, I was on a road trip with Maeve, a friend whose name I mention so frequently it kind of seems like I made her up to hide the fact I have no friends. It was then, in a Target in Corning, New York, that I realized how much I was struggling to hide my bald spots, and so two crochet bandanas were purchased right away.
The bandanas were fine for a bit. I really didn’t love them. It was rarely a style I felt comfortable wearing. After Maeve and I returned from our road trip (where we definitely went to a cool person place and not Colonial Williamsburg), I started an internship at an agency for behind-the-scenes talent. This meant going into an office environment everyday, so the bandanas had to look somewhat professional, which they really couldn’t by design.
Eventually, I made the decision that it was time to get a wig. Then I had to convince my mum of this decision because I didn’t have the financial means to buy myself a good-quality wig. She agreed, and on the way home from one of my head-stabbing sessions, we went to a boutique. I tried on a bunch of options, was strong-willed when they tried to convince me to get bangs, and learned that I have a small forehead. In the end, a wig was purchased.
I couldn’t bring it home right away because they had to tailor it to my head or something, so I ended up getting it a few days before my 20th birthday. I took off work that morning to go pick it up. The people there styled it for me, and made sure that it fit me perfectly. They taught me how to put it on and sent me on my way. Driving home, I could feel it slipping around. Pulling into my driveway, the wig had ended up so far past my hairline. I started to cry, and that energy kind of continued for the rest of the day. I didn’t end up going to work, but it’s not like they were paying me, anyway.
I got used to the wig eventually… more or less. There are still good days and bad days. Sometimes I put it on and I know that there couldn’t be a sudden gust of wind strong enough to blow it off my head. Sometimes I put it on and seemingly no matter what I do, it doesn’t look natural.
The emotional part of this journey feels separate, though. Accepting that I was losing my hair was really difficult, and took well over a decade. I kept thinking that this couldn’t be happening to me. It seemed to me that I was only meant to have small struggles in life, nothing big or interesting. Learning disabilities? Sure. Body image struggles? Bring it on. Spending problem? Yeah, why not?
I knew that losing my hair was not a big deal in a wider sense. The world would keep on turning, and better people would face more important problems. But as a girl, like Fleabag said, “hair is everything!”
Ever since I decided I hated my bangs at three-years-old, my hair has been a huge part of my identity. I always wanted it to be long and straight, although it frequently seemed to be the opposite. I brushed, straightened, braided, and dyed my hair. It was the most important part of how I presented myself to the world. If a hairdresser cut it too short, I’d cry for weeks. I never wanted even a trim, but my mother would make me cut off the dead ends.
I remember once in middle school, a former student came into my class to visit my teacher. It was a small class of eight people, so the teacher introduced each student one-by-one counterclockwise. She’d say, “this is so-and-so and he really enjoys Lego,” or, “this is so-and-so and she dances four days a week.” When she got to me, she said, “This is Zoey. I don’t know how to describe her, but she has nice hair.” Though twelve-year-old me was slightly offended by this teacher’s reductive description of me as a person even though we knew each other quite well, I was still very flattered that she recognized that I did have lovely hair, and it was a big part of who I was.
The strange thing was, though: losing my hair felt easy in comparison to starting to wear a wig. I wear someone else’s hair on my head. They grew it, and now I’m parading around in it. My two major issues are: one, wearing a wig makes me feel like a serial killer wearing their victim's skin; and two, I feel like I’m pretending to be something I’m not. You see, despite my depression, anxiety, and self-criticism, I actually really like myself. Not all the time, but for the vast majority. Even when I’m at my most depressed, I can usually recognize that though I’m upset, at least I’m pretty funny and a good friend. It took me a long time to feel this way about myself, so ever since I gained that confidence, I’ve wanted to present myself to the world as honestly as possible. I’m not one to photoshop my face or suck it in. I’m not one to change my personality to gain the approval of others. I’m not one to hide how I feel. Truthfully, these aren’t hard rules, but I do my best to follow them. So to me, wearing a wig felt like the complete opposite of that. I was presenting a false self to the world, and frankly I feel really uncomfortable about that.
There’s nothing wrong with wearing a wig, and there’s nothing wrong with not wanting to announce it to the world. My insecurities lie more with feeling like I’m hiding part of myself. Though I wish it wasn’t, my alopecia is part of me, so I’m doing my best to accept that.
Shaving my head was something I never thought I would do. My hair has been my security blanket my whole life, and so getting rid of that, no matter how ineffective it was, was hard. The first cut was the most difficult, but all the subsequent cuts felt freeing. No more uncomfortable ponytails, no more tension headaches, no more buns to go under my wig and make my head look like there was a different, smaller head underneath all the hair. A week later, I am beginning to get comfortable with this new style. I feel like I can experiment with new makeup looks incorporating my alopecia, I can start wearing drastically different wigs everyday (or I could if I had the money), and I can relate a bit more to Britney Spears in 2007.
I won’t lie and say that my alopecia is a blessing. It’s made me jealous of other people’s scalps, and that’s objectively weird. I still wake up hating it, and go to bed wishing I could just have normal hair. In the end, though, no tears were shed over it (at least recently). I think I’m coming close to completely accepting it. I no longer take medication for it, I don’t get head shots anymore, nor do I use any pseudoscience hair growth gummy bears. My alopecia only affects my appearance, and luckily, that’s one of the least important things about me.