Curiousity. Worry. Confusion. The sensation of these three words remains branded to the back of my balding skull. The once intense pain of the scalding rod has numbed to a dull throb now, but the memory will always lurk.

It was only a small marking, yet in my thirteen years of detail-oriented life, I had never noticed it. But I didn’t ever have a reason to worry about anything my entire life, so why would I need to worry then? My reflection bounced back from the mirror, only centimeters away from the tip of my nose, and I observed the spectacle, pulling my parted hair back tightly with one hand and tracing the circle with the other. At only a few millimeters in diameter, the hairless patch in the middle of my head was barely distinguishable, yet it stood out to me more than a stain on a bleach-white shirt. After a few minutes of curious inspection, I raced down the newly carpeted stairs to the kitchen, where my mom stood over a sink full of dishes. She was dumbfounded at my discovery. My curiosity was swiftly replaced by confusion, anxiety and dread as I watched my mother's expression sink.

We visited many different doctors after that. The first dermatologist was the one to deliver the heartbreaking news. I remember my mother dragging my dismantled soul home, leaving a slimy trail of tears behind her. That was the first night I cried in the arms of my little brother. It was the first night in a long string of nights that I would ball over something as insubstantial as permanent hair-loss.

Within the years that followed, I found myself travelling through each day with a dark shadow of fear on my shoulders. Each morning I would awaken to a blanket of thin, lifeless, brown strands over my pillow. My receding hairline was more difficult to disguise with each stroke of the brush, which was slowly collecting my treasured hair in its bristles. By the winter of my seventh grade year, the back of my head was naked to the world, and the large piece of my skull that was missing hair seemed to birth smaller patches, scattered across my crown and behind my ears. No one would see my errors though; I was determined to keep my secret from the world.

School was no longer a safe place for my innocent, cracking self-esteem. I tried many tactics to disguise my head from my immature peers. Thick headbands were my best friend, for I could conceal large sections of skin with them. But what girl wants to wear her hair up everyday? In her sympathy, my mom took me to search for wigs. After a few hours worth of searching and another good cry, we ended up purchasing a set of long hair extensions. Of course, they were pointless, I had no hair to attach the metal clips to, but they were a small bit of girliness I could bring home with me. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough for my mental reassurance. As I sat through classes at school, my fingers would travel to the back of my head, where bobby pins were securing sections of hair at awkward angles. I was convinced that any eyes glued to me were in disgust.
His stare was warm on the back of my neck, while my stare was frozen on the grammar worksheet in front of me. The tips of my fingers burned as I tightened them on the pencil. Our desks were by the open window on the far side of the white-walled classroom, but anxiety burned in my stomach, causing sweat to drip through the cold air. Then, after a painful moment of silence, the socially awkward boy behind me announced it. “Ha! Rachel has a bald spot on the back of her head!” he mocked, using his fingers to point out the oddity. My class all turned to look at me. The heated anxiety that was in my stomach now rose to the back of my throat, my vision clouding over. In the moment, I could feel the wall that I had worked so feverishly to build up -the wall that was concealing my ugly- crumble into nothing but a pile of embarrassment. The secret that I had hidden for the entire wasn’t ready to come out of the closet though, so I fired back at my class with a lie. “Oh, I have had this patch for my entire life,” I said. “You haven’t noticed it before?” My class shook their heads nonchalantly, and as kids seem to do so easily, they moved on with their work.

After that moment, my mentality toward the autoimmune disease that was eating away at my self esteem sank deeper into despair. Apparently, my hair didn’t want to exist on a sad, anxious girl’s head, because it began falling out quicker. The phenomena heightened my emotions, and my emotions flared up the disease. It became a vicious tornado, cycling out of control.

My final half of junior high was a desert. I crawled along rough rock in search of plush, green turf, but all I ever found were cactuses and carcasses. The sun-dried sand rubbed my finger tips raw as I pulled myself along the earth, through the wind that blew into my lungs. Almost immediately, I would hyperventilate, only gagging down more hopelessness with each panicked breath. And with each panicked breath, I could feel my hair burning away in the sun, its rays casting a selfish fire on my unprotected skull. Every once in awhile, other small, desert animals would scurry past. I found myself stopping to stare needily at the creatures as they played their games, chirping and chattering amongst each other. I wanted them to save me. I wanted them to caress my face and tickle my toes and make the pain go away. I wanted to smile again with them. Slowly, my arm would reach forward to try to feel their happiness, but in an instant they would rush off. Then, just as it was each time, I would retreat back into myself, laying in the desert, with nothing to survive on but a pool of tears.
“I have this thing called Alopecia Areata. It’s an autoimmune disease.”

“Oh really?” She seemed quite stunned at the notion that there was a diseased girl at her school. “That interesting. What is it?”
I caught myself holding my breath. Yes, this fourteen year old blonde sitting next to me was not a friend, but she was still going to hear my head crack; my emotion would spill out like golden yolk from an egg. There was a thud as my head leaned back against the chalky, white brick of the gymnasium wall. Nervously, my fingers moved back and forth against the painted wood, almost pacing. “My hair falls out. It isn’t really a big deal.” The phrase was foreign and dry. Never had I spoken of the secret to anyone outside of my household. “It isn’t like I’m dying or anything.”

“Yeah, that is definitely good,” was her one valid reply. We left it at that, not out of ignorance for the maudlin tale, but because the next round of dodgeball was about to begin. Incredibly, it was the first game of dodgeball I had won in years.


I got to spend my first nine months of high school with a thick mass of curly hair. Well, it was enough hair to cover the imperfections; I wore my hair down for the first time since sixth grade. What had been buried deep within my heart during the first two years of the diagnoses was finally recovered when my hair came back. No longer would I curl up timidly in the corner and hide from my peers. Confidence radiated from my body like beams of light from the sun. Classmates would stop me in the halls to talk to me and ask me questions again, not because I was normal looking, but because I was cheery and approachable. For awhile, the stabbing anxiety disappeared from my mind, convincing me that it had been only a nightmare.

Then I fell back into a deep sleep, and the nightmare returned to poison my dreams.
But this time, my brain was stocked with a full artillery to battle the monsters.

Three long years, I had fought the pain alone, only existing in isolation. Not once had it occurred to me that I would survive. My sophomore was the year I started down the other side of the mountain, and I was comfortable bringing a clan of supporters with me. Coming out to one person jump started a chain reaction of confessions, and soon, I was comfortable be open about my disease to anyone who wanted to know. Of course, not many people were that interested in sitting through a full-throttle therapy session with me. Without an audience to rant to, my only option was to desperately try to hold in my emotions. Sometimes, I wanted nothing more than to dig my nails into my forehead until my blood washed away the stress of hair-loss. While I was coming to accept my new self, I craved acceptance from someone else. People didn’t seem to care about my hair. But I was beginning to wish they did.

When I was younger, my interpretation of what a boyfriend met was skewed by movie and television relationships. Boys are for hugging and going to dinner. I didn’t realize what it meant to love someone and to be loved by someone. Love, or not just love, was precisely what my naive self seemed to need.

The first months we were together were spattered with giggles and flirtatious eye-bats, but as our relationship gained complexity, the light blanket of crushes that had been gently covering us, deepened into a tightly woven cocoon in which our love grew fervently. As I was completely consumed in his greatness, he took it upon himself to protect my self esteem. Graciously, he disregarded my flaws. He would run his fingers through my hair so effortlessly, the feeling sent chills of long forgotten happiness through my body. When I was caught in a storm of emotions, he swept in and cradled my weak, distraught body. The boy I thought I would like became the man who rescued me.

Knowing there was a separate person willing to support me through my journey, I was able to relax and return the insane and bubbly girl I used to be. Large leaps were taken in my junior year. I completely opened myself up to my classmates, teachers, relatives, and friends. No longer would I burn up mounds of energy trying to conceal the balding spots, that were slowly growing larger and larger each day. Sure, they would look when I told them. Some were brave enough to even ask when they noticed, but my confidence was built up high, plastered in support beams, and my walls were torn down. My years of perpetual sadness seemed to be coming to an end, and so far they have. There are times still when I wish to hide from the world, so I begin digging a pit once again. But then a loving hand will wave in front of me, protective arms will encompass me, and I will pull away from the superficial anxiety.

Because I am stronger than my disease.