Submitted by Siarrah – You can read more about Siarrah’s journey with Alopecia Areata here.
My Alopecia journey in the last year:
Through the AAAF sponsorship program I set myself a goal to create awareness within my netball community.
I forget that I’m wearing a bandana; I forget that others might wonder why.
With the sponsorship program I found myself committed to creating awareness.
Continue reading “A letter to my alopecia family”
Hi, my name is Oscar and I am 13 years old. I’m the eldest and I have a brother and sister. I have Alopecia Universalis. I developed this when I was nearly 8 years old. Before that I had thick, curly auburn hair. I had never lost any patches of hair before. I noticed a patch of skin on my scalp on the weekend and then it just all fell out! In one week I had no hair left on my head. I was in year 2 so I don’t remember a lot about it. I do remember that I was dancing in a concert, so we went to the hairdresser and got the patches that were left shaved into a Mohawk, which was cool and everyone at school loved it. But that fell out pretty quickly too. Then my eyebrows and eyelashes went too, after a few more weeks. It has not grown back, but occasionally it has tried to, sprouting some bits, sometimes I have eyelashes but mostly not.
Growing up in today’s society, hair is such a massive part of a girl, and to me and my families horror, I lost it all when I was only 7 years old. I’m forever thankful it was only my hair Alopecia effected, although, at the time, it was the worst thing to ever happen to me. How was I supposed to grow my self-confidence when every time I looked in the mirror I hated what I saw? Or every time I went to school my peers at school tormented me? I wore a wig for a couple months although living in Cairns (30-degree heat!) it quickly knotted and became too hot to consistently wear every day. I can only imagine how hard it would have been for my mum. She constantly did her best to make me believe I was beautiful, buying me special Alopecia hats and scarfs, and in 2011 she organised my head to be painted and my photo was posted on the front page of The Cairns Post.
Love, Alopecia 