The day I came out on Facebook I felt like I had been released from a trap of worry, anxiety and what-ifs. I knew it was time. It was time:
I'm okay. It's all going to be okay. For almost 10 years now I have been fighting Alopecia. It's an autoimmune disorder that makes my body attack my hair follicles. As some of you may know, I'm not the only one in my family with it. After all these years of painful injections, creams that burn like acid, researching and hoping, crazy diets, alternative therapies, expensive hair pieces and expensive procedures, crying in the shower, teasing and combing and spraying trying to hide the bald spots, and lotions and potions out the wazoo I am just done. I can't begin to tell you how free I feel.
Some people get Alopecia and all their hair is gone in a couple of months. Mine comes and goes and is very painful. It's physically painful because every follicle is inflamed so I feel like I have a fresh sunburn on my head all the time. It's emotionally painful to deal with other people's reactions and my own. I have never been a woman who was comfortable with her beauty - but I liked my hair! Vanity kicked me right in the cha-cha and I have not always handled it with grace. Several times I've experienced re-growth. But then I wake up one morning and my pillowcase is covered in hair and I know it's over. Showers...handfuls of hair and lots of tears. And other people just don't know what to do or say. Charlie has always been my safe harbor but he can't protect me from this. My Mama doesn't want to see me hurt, it hurts her too. My best-friend Jenny has cried right along with me. I'm in an awesome support group and many of my friends and family have been so supportive. But some people are jerks. That's not going to change.
So after going through Alopecia but really feeling like its gone through me, I decided I will not be its b@*#h any more. There wasn't much left to shave off. I had some hair left on the very top of my head but it was thin. If this was the 80's I'd have sprayed my mohawk purple, straightened my shoulder pads and headed off to a Prince concert. But, this is better.
Sometimes you may see me in hats, caps, or wig. (Not scarves, I look like a fortune teller.) And the wig thing, well, it's complicated. They're HOT and itchy and my head is so tender. Sometimes I just can't take it. And Bobby (although he likes to try it on, point to his chest and say mommy!) doesn't like for me to wear it. It's not the way he's used to seeing me so he says, "No Mama, no hair." It's a phase that I'm sure will pass.
I just want people to know I'm not sick and I'm not sad. I'm so much more comfortable now. And I'm not in hiding. I'm free.