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Alopecia is a difficult thing to deal with, as for me it felt like I had lost my whole identity. However, there are so many things I have to thank my alopecia for.
When I first got alopecia, I was so angry. After not fitting in, I finally did, but alopecia had to ruin that for me. I had a hard time at school and when I finally felt like I belonged, alopecia came in the way. I found it so important to be liked by lots of people, that I never thought about being myself. I was afraid people would find me weird, would shut me out yet again, I just did not want to deal with that anymore.
Primary school was horrible, people constantly bullied me and I lost all my self-confidence in those 8 years. They made me feel like I would never belong, like I was not good enough. I don't think they will ever understand what damage they caused. When I finally went to secondary school, I had no confidence to begin with, nothing. It was hard to fit in, as I did not believe in myself. I was afraid people were going to hurt me again, like they did when I was at primary school. I tried to fit in, so badly, but I always felt like I was alone. When I was transitioning from my second to third year, I changed completely, hello make-up and some sort of fashion sense! If you would have seen the amount of make-up that I was wearing haha (note I was 14 years old there). My attitude changed and step by step I felt like I finally belonged. Weirdly, boys started to be interested, people wanted to be friends and I was not really seen as the weird one.
BOOM
There it is, the moment I found my first bald spot. In one single moment, all the "so thought" self-confidence I built up was gone. How in the world was I going to deal with this? With being the odd man out again? With being the one person nobody is interested in? Those thoughts haunted me like a ghost. I was not ready for that, I only just finally belonged...
Though it sucked being the person people lost interest in and being found a bit weird again, I FINALLY found MYSELF, not the version I thought I had to be.
Alopecia forced me to look who I was and who I wanted to be. All this time my looks were more important than anything else and that finally did not matter as much anymore. I never had "real" confidence, I just pretended and thought I had it because I looked pretty on the outside, when my inside was still a work in process. I started to focus on my inside, on what I found important and how I could help others. I realised I did not have to be like others and I did not have to look like all those "Instagram models", I just needed to be me. I am so thankful that alopecia made me see that! Alopecia gave me "real" confidence, it gave me a purpose, it made me be proud of myself. I now focus on developing myself mentally and being the best version of myself.
The biggest compliment I got was when my friend said; "I have seen you develop from the inside, you have so much more confidence than you had with hair".
I went from caring about fitting in and my looks to caring about how friendly I am to others and making sure I reach my full potential, while being me.
I like studying, I often am being called a nerd and people sometimes make fun of me because of it. I am a proud baldie and continue to be that. I am quite mature for my age and am therefore often seen as "boring" by people my age, because I am quite serious.
Though I found out some of my classmates were making fun of me because I am bald, I realised that so much more people respect me. There are always going to be people who think they are funny, when they are just really not. A friend told me; don't worry, they are still children and have much growing up to do and he was right.
I have been anxious to go to school without my hair, the fear of not fitting in was there, once again. I constantly focussed on the jokes that were made (note: I don't mind jokes, as long as they are not behind my back). But then I thought about the fact I should NOT focus on what others do and say, I should focus on ME. Why do I even want to belong in a group of so many rude people?
So, what is the moral of this whole blog post? It is to be yourself, don't let anyone say you are not good enough as you are. You don't always need to blend in with the whole (popular) group, you don't need to change yourself in order to be liked by people and you don't have to apologize for being yourself! I made those mistakes, but I am glad alopecia knocked some sense into me. People are so lucky to get to know you, not the other way around.
As it is international women's day today, I want to show you that we are all strong, beautiful, unique, inspiring and smart! Every single day you guys inspire me! Even though it is international women's day, this obviously also includes all the strong men out there!
I am so proud of everyone who is reading this. I hope you all are proud of yourself as I am of you.
Thank you for reading xx
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