Emma was 13 when she discovered her first patch of hair loss. She woke up having slept the night at her dad’s house, she ran her fingers through her hair only to find a patch of nothingness. For a moment she thought  her hair needed a good wash but then the realisation struck. There was nothing to be felt. She waited for her dad to wake up so she could ask him to take a look. She never imagined in a million years that he would confirm her worst fears. “Dad, have I got a bald patch here?” She asked as she pointed to her head.

“Yeah.” He sniggered with shock. She felt all different emotions at once; anger, loneliness, shock horror, disbelief and fear. She rushed to the bathroom to take a photo of the alienated area so she could see for herself. She hurriedly forwarded the picture to her mum by text, her mum tried reassuring her that everything will be alright. Emma was in shock for the rest of that day. After having a conversation with her mum about it once getting home, Emma’s mum rang the doctor’s as soon as she could.

During that doctor’s appointment, she didn’t know what to expect. Eventually the doctor announced that she had alopecia. Emma was aware of alopecia since she was once best friends with a girl who had the same problem in junior school. Emma didn’t know how to react to the news she received that day.

After having alopecia for a year, Emma started losing more hair as the days went by. It was a vicious cycle – if she worried or stressed about anything, she lost more hair but because she worried and stressed about losing it, more would fall out. It got to point where she had to purchase a wig, after putting up with the alopecia for almost 2 years. Once Emma had bought the wig, she thought her problems would go away but she soon had hardly any hair to be seen. This didn’t put her down though, she took this as an opportunity to buy different kinds of wigs – this was one advantage of having alopecia.

Soon after buying her second wig from Hong Kong, the wig started to become thin and matted. This made Emma feel conscience about people realising she wore a wig, she started having days off school because of this. At that point, her mum was afraid that Emma would become agoraphobic when she couldn’t leave the house for 4 days. For the following few weeks, her mum become more concerned that Emma was developing mild depression – Emma got to the stage of hating her life. Then she started some sessions with Suzanne a hypnotherapist  which was meant to help Emma with her problems. But it did more than that. After weeks of seeing Suzie, Emma became a different girl – she was more confident and after just a few sessions, Emma had even told her classmates about her alopecia. People respected her more once she had told them and this made her even more confident.

While this was happening, Emma’s mum was trying her best to get Emma a new and higher quality wig. As she was researching she found a website called Michael Roberts/Studio Nine. Emma’s mum started looking into it even more, then she finally found that Emma could get 2 wigs per year since they would be on prescription and Emma wouldn’t have to spend hundreds of pounds for a new wig every year – this news was news to Emma’s ears.

Everything has been better since then. Emma’s hair is growing back slowly but surely, she’s getting the wigs she needs to give her the confidence she’s needed for years and she’s more happier than she’s ever been in her life. I am telling you this story because this is my story, I am Emma. And I want you to know that you’re not alone – whatever you’re going through it won’t be like that forever and things will get better. I promise. If you want to speak to me about my story please email moon therapies and I will be happy to answer any questions.