Alopecia: Living with alopecia – ‘When my hair started falling out, I just didn’t want to acknowledge it. I had all the mirrors in my room covered with sheets’

My hair started falling out at an excessive rate a few years later. When I put my hands through my hair, clumps came out of it. The hair was falling around me when I was standing in the shower. I was afraid to wash it, brush it, or style it.

It was physically painful, too. When your hair is falling out at that rate, your scalp is sore to touch and really uncomfortable. Even water falling on it was painful.

I remember I just didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t want to acknowledge it. I had all the mirrors in my room covered with blankets and sheets because I didn’t want to look at my reflection.

Growing up, I had always been told that my hair was my best asset and my best feature and never to cut it. Then, when I lost my hair, people said, ‘At least you have dark eyebrows and eyelashes’. Then I lost my brows and lashes… These were the things I associated my attractiveness with and it was like, what do I do now?

I bought a hair piece called a T-parting when my hair started falling out. I had a fringe cut into it and it clipped into the top of my head. But then it got to a point where I had to hairspray each hair in place and if it moved an inch you would see skull underneath.

I avoided buying a wig for as long as possible but I eventually spent €1,200 on one. Her name is ‘Willamina’ and I absolutely hate her. It’s 100pc real hair, and it’s exactly like my bio hair, but whenever I wore it I’d look in the mirror and get depressed because it reminded me too much of what I used to look like.

I think I wore Willamina about five times. Then it got to the stage where she’d be in my handbag but I’d wear a hat. She currently lives in the back of my wardrobe.

I was on holiday in Italy when I first decided to go out without the wig. I thought it would be easier doing it there than in Ireland. I went to a restaurant with my family and, to be fair, Italians love to stare at the best of times and all of a sudden there was a bald chick whose head was so much whiter than the rest of her body.

I remember being so paranoid but I kept saying to myself, ‘This is fine, I can do this, I can do this, I can do this’.

My job is in social care. No one at work batted an eyelid the first time I walked in bald. But I still don’t walk around my home town without anything on my head. The rare few times I have done it I have people staring or assuming I have cancer. Then there’s the older women who come over and say, ‘I’ll say a prayer for you’.

I’d be more likely to take my hat off if I’m out for a night in Dublin. It’s a city so you can blend into the background. Still, I’ve had some weird experiences with people being drunk. They seem to think it’s okay to touch you. You think someone is about to punch you and then it’s a hand stroking your head.

On what planet is it okay to touch anybody without consent, never mind my head? Then people think they’re being nice by saying, ‘Can I touch your head?’ No, I’d prefer you didn’t. That’s just weird.

Then, at gigs, you take your hat off, you’re getting into the music, and someone comes up and says, ‘My god, you’re so brave’. It’s like for the two seconds that I forgot I was bald, you’re just after reminding me. Can I just enjoy my night and not be this attraction?

I used to joke about the fetish world and say, ‘Maybe someone will have a fetish and be attracted to me?’ Now my eyes have been opened. That’s not a joke. There is a whole other side I was not prepared for so I’m very careful with the hashtags I use on Instagram and about putting myself out there on dating apps.

We live in a world of online dating and it’s ‘thank you, next!’. You’re first attracted to someone’s looks and then the rest of it grows. I’m not putting myself out there because I don’t want to be rejected. And then I think, ‘What kind of people am I going to attract?’, which relates back to the whole fetish thing.

You see all these girls online saying ‘bald is beautiful!’ They really own it, and they look stunning, but I will never be that girl. I just don’t get it. Yes, there are days when I embrace it, but there are also days when I don’t want to leave the house.