I felt this sense of mourning like I lost something that for so many years you take for granted suddenly you look in the mirror and it's a completely different person staring back at you felt like no one had kind of accept me and everyone kind of judge me having the condition kind of taught me from being a certain level to literally rock-bottom people don't like to talk about it and it makes you anxious which in turn then leads to stress which then in turn leads to depression which then makes your hair not come back [Music] think a lot of people are kind of able to pinpoint why they think their alopecia started you know whether it be soft stress or certain moment or anything like that look for me at that point in my life I was quite carefree like I you know I lived at home so I don't have any bills or rent to pay and there just finished university so I'd you know do that many exams or anything like that nobody died nobody had broken up with me I was I was happy I actually had this really vivid memory of my 22nd birthday being out in a club and I just ran my fingers through my hair and I just pulled out this huge clump of hair and I just didn't really know what that meant so I went to the doctors and they told me it is alopecia and I'd never heard of that before I didn't know what it was or what it meant and it was about six weeks later that I'd lost all of my hair first discovered about my old piece when I was 17 years old I started off with a little temperance piece Bob batcher back of my head I remember really early on in the condition there happened a buff and getting out of a buff and looking and the buff was completely full of hair it was all an era of cast of three to four weeks it was very sudden and very shortened I first had alopecia when I was about 11 when I started seeing you school and it was all around exam time and then when I got married I had a few patches but you couldn't lipstick so I had really big hair at the time so you couldn't see that this time has been 18 years so I was about 32 33 and this is the most severe that it's been when I was working in a bank we got raided and made me anxious and stressed and it just started coming out that time from there I found it really hard to talk people about it at the start because I just thought at least you'd like I want to be my friends anymore you know no one's gonna want to date me and how am I ever gonna be fine with this how am I going to feel comfortable with it and how are people going to look at me the same and not think or you know that's gonna be my you know associating the thing like oh that's the ball girl it's like I didn't didn't want that to be the only thing that people thought about I have days where I think I've beaten this and I'm alright with it and then I of others where I just think I'm probably never gonna leave the house again because you know someone is gonna notice or talk to me or ask me questions and I just can't deal with that right now you started to like gel my hair down so no could see like four bald patches and you just have to cut up a lot and especially for my friends I didn't really tell anyone about it I just wanted to hide it I remember going back to college for a second year I was in the Basketball Academy I loved playing basketball little when it's my coach and I was like I'm quitting I can't do this I can't let people see me how I was because the previous year before we finished it was a team for overs all and you could just see my hair falling out the back and that thing was over there the whole time I was at college I could not get it removed it was very hard time because I just went into a kind of like a deep kind of like depression with it I just very much just isolated myself and yeah it's kind of difficult the most frustrating thing for me is trying all the treatments and some of them are brutal they really make you feel bad and then people not understand him why you don't want to carry on with that treatment and also having people say when it's only hair my hair was always my crowning glory it's the one thing I've got loads of compliments on because it was always shiny you're having a bad hair day you don't feel like yourself when you've got alopecia you're having a bad hair day every day sometimes you get that feeling that you're not who you truly are that you're you're hiding you're hiding behind a wig or you're hiding behind a hat because it's not your hair friends and family never saw got a hat on I just basically just to hide it from everybody and I got to the point one day at work I just literally took it off and I was like you know this is it this is how it's got to be and that was like a really big step for me people have this perception that you get a wig and then you'll find about it but people forget that you come home at the end of the day to wearing a wig and makeup and eyelashes all day and you take it off and then there's suddenly a totally different person in front of you it wasn't until sort of February of this year that I have actually been outside of my house without wearing a wig unless it was during times of regrowth which was actually like slightly different and even then I often wore head were quite a bit of it so you know it's taken me a long time to get to that point [Music] I think the most frustrating thing for me about having our future is just how unpredictable the whole condition can be when it's in it's shedding stage it's it's really hard because you can like pork lumps of it out and you just find it all over your clothes and in the shower and and everywhere and I just found that too distressing I thought it was easier if I could just shave it all off and so start again from scratch it could be it it could never come back or if you're one of the lucky ones it will come back you know another one knows it's so unpredictable Minds come back twice and it's gone twice so you can never say never my fault price has always been if I can help someone else like I didn't have help initially then that's why I want to do hello everyone welcome today's live stream today we're gonna be talking about alopecia save have any questions let me know in the chat I want to start making videos on YouTube I was like I'm putting myself out there for everyone to see I've got a bit transparent with people I've got to say look I have alopecia this is what it is and then that way I feel like I'm helping other people with alopecia p-- alopecia you care have really helped me through this journey I discovered them on social media and decided to run a half-marathon folks I wanted to do my Bette wanted to help out with them someone said to me there was different support groups so I thought well I'll try it and obviously alopecia you okay come up which was great I didn't post anything to start with I would just read other people's comments how they were feeling and then the advice that they got and then they said that they were having a big weekend and it was in Birmingham so I said Keith my husband do fancy coming along with minister J of course and it was the best thing I ever did in all the years I've had alopecia I've never spoken to anyone else with alopecia so it was just so nice to know that I'm not on my own and there is support out there there's people that can help you when I left there I was determined that I was going to go and join the gym and I was going to go without my hair and that's the first thing I did for my friends met me in the car park of the gym and we all walked in there together and they didn't bat an eyelid it was great I've liked alopecia a UK since February of 2018 and it's definitely the best decision I've ever made like I'm loving working there it's helped me you know just in my confidence and my life and and I feel this like great sense of satisfaction every day and going in and even if it's just you know talking to somebody on the phone to know that I could have been that person at one point and and still can be that person you know I could still quite easily you know need someone to talk to we do a lot of events which I went to my first event in April where we went to all towers lots of over 300 of us and you just see this sea of blue up across the park it's just amazing I didn't know anybody and it was just like walking free did you see all these people like bald heads and scarves and stuff like that it's just the craziest experience you just instantly feel safe and all the kids kind of just finding someone who looks like them and just realizing that that's okay and it's just such a lovely thing to sort of be seeing I think if I'd found alopecia okay earlier my journey would have been completely different I think I would have come to terms with it a lot quicker but I didn't know it was there everybody who has alopecia I would say understands that there's a slight element of how your mental health is going to take that it's not just a cosmetic issue it is the psychological side of everything as well and how you handle that massive change in your life my communication with my doctor everything got easier once I met all the people who have the condition to don't struggle alone and realize that this there's a lot of people out there who are willing to you know give you some fantastic peer support I like to think that for me having this condition it's made me a stronger individual the vineyard in my eyes you are who your head is not defined you as a person everyone's got those confidence issues with something about themselves but it's just very important to be true to yourself sometimes we are too hard on ourselves and I think now I'm although I'm you know I'm not saying that again I wouldn't take my hair back in an incident because I would but I think I'm certainly a lot more accepting of Who I am and therefore a lot happier I don't want people to treat me differently I just want people to accept that I have alopecia I haven't got any hair but I as a person haven't changed I am Who I am I can't change it and to be honest if I could I don't think I would I think I would go about life in there and this is this is me I'm Tom this is way [Music] you