Words: Emma Sothern (Lady Alopecia)
Or something.
Alopecia is a condition, a disorder; in some cases, such as mine, an autoimmune disease. But it’s not a sickness in the everyday sense of the word.
But rocking my bald head around for the last ten years, I have been asked more times than I can remember.
“Are you ill?”
When this is a nice lady in the supermarket queue who tells me “how strong I am”, I take it quite well. When it’s a gruff bloke who leans over from his mates and asks, “Are you ill or something?” I take it less well.
How I react externally has a lot to do with how the question is asked. How I react internally has a lot to do with my current mental state.
Either way, it’s a weird position to be in, to have people assume you are ill even if you are in fact having a great day and feeling wonderful.
We all feel it to some extent. At least, I assume we do. That feeling you’re about to be found out, having pretended to be something you’re not.
It’s something I get a lot when teaching yoga or leading meditation classes, especially when another yoga teacher I know rocks up as a student and takes the mat in the middle of the front row.
But it’s also something I’ve experienced with my hair loss.
Alopecia Areata makes your hair fall out. In my case, pretty much all of it. But unlike one of the main reasons that people associate female baldness with (chemo for their cancer), it isn’t life-threatening.
Mental-health-threatening? Absolutely. My husband and my therapist can both attest to that. But physically, no. Unless you count the sunburnt scalps I’ve had over the years.
So when people ask if I’m ill and I say no, there’s typically a tiny part of me that thinks:
“Oh. I’ve let them down.”
They were expecting a different answer.
And to be clear, I don’t say that because there’s anything wrong with being ill or going through chemotherapy. I think most people going through those experiences probably don’t want strangers projecting pity onto them either.
Nobody really wants to be reduced to a visual assumption before they’ve even opened their mouth.
When wearing my bald head out, I’ve been asked many times if I’m sick. This can be frustrating, but when done with tact, it can also be quite lovely.
It shows that people care. Often, they ask because they know someone going through chemotherapy, or have been through it themselves. This can lead to some beautiful conversations. I’ve lost people to cancer, and I likely will again. It’s one of those few experiences we will likely all share.
When I’ve got the energy, these interactions are some of my favourite things, and one of the positive things about being a bald lady. I can bond with that woman in the supermarket queue, even if I’m not strong in the way she thinks (getting through cancer), she feels able to share her own story…and I’m honoured to be in that place.
There are other good things about hair loss.
I don’t know why, exactly, but maybe because I have an obvious vulnerability, people seem to want to open up to me about their own insecurities. Not just cancer-related but other things, too…their own hair loss stories (as so many women have them) or “the thing” they worry about.
Everyone has that “one thing”, right? Mine is just a lot more visible than most.
These human interactions are way deeper than coffee shop small talk. And I cherish them, but at the same time, they can be pretty draining. Imagine popping out for a quick americano and then having an impromptu group therapy session.
I’ve written before about some of the stranger reactions I’ve had to alopecia while travelling around the world…but the worst, I would say, was this one.
Once, back in my corporate Dublin days, I went on a team bonding trip to Prague to meet our Czech colleagues. We played silly games, we drank, we explored, and had a great time.
One evening, on the way back from our staff party, a male colleague fell into step beside me and asked if he could “talk to me for a moment”.
He then quite seriously said:
“Why don’t you cover up your head? You look ill…and it makes me feel quite sick looking at it.”
I’m not one for confrontation. And I was standing in a laneway in a strange city at night. So I just apologised, sped up my pace and got out of that situation as quickly as I could.
That’s right, I apologised for my own bald head.
It wasn’t the nicest experience, and let’s just say, it didn’t do wonders for my confidence.
I’ve lived in Hoi An, Vietnam, for almost a decade now. And there are actually quite a few similarities between Irish people and Vietnamese people. They both love a drinking session. They both love singing. And everyone seems somehow related to everyone else.
But there are some big differences, too.
Irish people will do almost anything to avoid asking a direct question. Vietnamese people, on the other hand, tend to head straight for the jugular every single time.
It cuts both ways. I get far more pointing, staring and laughing here than I ever did back home. Especially on the beach, where groups of kids, and occasionally full-grown adults, will openly point my bald head out to each other.
Where the Vietnamese directness actually helps, though, is in the questions themselves.
“Where is your hair?” is a classic. But it’s usually asked with such genuine curiosity that it’s actually quite easy to answer honestly.
In Ireland or the UK, the question often arrives wrapped in layers of social awkwardness and pity:
“Oh gosh… if you don’t mind me asking… what’s going on there, with your…em, well…you know?!”
Whereas in Vietnam, it’s often just:
“Where your hair go?”
Oddly enough, I often prefer the second version.
It feels less loaded. Less like people aren’t about to unleash their pity party on me as soon as I answer.
So what do I do? Well, it happens less often now. I live in a small town and go to the same places repeatedly; everyone knows me as the bald girl of Hoi An.
Often, when I meet a local for the first time, they tell me they know me, they’ve seen me around, that I’ve got two girls and that I like yellow. All true.
It’s a bit creepy, but also a bit liberating. You don’t have to explain yourself.
Most of the time now, I wear a headscarf, and with my bald head wrapped up, I get far fewer questions. On the days I do cover up, these are the scarves I wear, made here in Hoi An, which feels fitting. Although I still get more questions than you might imagine.
People don’t ask if I’m sick, but I do still get people curious about where I come from. A big bright headscarf doesn’t exactly scream small-town Ireland.
Quite often, people assume I’m Muslim. I’ve been asked if I’m Turkish or Iranian a few times, which, considering how beautiful the women from those countries are, I’ll happily take any day of the week.
Most of the time, it’s a perfectly nice question to answer, but occasionally it comes with an edge. If it’s some bloke in a bar slurring, “Where are you from then, luv?” or “What’s with the headscarf?” I give it exactly the answer it deserves. I’ll leave you to fill that one in for yourself.
People are always going to project things onto you.
Bald head out, it might be pity, compassion or curiosity. Headscarf on, people might start guessing your religion, your ethnicity or your story.
Eventually, though, you realise most of these projections have very little to do with you at all.
They’re just people trying to make sense of what they see.
And honestly, most days now, I just get on with enjoying my coffee.
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