I see many thread with people asking things about alopecia entering in this world since few months and I was thinking that we "olders" could make a thread with all the hints, advices etc we arrived to understand after years regarding how to accept, how to deal with and other think we could think about.
I deal with this Alopecia Universalis for 3 big years now, I don't even remember the month I shaved my head but I already was living by myself and being single I dealed with it by my only self and I can say I fell a bit experienced with it. Now I'm almost 29 and sometimes it looks like I always had this problem.. I don't even remember my look and my character before this or better to say before the alopecia areata the already was a bad problem. (sorry for my english it's not my first language and I write as fast as possible)

So first thing I would say is that if you have the alopecia areata don't panic cause as they probably told you 70% of the people probably had some of these problems in their life and often it solves by itself .

If patches becomes bigger and new ones appears easily it is not a good sign and in my opinion the youngest and cheapest doctor is worth as much as the most known and expensive one cause the medical solutions are always the same , so don't loose time (and MONEY) flying all over the world cause as someone said they don't (or didn't until some months ago) know the exact common cause so how could they know to generically solve a specific case (!). Try any common cures and in most of the cases they'll solve the problem until it's areata. If the problem go on it is better to begin to think how we could deal with it if it COULD become alopecia universalis. I prefer people (just like I did) have to be realistic with the fact there's no cures, but being realistic is also to know that maybe tomorrow there'll be one just like sometimes happens that for a mistake a cure for something get to solve another problem casually.

So if it's clear that the areata will become universalis, the only thing you've to do is to become mature and strong! at any age you are. You've to accept it as soon and as fast as possible with the mental condition you're saying "fuc% alopecia, I'll beat you and I will win" but you've to be (and to become) sure about this and it's surely better to shave from a day to another the head (obviously when it's clear it will become au) and begin immeditely to think how to build your character around this new look. Because in my opinion the most important thing to do when something like this happens, is not to wait for others to say "it's doesnt matter".. "it doesnt care" etc cause only an alopecian could say something like this, but it would also be useless too in this case. And it's not true to say it, it does matter at the beginning!. What is important tough is that our character has to grow up in a more mature way improving any other things that make us to feel important and arrived. Our characther is important and matter at the same way and often MORE of the body itself. We have to concentrate on the things that make life appreciating like job success, family condition, relationship etc... improving them will improve our self esteem and when you'll find yourself in great "our self built condition" you'll understand ONLY THEN that it did not matters after all! But what I am saying is that the phrase "it doesnt' matter" is only true as a result of a personal and unique path full of personal test and "fights". When you see people in hospital with cancers also younger or with really deadly problems we all know alopecia areata / un compared to these is so passable and also this helps to understand it.
By the way we cannot become untouchable to the critics or the dialogs of healthy people not understanding this... we just have to build that kind of caracther that you'll not even think what they are saying about cause we will be so secure so hardly selfish and so experienced and so full of ourself that we will not give a c..p about it even BEFORE bad people are gonna open their mouth to speak a word that will hurt us... sorry if I'm direct with these but it's important to understand the p.o.v. :-).
Life showed up clearly that personal success hide every defects of the aspect. There're many actors, people of sport games, rich guys that would fit in any places and people would love, REALLY love them even if they INDEED looks terrible, just because the way they are watched is built around a caracther not their body. And so we've to do the same. And then our body could be added with details that in the first time don't look so important as hairs but after some experience we will udnerstand that often they are more important (for the other not ourself) than the body itself, like "expensive" clothes, a tan, eyeglasses... bs that by the way add DETAILS that often are more watched by other people in the first stage of a social relationship, if we will need them. THEN we will show our characther full of ourself and with a secureness and a wisdom that people will just can dream about after so many years of alopecia fight, and then we will se the results.

I wanted to be direct and honest in a powerful way just to make all "newbie" understand what really helps alopecians to live with the problems it gives us. I hope I was not badly seen also by my bad english.