Shannon Hyden's Posts - Alopecia World2024-03-29T09:29:26ZShannon Hydenhttps://alopeciaworld.com/profile/ShannonHydenhttps://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8486950874?profile=RESIZE_48X48&width=48&height=48&crop=1%3A1https://alopeciaworld.com/profiles/blog/feed?user=1xhjgpdj99z1r&xn_auth=no#YourAutoimmunityIsGorgeous - Part 2tag:alopeciaworld.com,2021-02-05:2022678:BlogPost:19397582021-02-05T00:00:00.000ZShannon Hydenhttps://alopeciaworld.com/profile/ShannonHyden
<h3 class="post-title entry-title" style="text-align: left;">part 2</h3>
<h3 class="post-title entry-title"><br></br> #girlpower #YourAutoimmunityIsGorgeous</h3>
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<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-2777941091206768557"><div><span> The Day Had Come...</span></div>
<div><span> Friday morning, May 26, 2017 I woke up late. I was supposed to be in Memphis at 5:30 in the morning to start my makeup. Imagine my…</span></div>
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<h3 class="post-title entry-title" style="text-align: left;">part 2</h3>
<h3 class="post-title entry-title"><br/> #girlpower #YourAutoimmunityIsGorgeous</h3>
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<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-2777941091206768557"><div><span> The Day Had Come...</span></div>
<div><span> Friday morning, May 26, 2017 I woke up late. I was supposed to be in Memphis at 5:30 in the morning to start my makeup. Imagine my distress when I rolled out of bed 10 after 5. I messaged Sara Green, my photographer and my support system, Beth to explain that I was running late. Everyone but myself seemed unbothered by my tardiness. I cried all the way into Memphis convincing myself that this was a sign. I did not need to be doing this shoot and this whole thing was the worst idea in the world.</span></div>
<div><span> I sat down at my friend Jennifer's Kitchen table and Faith Knolton started my makeup. I hope the pictures tell you a story of strength, love, and compassion for beauty in its own truth, not society's version of truth.</span></div>
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<div class="separator"><span>And just like that we were headed downtown. I wasn't ready but I was determined. Besides, If I cried anymore then my makeup would mess up.</span></div>
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<div><span>A few girls from the house wrote me letters of encouragement to read when I was scared or felt hopeless. In reading these I found strength.</span></div>
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<div class="separator"><span>The time had come. I could feel the fear in my chest, my hands, my heart, my mind. I tried to smile.</span></div>
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<div><span>This picture. This is my vulnerability exposed. The most powerful picture taken. This picture captures my truth. I can feel all those emotions flooding back.</span></div>
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<div><span>And off we went.</span></div>
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<div><span>This day I felt powerful yet I felt eyes looking at me. I felt a little cold on my head. Mostly, I felt beautiful. My past may have been painful and at times traumatizing. I may still need to work on me a lot more. But my message is simple. The reflection in the mirror isn't always the one we want staring back, but beauty is not found in a reflection. It's found in your heart. For every girl who doesn't feel adequate or pretty enough, I hope you see this and know you were made with perfection.</span></div>
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<div align="center"><span>#YourAutoimmunityIsGorgeous</span></div>
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<div align="center"><span>Until next time,</span></div>
<div align="center"><span>Shannon</span></div>
</div>#YourAutoimmunityIsGorgeoustag:alopeciaworld.com,2021-02-05:2022678:BlogPost:19397552021-02-05T00:00:00.000ZShannon Hydenhttps://alopeciaworld.com/profile/ShannonHyden
<p><a href="https://yourautoimmunityisgorgoeous.blogspot.com/2017/05/the-beginning.html?spref=fb&m=1" rel="noopener" target="_blank">https://yourautoimmunityisgorgoeous.blogspot.com/2017/05/the-beginning.html?spref=fb&m=</a></p>
<h3 class="post-title entry-title">The Beginning…</h3>
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<p><a href="https://yourautoimmunityisgorgoeous.blogspot.com/2017/05/the-beginning.html?spref=fb&m=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://yourautoimmunityisgorgoeous.blogspot.com/2017/05/the-beginning.html?spref=fb&m=</a></p>
<h3 class="post-title entry-title">The Beginning</h3>
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<div><span>My name is Shannon and I am a thirty-three year old woman who has been struggling with Alopecia Areata Universalis (AU) which is a complete loss of hair on my scalp, face and body. It is an autoimmune disease that affects as many as 6.8 million people in the U. S. with a lifetime risk of 21%.</span></div>
<div><span>When I was only seven years old, my mother was brushing my long, dirty blond, wavy hair only to find quarter sized bald spots throughout my scalp. Over the next year many tears were shed between myself and my parents as my hair rapidly fell out. Months of painful steroid injections, experimental shots to the scalp and attempts with topical creams applied only to find myself completely hairless at the tender age of eight. To say children can be cruel would be an understatement and daily questions of <b>“why me?”</b>, <b>“am I being punished?”</b>, and <b>“what’s wrong with me?”</b> began. During this time I wore baseball hats with hairpieces, caps, and knitted berets to hide the <b>shame</b> of my hair loss. I can vividly remember a boy on the playground calling me hurtful, painful names with me running home in tears to my father. Being the protective, loving, and prideful man he was, my father had no issues letting that boy’s father know he was never to talk or even to look at me again.</span></div>
<div><span> My school also had rules against wearing hats in school to which my father responded by telling them, no asking, that <b>I would be the exception</b> and wear by pony tail attached baseball cap as I pleased. My father is and always has been my <b>knight</b>.</span></div>
<div><span> We moved to Tennessee before my 9<sup>th</sup>birthday. My parents and I decided it was time to invest in my first wig. We also found a dermatologist who was renowned for his leading research in treatment for Alopecia.</span></div>
<div><span> I started 5<sup>th</sup> grade in a small hometown city. It wasn’t easy being the new girl let alone the girl with no hair or the girl who wore a wig. When children don’t understand something or are afraid of the unknown, they can react in hurtful ways. I was constantly bullied, called names, and even once had my wig pulled off while standing in line in the cafeteria waiting to get my lunch. I was no stranger to a pillow soaked in tears.</span></div>
<div><span> Amidst all the heartache I was enduring, we had met Dr. Rosenberg, the Memphis dermatologist who had recently returned from a conference discussing a new experimental treatment to re-grow hair. And so we began process. Along with this new treatment, Dr. Rosenberg had an intern whose mother lived in California and performed permanent facial make-up. On her own dime she flew to Memphis and tattooed permanent eyebrows and eyeliner on me for free. Although painful, this helped my self-esteem excrementally. I only wish I could remember her name so I could thank her once again for her <b>altruism and compassion.</b></span></div>
<div><span> Within a year of using the treatment, my hair had grown completely back. However, it was no longer thick, blond, and wavy but now black, thin, and straight. Although disappointed, I spent the next several years <b>celebrating</b> coloring and perming my new hair. I still endured the <b>name calling</b> and <b>isolation</b> especially when hair was thinning or when my forehead began to “expand” due to hair loss. I had extreme self-imagine issues and was constantly <b>seeking approval</b> from others.</span></div>
<div><span> I was finally asked out by my 11<sup>th</sup> grade year by a boy that worked with me in the local grocery store. He attended another high school but we spent every moment we could together. For a teenage boy, he proved to be an <b>amazing person</b> and <b>a loving support</b> for me. Things were not always great but they weren’t all bad either.</span></div>
<div><span> As I started my senior year of high-school, my world as I saw it, started to fall apart and at a rapid pace. The medication was not working anymore and my hair began to fall out yet again.</span></div>
<div><b><span>I was devastated. </span></b></div>
<div><span>I had a secret goal or rather <b>wish</b> for myself to get through the year as discreetly as possible, that maybe no one would notice my thinning hair. Prom night and graduation I wore several dozen extensions in my hair but I made it through feeling somewhat <b>normal</b> and <b>beautiful</b>.</span></div>
<div><span> The summer after high-school we bought my first realistic, molded just for my head, cranial prosthetic hair piece aka fancy wig. I felt like a normal girl for the first time since I was 7 years old. It may have been extremely hot but I didn’t care. <b>I felt pretty</b>. Boys noticed me. I noticed them too. I started acting out, <b>seeking affection</b> and <b>validation</b>whenever and with whoever I could. I felt <b>wanted</b> in the moment but <b>shame</b>, <b>self-hate</b>, and <b>worthlessness</b> after.</span></div>
<div><span>And then I found myself pregnant at 21.</span></div>
<div><span>I wish I could say having my son changed my distorted thought process of self-imagine but it didn’t. I did however get serious about school and graduated with a bachelors and then a masters. Yet I still continued with those <b>self-destructive thoughts and behaviors</b>.</span></div>
<div><span> Fast forward several years and I found myself divorced, a single mom to two little boys, a good job, a roof over our heads and car to take us from A to B. I still lacked in the ability to love myself for who I was inside and out. No matter how many men I had been with or how many relationships I had had, when I saw myself in the mirror without my hair, all I could see was a <b>terrifying reflection</b> looking back at me that could barely maintain eye contact.</span></div>
<div><b><span>Depression</span></b> <span>and <b>anxiety</b> took over by life. I drank wine to numb the pain. I started missing more work. I stopped caring about my self-care or even caring for my boys the way they deserved to be cared for. I used and manipulated people as well as lied and avoided them. I <b>isolated</b> and often sought inappropriate attention.</span></div>
<div align="center"><b><span>I had hit rock bottom.</span></b></div>
<div><span>Now I bring you to my present day. I am currently finishing up my third week in residential treatment and learning how to <b>accept and love myself</b> just as I am. I see a therapist 3 to 4 times a week and I have been working on the trauma in my past that I believed had defined me in my present. I am learning appropriate coping skills and how to use <b>mindfulness</b>. It has not been an easy few weeks and I miss my boys, my home, my bed, my life. I know that using this time to focus on me will only provide the two most important people in my life with the best future and a mother they deserve. I have started to see a new version emerge of myself that I never thought existed. Now I have given myself a challenge, <b>an ultimate challenge</b>. <b>I will accept and love myself just as I am.</b> After reaching out to the Memphis photography community, I found numerous photographers excited to offer their services to help <b>empower</b> me in this journey. I was overwhelmed reading their many responses. I know any of these photographers would be amazing but I finally decided to go with SaraAnnGreen.com. She has willingly accepted the task of capturing <b>my most vulnerable moments of empowerment</b> as I enter into the public streets of downtown Memphis and remove my hair. Only few close family and friends have ever seen me without my hair only wearing a bandana yet alone had I ever stepped foot outside for the public to see me without my hair. <b><i>My goal</i></b>… to be okay with just being me. <b>Bald, beautiful and powerful</b>. For me to not just think or know but rather <b>believe</b> that I am <b>uniquely beautiful and worthy</b><i>.</i></span></div>
<div><span>I know so many emotions will arise with this adventure that will include <b>fear, rejection, anxiety, relief, love and excitement</b>. Honestly, I hope each moment is captured <b>in its own perfection</b>. With the support of friends, family and my Treatment Center, I plan to <b>own this challenge</b>. I want to continue to journal through this experience of <b>hopefulness and discovery of true self-love</b>. I want to share not only my story but show it in pictures as well. I want to share it with you and with the world. Who knows…maybe even help someone else who has experienced the same kind of pain and heartache that creates that shame and helplessness so that they too may find <b>hope and empowerment</b>.</span></div>
<div align="center"><b><span>I’m doing this for me.</span></b></div>
<div align="center"><b><span>#YourAutoimmunityIsGorgeous</span></b></div>
<div align="center"><span>Hashtag credit: Justine Durden</span></div>
<div align="center"><span>Until the next time,</span></div>
<div align="center"><span>Shannon</span></div>
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</div>Cyberhairtag:alopeciaworld.com,2013-05-18:2022678:BlogPost:10439192013-05-18T04:33:23.000ZShannon Hydenhttps://alopeciaworld.com/profile/ShannonHyden
I tried a full piece cyberhair. Worst mistake ever. Anyone who is used to real hair and quality pieces will not like going to synthetic no matter how much money or how much time you will save. Just my personal experience and want to share with others considering the same.
I tried a full piece cyberhair. Worst mistake ever. Anyone who is used to real hair and quality pieces will not like going to synthetic no matter how much money or how much time you will save. Just my personal experience and want to share with others considering the same.