When I think of the word Alopecia, I feel an intense feeling of loss. It’s more than a loss of hair; it’s a loss of self-worth. The discouragement it brings takes every breath of courage and suffocates it. I wanted to write about this disease so people will grasp the severity of what’s happening to over 5 million people in this world.

I started losing patches of hair when I was six. At this time I lived in a different country, Wales. I remember the kids teasing me, saying that a dog had…