Last week I went on holiday. A week in the sun with old friends seemed perfect, and thousands of miles from home I felt truly relaxed for the first time in ages.
On the way to the airport I'd made a decision - that I wasn't going to look at my bald patch at all during the holiday. Since my alopecia started, a few months ago, I have been obsessively checking it in the mirror almost every evening, watching the borders of the patch spread across the back of my head, and photographing it to monitor the progress.
The hair fell out thick and fast at first, but then slowed down, and recently seemed to have been grounding to a halt. This holiday was a chance to escape the strains and stresses of real life - did that mean escaping alopecia too? Certainly taking a break from thinking about it was a real relief.
Six days into the holiday, feeling empowered and revived, I wrote a list. A to-do list, to gather my thoughts, and put down all the things I'd like and need to do, and all the positive and relaxed feelings I'd like to keep hold of, once I got back home.
The last thing on my list was: Don't worry about alopecia

And I really thought I could do it.
The anxiety of how I'll cope and having to face the world when, and if, my hairloss becomes much worse, has been a constant strain. I had already recently left my town, my career, my world, to allow time to recover from a personal trauma. I was confident I'd step back into it easily enough once the time was right. But throwing alopecia into the mix... that added a whole other dimension to the challenge, and my confidence has sometimes seemed shattered.
It's been immensely frustrating to be told by people, who have no idea how it might feel to experience hair loss, not to worry, and not to stress - as that's what's probably causing it in the first place.
But worrying about alopecia is draining. It was annoying me. I was annoying me! If I am to lose my hair, it needn't mean I lose my confidence and sense of self too - but that's partly down to me. I realise that.
And when I wrote that note on my list - don't worry about alopecia - I felt that perhaps I had defeated it, somehow. Maybe, by doing exactly as people have been telling me - not to stress and worry, I am reaching a sort of acceptance.
Was there another part of me, deep down, that hoped I might be curing it, too? Probably.

The next day, I woke up with a sore throat. In the shower, I noticed the amount of hair coming off in my hands was more than normal. I refused to think about it. By the afternoon, my glands were swollen and my head ached - I was coming down with an infection, or a cold. At dinner, I casually raked my hair with my fingers, then realised lots of strands were left in my hand.

I am attending a wedding in a weeks time, and don't want to be unwell for it, so after dinner I made my excuses to go and get an early night, and back at the hotel room, on the last night of the holiday, I broke my vow and held up my hair to look in the mirror. And sure enough - a new bald patch had appeared.

I could have laughed - alopecia sure does love irony!!!! Talk about timing! Just when I think I'm turning another corner, it goes and reminds me that it's still there. And it doesn't matter how de-stressed and positive I think I'm being - there is no magic cure or secret mental formula that will beat this. I get a cold, my immune system goes bonkers and evicts some of my hair.

This new bald patch is higher up than the other one. Almost half the back of my head is bald, but I can hide it by wearing a low ponytail. This one won't be as easy to hide if it carries on expanding.

I wondered whether I might cry. But I didn't. I'd just had a fantastic week, in a gorgeous resort, with two of my oldest friends. We'd snorkelled around the coral reef, sipped cocktails at sunset, eaten until we were stuffed, danced until the morning, pulled off some horific renditions on karaoke...! I am incredibly lucky, and I am happy. And aside from a tickly cough and drippy nose, I'm healthy!
My hair falling out is not going to change that.

Alopecia is a challenge, and it seems like it may be an ongoing one. But it's not being bald that is the real threat, it's the anguish and anxiety that I could allow to come with it - that's what's going to hold me back or keep me crying at night.
So I stand by that to-do list note. Don't worry about alopecia.