Dear Me,

There are so many things I want to tell you: Eat your vegetables, don't lose your Cantonese, write every day (sing every day), learn to love the snow – because you're going to be living in a lot of it in the future.

But I also want to talk to you about something that I know is on your mind. You're probably at that age where you don't look like "you." Your eyebrows are gone, your hair is falling out, and your parents – though they have the best intentions – just end up making you feel worse.

You'll be angry and lonely, and you probably don't want to hear this, but trust me (and I wouldn't lie!): this isn't the end for you.

It isn't the end when people talk about you, rather than to you; when that teacher humiliates you in the hallway because you won't take the scarf off of your balding head; when a makeup artist tells you you'll look "better" with eyebrows drawn on your face. 

It's painful, I know, and you'll want to hide away. But don't be angry at the world. The world isn't against you. As you grow up, you'll meet amazing people – people who will celebrate the things that scare you about this unique condition that bonds you with people all over the world (some you'll even get to meet!). You'll be encouraged. You'll find communities of strength.

And sure, there will be setbacks you'll encounter throughout your life, and even at age 30, you'll carry a fragment of insecurity inside your heart. But don't let that harden you. Don't close up and close off from the world. There is so much to experience in life, and I know that I've lost out by being afraid in the past.

So when the setbacks come (and they will come) don't give up. You've got a lot of living ahead of you, and the world is ready for more of you – no matter how you look.

Love,
Me

I have no idea how to draw on eyebrows. I'm not sure if it's something I should've sat down and learned early on. When I was 11 and getting fitted for my first wig by Miss Peggy Tom, she put a plastic stencil to my face and brushed dark brown powder to create an arched brow – first on the left, then on the right.

It didn't look good. Miss Peggy, with her wide smile and bright eyes, assured me I was beautiful, but that it was also my choice. She let me go home with the eyebrow kit anyways and told my mom to let me try it if I wanted to.

I tried – once – and it looked terrible. The brows were uneven and the powder began to smear almost immediately after I removed the second stencil. I immediately washed it off and went back to studying celebrities' faces on magazine covers in the grocery store, hoping it would inspire me to try again.

Backstage at school plays, when the volunteer moms would cake on the wrong foundation and try to glop mascara onto my thinning lashes, my lack of brows became something to argue about: I didn't want anyone to draw them on me, no matter how "good" they thought they could make them look. (Honestly, I just didn't trust anyone!) As a kid, my aunt suggested I get eyebrows tattooed on so I'd look "normal." In 2013, despite my protests, a professional makeup artist convinced me to let her draw on brows before a TV appearance.

"You'll just look better," she said.

Are you sensing a pattern for what came next? I hated it, of course, and asked her to remove them. She did, but for the rest of the time I sat in her chair, she made comments about ways I could look more "complete."

Sometimes I look at my reflection and still see the things first that are missing from my face, the things that make me "incomplete." Most days, though, I'm perfectly happy with the image staring back at me and I truly have no interest in trying to keep drawn-on brows above my eyes or fake lashes glued to my lids. I used to think I had no choice and that those were things I needed in order to "look complete." But it's not what makes me comfortable. It's not really me.

A couple years ago, I was co-hosting a show online and in the comments section for a clip posted to Facebook, someone wrote: "Does she not have eyebrows??"

I responded that I didn't, and that I have alopecia. "It's a choice," I wrote, "but I'm happy with it!"

The original poster came back quickly with a reply and said she loved the look. She herself chose to shave her own eyebrows off for cosplaying purposes, she said.

It made me smile. I'm glad I made the choice too.

I don’t want this to be a metaphorical lit match. I’ve just been wrestling with this, internally, for months and trying to understand what it is I’ve been feeling.

Here’s the thing: I’ve been scared that the public perception is I failed. That I couldn’t “hack it.” That I gave up. The truth is that I do feel like a failure. I do feel like I couldn’t hack it. I am convinced I gave up.

My breakdown this summer is well-documented, so you don’t need the CliffNotes again. I’ve been working through a lot of what happened and it’s only lately I’ve been able to put it into words: I left my job because I realized I was too young to be burnt out. A lot of that burnout came because I grew tired of fighting to be visible in a space not built to hear my voice. I grew tired of trying to prove to an out-of-touch, rich funder that the work mattered while she was told people she “bought” me/us.

I grew tired of fighting to justify my existence.

When I was in college, I was in an unhealthy relationship. It was abusive. He took advantage. I tried to tell people, and I tried to ask for help, but I was ostracized – and, admittedly, I lashed out. And after I walked away, I saw who stayed by his side.

It doesn’t take a trained professional to connect the dots: That was when I began to believe that I was inconsequential.

This is messy. I knew when my identity and worth began being tied to my work, it would be messy. And I know saying any of this puts a black mark on my record. All I can hope for is that someone reading this can learn from my mistakes. Yes, we will mess up. We will break. We will be forgotten.

But I also believe we’ll be OK.

Credits: @alopeciamua, Olivia Mowry/USC, Lisa Lefkowitz

One of the most common questions about alopecia I've gotten is: "Why do you wear a wig?"

It's funny, because 20 years ago, the answer would've been a no brainer. I started wearing wigs because I didn't want to be bullied anymore or stared at everywhere I went. I was never equipped with what to say when someone asked me why my hair was falling out, and I definitely wasn't equipped with the confidence on how to say it.

These days, the answer is a little more complicated. I've been lucky to get to meet others with alopecia and to interact with the parents and guardians of children with alopecia too. Many of them choose to go without wigs, and a lot of the public media about individuals with alopecia often showcases how "bald and beautiful/proud/strong" they are.

In the past when I would see that, I used to feel bad about myself because it felt like I wasn't beautiful/proud/strong if I was "hiding" under a wig. How could I be an out and loud alopecian if I'm wearing a wig every day?


But then I discovered Molly Burke on YouTube, a vlogger who is blind, and I loved how candid she was in her videos about her disability and the highs and lows that come with representing that community too. In her videos, she talks often about how there are different ways to represent her community and how blindness – the experience of it and the outward appearance of it too – is different from person to person. The stereotype we often see in movies and TV of a blind person who wears sunglasses and uses a walking stick is not always how blind people appear or engage in the world. And it doesn't make someone any less blind if they don't appear that way.

I thought about how that applies to alopecia: there isn't one way to be an alopecian. These days, I don't see wearing a wig as "hiding" anymore. I wear wigs because it's what I've done for 18 years and it's what makes me comfortable. It doesn't mean I'm not proud to be an alopecian; it's just a preference. I like being able to try new styles and change my appearance day-to-day. (It's also why I like makeup: it's just a different avenue to express myself!)

There are so many ways alopecia manifests itself: some people lose all their hair, others only lose it in patches (or some have diffuse alopecia). However it presents, and however we choose to present ourselves to the outside world, it doesn't take away that we are alopecians. That part of our identity (and I do see it as an identity) doesn't go away because our alopecia is or isn't visible.

If you have alopecia, you have alopecia. The amount of hair on your head doesn't define whether or not you're part of this community. The way you choose to express your alopecia doesn't change that you are a part of this community.