The A Side ✔

6- One Hair, Two Hairs (TRIGGER WARNING)

This may be triggering so a little warning to all readers! This is a really personal thing that I've never discussed in detail before. If you do want to know, I did try and get support both in and out of College for this but no-one ever got back to me. Writing this is one way I'm trying to cope with what happened. Thanks for understanding. Scarlett x

Let us rewind back to the summer of 2014. When I graduated from Secondary School, when my novel You and Me started winning user-run Wattpad competitions, when my hair started falling out...

I'll stop there because this is something I've had to deal with for nearly two years now. The lack of facial hair. Just to add in here that it was purely luck of the draw that my actual hair on top of my head wasn't affected that badly. It only suffered the usual malting due to the warm weather. Half of my eyebrow hair fell out that summer due to stress and sleepless nights of worry. I panicked about everything even what to wear before leaving the house. But it wasn't until Autumn last year that the nightmare struck.

The bullying at College reached a whole different level. I have a private social media account for my close family and friends since some live far away abroad or the other side of the UK. I discovered something was brewing behind closed doors. A group of teens, all students on my course at the time that I befriended, weren't being so friendly to me. Thinking it was just stress over upcoming assignment deadlines, I left it alone for a while. But it wasn't until my boyfriend at the time showed me some disturbing images on his photo. My personal selfies and photos of pets had been stolen from me and photoshopped. But the comments were what stung me the most. I was horrified. Talking about my appearance and the half bald eyebrow hair that I had tried to cover up with make-up made me sob for hours.

Between then and the split with my now ex-boyfriend, my hair started falling out again and this time, all of my eyebrow hair was gone. Even the half that hadn't been affected the first time round. My confidence was knocked tremendously and I struggled to get around and finish work after just two hours of sleep, the rest of the time crying into my pillow. My thick make-up to cover up the bald patches attracted the attention of other students around the College, grown adults who all said that I looked like an alien freak. I was losing sense of everything and everyone around me. And in May of this year, I took the decision to leave my College altogether without gaining a qualification. 

After the cyber bullying outcome, only one of the people involved apologised to my face but that was the day that I decided that I wouldn't trust anyone ever again. Not even my close friends or family members. It was an emotional decision to make but I felt that I needed to make that choice should people turn to lying behind my back again. The bullies were only given a verbal warning and an essay on not to cyber bullying and steal pictures from others. But apart from that, all of them were allowed to stay on the course.

It was traumatic for me, even though I complained about the result of my hair loss and lack of sleep, I got nowhere with any of the staff members so in the end, I gave up trying to get things sorted and left due to the lack of understanding by them over my anxiety. I got the impression that the majority of people that I saw around College thought that my anxiety was an act in a way to gain people's attention. It wasn't. I stopped spending lunch breaks in College around the groups of students and hid in shops all on my own. Being reduced to this wasn't healthy but I felt that there was no other option.

Seven months on after the cyber bullying, I'm still trembling over what happened. My eyelashes all grew back which was a relief since I missed wearing the mascara but my eyebrow hairs continue to be an issue. A small cluster on both sides has emerged but I'm still stuck wearing the heavy make-up. And it makes me upset but I have to do it. There's no other option.