At 13, the stress of my parents’ toxic divorce caused my hair to fall out. It never grew back. This is what all divorcing couples need to know: LAURA MATHIAS

The hairdresser chatted away as she parted my hair down the middle, playing around to see what style would suit me.

I was 13, it was the early 2000s, and all I wanted was poker-straight hair with perfect face-framing layers, like every other girl my age.

Suddenly her friendly chatter stopped, and she called my mum over to stand behind me. ‘There’s a little bald patch on the back of your head, Laura,’ she said gently, tilting a handheld mirror so I could see it. There it was, a smooth circle of scalp about the size of a 50p piece.

I hadn’t noticed any hair loss at the time – although looking back at photos, my hair was definitely starting to look thinner.

I remember her saying the word alopecia – she had a friend with it – but I’d never heard of it before and didn’t know what she was talking about. I just kept feeling the patch, pretending not to notice Mum’s fixed, forced smile as they both insisted it was nothing to worry about.

The pictures accompanying this article give the rest away.

Now 34, I’ve been living with alopecia ever since. The type I have, alopecia areata universalis, is an autoimmune condition where the body attacks its own hair follicles from head to toe, meaning my hair has fallen out all over.

Many studies make the connection between stress and hair loss. In my case, I’m sure the trigger was my parents’ drawn-out divorce.

From the outside, we were a typical family – Dad a teacher, Mum a librarian. I was a happy little girl who loved school. But I was starting to hate being at home.

Mum and Dad just didn’t like each other; more than that, they couldn’t seem to even exist in the same room any more. The fighting was constant, and I was always walking on eggshells, never sure what might spark a screaming match. Something as small as forgetting to turn off a light could explode into a massive drama.

My sister Amy, who is five years older than me, spent as little time at home as possible whereas I, being younger, had nowhere else to go.

When she moved out at 17 to escape the tension, I was suddenly left alone in the crossfire – terrified, miserable, and with no means of escape. I was 12 when Mum confided in me that she was planning to leave Dad once she could afford to.

I carried that secret for months – an unbearable responsibility that no child should ever been burdened with.

True to her word, Mum eventually used some inheritance from my granddad to rent us a small house in Ipswich – there was no question that I wouldn’t be going with her. We hurried our goodbyes and were gone.

The new house was cramped and tense in its own way, but it was ours, and at least the fighting had stopped.

But after a year the money ran out, and in December 2004 we had no choice but to move back to the family home. I’ll never forget the dread in my stomach walking back through that door – it felt like someone had hit the ‘pause’ button, and now the battle picked up where we’d left it a year earlier.

That’s when everything began to unravel. The constant anxiety, the fighting, trying to say the right thing to keep the peace – it was too much for a 13-year-old child. It was too much for anyone; no wonder my body started to fight back.

Mum had taken me to the hairdresser to, ironically, cheer me up when we found my hair was falling out.

Our next appointment was to the GP, who casually confirmed I had alopecia and gave me some cream to rub on my bald patches, telling me to ‘try and calm down’ about what was happening at home. I felt like he was saying this change to my body was my fault.

There was no leaflet, no explanation – just the suggestion that my hair would ‘probably’ grow back if I worried less. Mum and I left stunned. Kids don’t just lose their hair, do they?

In those days, nobody really spoke about this condition, which affects as many as 400,000 people in the UK. The only bald woman I’d ever seen was the TV presenter Gail Porter, who’d spoken about the cruel taunts she’d suffered as a result of her alopecia – and how her career had fallen away just as fast as her long, blonde hair.

For me, as a teenage girl on the cusp of adolescence, it couldn’t have happened at a worse age.

At first, I could cover the patches by combing my hair over them, but they were beginning to join together, and I lived in constant dread of someone noticing.

My anxiety spiralled. By Christmas of Year 9 I refused to go back to school. Each morning there was more hair on my pillow, and I didn’t know how I could be seen like this.

It’s hard for me to remember the endless days that followed, that turned into weeks, that eventually turned into the rest of the school year. The combination of my parents’ fighting, my ever-thinning hair and the knowledge that my education was slipping paralysed me.

The only clear memory I have of that year, 2005, is of Mum and Dad standing at the end of my bunk bed – in a rare display of unity – begging me to get up and go outside to get some fresh air.

I couldn’t explain it to them; that I just couldn’t go, that the outside world terrified me just as much as the one inside these four walls.

Instead, I decided to focus on my weight. I’d always been slightly on the chubby side, and now I seized on this as something I could ‘fix’, in a way I couldn’t with my alopecia.

I pedalled for hours on an exercise bike in front of the TV, and lost 3st in six months – the cruel irony being that the extreme weight loss probably made my hair loss worse.

My 14th birthday came and went, as did a cursory visit to a psychologist who, somehow, I managed to convince I was absolutely fine – and left with no further support.

Looking back, it makes perfect sense that the terrible stress I was living under had brought on my alopecia. Yet to me at the time, I just felt frightened and confused. I thought back to the friends’ houses I visited, whose parents had divorced, and yet their homes still felt calm and safe. They weren’t losing their hair either. Why was this happening to me? I felt completely alone. I think I knew even then that the constant fighting was making me ill.

The doctor had hinted as much, telling me to ‘calm down’. But how could I, when home was the source of it all? I don’t feel angry now, but for a long time I was resentful that my parents did so little to shield me.

Mum, I know, was in an impossible situation, obviously very unhappy but without the means to leave – something I can understand now, as an adult. And so, the fighting continued. Eventually, after a year in my bedroom, listening to the shouting downstairs, I decided I had to return to school. I knew that without any education, I’d never get away.

By now, I had huge bald patches all over my scalp, and I was markedly thinner.

My friends were kind, but others weren’t. One boy asked if I’d ‘been away to have a baby’, because I looked so different.

Mum had warned the school in advance about my alopecia, which I tried to cover with hats and headbands, but no real accommodation was made for me. Some teachers – who clearly hadn’t got the message – would still demand I remove my headscarves because they weren’t part of the strict uniform policy.

One school trip to a cathedral stands out as a particularly stressful event. I’d been told to remove my hat, and I was horrified, as I went down a staircase, at the thought of the people behind me looking down on my bald patches.

Somehow, I got away with it – or for once, the other children decided not to mention it – but on the coach home, I called Mum.

‘I think it’s time I got a wig,’ I whispered.

It seemed like the only answer – a ready-made head of hair to make me ‘normal’ again. I went back to the same hairdresser who’d found that first bald patch, and she shaved off what was now left of my locks.

I chose a plain brown mid-length wig. From that day, I didn’t step outside without one for 17 years.

It took another three years for Mum and Dad’s divorce to come through, and for Mum to be financially secure enough to get a house of her own. The relief was enormous, but for me, the damage had already been done. Yet my wig gave me enough confidence to finish school and study Film and Literature at the University of Warwick – though I was desperate that no one would know I was wearing one.

I pleaded for an ensuite room so my secret was safe, but by the end of my second term, as everyone started looking into accommodation for the second year, I knew I had to confess to my best friends, with whom I’d soon be sharing a bathroom. It felt like a big moment but, of course, they couldn’t have cared less.

Around this time I started dipping my toe into the dating pool for the first time, and you’d be surprised how much hair features in romantic clinches.

I came up with a system, whereby if anyone’s hand ventured anywhere near my head I’d pull back silently, then go back in for the kiss once they removed it.

I finally told my first serious boyfriend, expecting him to run a mile. He went silent for a week before deciding it ‘didn’t change anything’ – though the pause said plenty. We stayed together for years, but I never forgot that initial silence.

Wearing a wig also came at a physical cost; wearing it for long days would rub my scalp raw, leaving me with painful eczema and open wounds. Yet the shame of going bare felt worse.

After graduating in 2013, I worked in charity communications, still feeling I had to hide my hair loss at all costs to be seen as ‘professional’. I continued wearing the wig, in agony, for years.

Then lockdown hit. Most people hated being stuck at home; for me it was a relief. At last, I could be Bald Laura in peace. My scalp healed, and my mindset around alopecia started to heal as well. I discovered I was allergic to silicone and hair dye – basically every component of a wig. Why was I putting myself through such pain for the social comfort of others?

I won’t pretend it wasn’t agonising, the first time I walked out the front door to my car without my wig. But little by little I learnt to ditch the wigs, swapping them for a beanie or bandana – until one day I realised I didn’t ‘need’ those either. What I put on my head should be a choice, not an obligation.

I interviewed for my current job on Zoom, bald and proud. In fact, the last time I wore a wig was on my third date with my boyfriend, who I met on Hinge. I’d shared pictures on my profile, both bald and wearing hair, so when I turned up to our first two dates without one, he didn’t bat an eyelid.

For the third, at a fancy restaurant, I felt a vague social obligation to match the occasion with a wig. He came to pick me up and didn’t recognise me at first.

Since then, my wigs have been collecting dust in my attic. While my boyfriend tells me I’m beautiful either way, strangers aren’t always as kind.

In Tesco recently, a cashier asked about my alopecia and playfully demanded I ‘give her a twirl’. I did, people-pleaser that I am, and she told me I had ‘a lovely shaped head’. I smiled politely, then walked home furious with myself for giving in. Sometimes I just want to buy milk without having to explain my medical history or my appearance.

Others can be unbelievably crass. At a wedding not long ago, after a few drinks, the bride introduced me to new friends explaining: ‘Laura didn’t tell us about her wig for years, but we all knew.’ I was mortified. Then another guest added: ‘At least nobody thinks you’ve got cancer – you’re not thin enough.’

That was the only moment I’ve ever been glad to twirl; I spun on my heel and headed for the dance floor instead.

I’m definitely getting better at not pandering to other people’s expectations now – whether that means refusing intrusive questions or choosing not to wear a wig.

These days, I’m trying to be the role model I wish I’d had growing up – someone who shows that difference can be powerful.

On Instagram, I share my journey and, through my campaigning work with Changing Faces, a charity that advocates for those with visible differences, and Alopecia UK, I’m inspired daily by young people who embrace their baldness with pride – people prepared to challenge classic perceptions of beauty and celebrate difference instead of questioning it.

My feelings towards my parents remain complicated, however. I know Mum carries a great deal of guilt about my alopecia, and that period of school refusal.

I once asked her if she was ashamed of me, of my baldness. She said she the only thing she feels shame about is how woefully ill-equipped she felt to deal with it all. She thinks she should have done more to protect me.

There’s no point in wishing things had been different, but I often find myself wondering if I would have lost my hair had we stayed away from the family home.

Now that I’m in a healthy, adult relationship, I look back and feel pure sadness. Sadness that Mum wanted to leave but couldn’t, and sadness that her choices had such a monumental impact on my life.

Stress can still trigger my flare-ups, even now. Hair grows in 90-day cycles, and this month my eyelashes fell out again after some challenging changes at work. While I sometimes temporarily regrow small, short-lived patches of hair, I’m currently completely bald and I’ve made peace with it.

I’ve realised the real challenge was never my hair loss – it was how the world saw it. When strangers stare now, I don’t look away.

I know they’re curious when they see a happy, healthy, bald woman walking down the street. But what I want more than anything is for conditions like alopecia, ones that change our appearance, to stop being treated as something to fix or fear.

Being bald doesn’t make me brave or broken – it just makes me human. After years of trying to hide, I’ve realised that real beauty isn’t about having hair. It’s about having the courage to be seen exactly as you are.

AS TOLD TO OLIVIA DEAN