IT took Frankston retailer and alopecia sufferer Tammy Lobato many years to overcome the sense of isolation that goes with being “different”, so she understands only too well the embarrassment, anxiety and fear surrounding the topic of hair loss.
Speaking out last week during Alopecia Awareness Week, Ms Lobato said she lost her hair when she was three due to the auto-immune disease and spent many of her younger years suffering from bullying and feeling alienated.
But the former Victorian Labor MP, who runs a wig store in Frankston, said alopecia had made her a stronger person, more compassionate and empathetic, and driven by a “desire to create change and right wrongs”.
She regularly counsels younger people afflicted by hair loss, telling them they will develop inner strength and learn skills that will enable them to be effective leaders in the future.
“I wore a wig in primary school and I remember children talking about me and noticing that there was something different about my hair,” she said.
“Children being children, that point of difference made me a target for bullies, so I grew up learning that I had to be resilient to get through.
“It certainly changed my life early on, as I didn’t do some of the sports I would have liked to do, but I just had to deal with it.”
Ms Lobato, the MP for Gembrook from 2002-10, opened her wig store 18 months ago after seeing a gap in the market, and describes her new career as “a blessing”.
“As an MP I was able to help people, and now with my store I love being able to help young people particularly who are facing hair loss and trying to cope with some of those inevitable feelings of being different,” she said.
“I had for 40 years experienced frustrating, sad and humiliating times in various wig shops with rude and impatient sales staff, being sold inappropriate, unflattering wigs shoved in brown paper bags and made with an appalling lack of quality and sold by people taught to sell, not to care.”
Alopecia affects around two per cent of the population, and there is no cure.
It is believed to be an immunological disease which disrupts the hair follicle and results in total or partial hair loss.
The Frankston South-based Australia Alopecia Areata Foundation Inc provides support, advice and information for sufferers.
