Hey - This is My Story
Friday, December 11, 2009
By: Ruta Barkauskaite

by Ruta

Hey This is my story

I‘m so glad… finally!!!! after 15 years I’ve find NAAF… people like me!!!!! I’m so glad!!! I am not alone!!!!!
I’m bald since 15 years old. That was a winter of 1994, in Lithuania. I was like everyone in school and in the street. And it happens very fast – two weeks and half of my scalp gone bald…..
I was the only one like that in my school and in my small city.
To say truth – it was terrible. It was very hard and painful. My first thought was „It‘s unreal, it has happened not to me, it’s not me, it’s a terrible dream and I will one day wake up and see that everything is ok”. I was 15 years old and no one knew, what is happening. No answers from medicine, no explanations at all. There was only oppressive silence at home. No words at all.
After 2 years I lost last hair of my scalp, brushes and lashes. The hardest time was at school. Fortunately, my sister learned at the same class, so she and some friends escorted me from one class to other, as there was impossible to walk alone in corridors of the school… Schoolchildren came especially to look at me… then I wore a hat. I asked my parents not to go to school and to learn at home. So actually I finished my school years. After that I stayed for one year at home with my parents. No dreams. No future. No faith.
And one day after one year I understood: there’s no one who will live my life as not myself.
And I left my parent house and come to capital of Lithuania, to Vilnius. Here I started my studies in psychology and philosophy. I wore a wig 6 years.
My life changed.  I met terrific people who helped me cope with my problem. I find good job, I find new young people who told me boldness it’s not a lack, it’s an advantage.

I’m happy, I’m not alone.

Ruta Barkauskaite, Vilnius
Lithuania