What's up our t T fan? Check out this bonus clip. Having alopecia can be hard on the whole family. Kevin Aldridge recently wrote an article about his wife's battle with the disease. My wife has alopecia. I've dried her tears, affirmed her beauty and used only my words to support her. And that's such beautiful words. Thank you, Kevin. Why is
it important for you to share your perspective? I think because if you haven't been on this journey with someone who's who's been through it, you don't know what it's like. You know, people will say things like, Oh, it's just hair. Oh it's just a joke. I think when you've walked with somebody on that journey and you've seen the things in the private moments that people don't see publicly, do you understand that it's not just hair, it's not just
a joke. After the event with the oscars, I understood the gut reaction of a husband and want to defend in that moment. I think where I differentiate as I understand that people need to be educated about the struggle that people who have alopecia go through. So Nicole, what is your journey. So I had alopecia um the first time when I was sixteen years old. My hair came out for about three or four years, and then it started to grow back, and I didn't think anymore about alopecia.
We got married in two thousand seven, and on my wedding day at the beautition, she noticed a spot and that was the first time that I thought that it was coming back. And it did. And I wore wigs for a while, and they're itchy, they're hot. My head is very small, and so the yes, they do right, yeah, And so it just got to me, you know, I did not want to wear the wigs. I thought maybe I'll shave it. I talked to him about it, and he was super supportive. Whatever it is that you want
to do, I'll do. I'll support you. That's what I've always tried to do, just be a support for her as her husband, to make her feel always accepted and affirmed, and that I never looked at her any differently than she was still the same beautiful woman that I'm married. And so I shaved it. I decided to just go all out, and he said, you go upstairs and you cut it and I'll shave it off for you. Then he gave me the barbershop treatment, and I had like the the hot towel that he put on my head
and and he shaved it. At the time, I worked at and inner city elementary school, so I was really nervous about going to the school with the shaved head. I went in. I did hear the kids, why did miss Soldiers she cut her hair? Or look at her? It wasn't bad. I received a lot of hugs from the staff and from the teachers, even from some of the kids. Your journey reminds me of mine a bit. It started falling out and I was trying to hold on to it, and then I cut it, you know,
and then I was just like, funk it. All the trying to manage it and I was just over it. Yeah, and even hiding it under the wigs. I'm like, I'm doing all of this only to cover it up more. I'm not going to do it anymore. So I did the steroid shots, going every month, getting thirty to forty shots in my head with this little bit of hair growth, and if I want to continue my hair growth, I
have to continue the shot. And I was like, no, they gave me the stress ball, and so I'm just squeezing on the stress ball while they poke all of these holes into my scals. It does, it's these little, tiny needles, and so it just wasn't worth it for me anymore. Yeah, I'm with you that I was going to say, you don't realize that the community is bigger
than you think it is. And a lot of times when you're affected by something like this, you feel so alone and you feel like it's only happening to you. But there are a lot of people that she knew
who were suffering in silence. And I think if if there's one thing that I hope comes out of this and the attention that this has been getting over the past few months, is that we'll see more communities form, people feeling more comfortable about coming out and sharing their stories and um feeling so not isolated, and maybe even those of us who aren't impacted by will develop a little more humanity, empathy, and sensitivity. We just don't know
what people are going through. You and my wife present strong on the outside, but people don't see the internal struggles that are going on, and so we all just need to learn just to check ourselves for amatic Thank you, Thank you so much for listening to this bonus content