RICKI Lake showed off her new shaved head as she boldly opened up about the effect on her well-being-including suicidal thoughts-that her hair loss had.
The 51-year-old star revealed that for three decades she had been “suffering in silence” before choosing yesterday to go public with her “secret.” The former TV host shared pictures of her shaved head on Instagram on Wednesday, where she described the “quiet hell” of hair loss she had been struggling with, as well as the effect it had on her mental health in a lengthy caption.
Ricki shared her thoughts as “First of all, I’m not sick. (THANK YOU.) I don’t have a crisis of mid-life.
Even though I’ve struggled, I’m not having a mental breakdown, “she began her long Facebook and Instagram post. “For nearly 30 years, suffering mostly in silence. AND I’m ready to finally share my secret.
“For most of my adult life, I suffered from hair loss” and further added that “For almost 30 years, living mostly in silence. And finally, I’m willing to share my secret.”
The 51-year-old then clarified that for most of her adult life she was struggling with hair loss and that it was “debilitating, humiliating, stressful, frightening, depressing, lonely, all things.
” She further added that “I have felt suicidal about it a few times, and no one in my life understood the level of intense pain and trauma that I was feeling. My reality was not even known by my psychiatrist over the years.”
The thinning of her hair began in 1988 when her hair was tripled every two weeks for Tracy Turnblad’s part in Hairspray, according to Lake.
She explained, however, that her hair loss could have a number of factors, including diet, hormonal birth control, weight fluctuations, pregnancies, genetics, and stress throughout the time. The actress says she tried everything from extensions to supplements and steroid shots in an effort to fight her hair loss, but that nothing helped in the long run.
Lake decided to share her story because she knows it will resonate with other men and women who experience the same thing and possibly help them.
She wrote that “I know I’m going to strike a chord with so many men and women by sharing my truth. I’m not alone in this and my goal is to help others while at the same time getting rid of this quiet hell I’ve lived in.”
The star said with her new shaved head she finally felt “liberated” and “beautiful,” and her fans shared the message. “I want to be real by 2020 and beyond,” she wrote. “I’m going to wear hair sometimes, but now it’s funny, not because I’m hiding anything. I’m hiding that way.”
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