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UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND

Factual Storytelling Exercise

Name: Grace Wilson

Student #: 42904685

Course: JOUR1111

Due: Friday 27 April, 2012

Word Count: 982

Tell a story about someone. The story must be factual, not fictional. Engage with the

process of storytelling and the modes of storytelling, rather than the outcome. Present your

story on your blog site as either a) straight text, b) text with pictures, c) audio, d) mixedmedia, e) a photo gallery, f) video or any other media you deem appropriate.

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What Doesnt Kill You Only Makes You Stronger

A tale of courage and self-discovery, as told by Grace Wilson.

She sits cross-legged in the dappled light of the courtyard. Its a warm day and beads of sweat have

formed along her brow and scalp. Wiping them off absentmindedly in conversation, she is aware of

but unperturbed by the attention of those walking past. Its just become a part of my daily reality,

she explains.

Georgina was diagnosed with alopecia areata and began losing her hair when she was just ten years

old. A style once cut bluntly at the chin, soon became frail and patchy. It was made doubly hard

because of her twin sister who remained unaffected by the disease. Elizabeth represented a version of

herself, Georgina could never be again.

Day by day, she felt less hair on her head and saw less on her body. Over the course of several

months, it was as if she watched her former self disappear. She grew accustomed to looking at a

freak in the mirror. Guilt-ridden, her mother blamed herself for the hereditary disease which had

skipped a generation and attacked her daughters immune system instead of her own. Doctors still

dont know what causes the disease, but acknowledge stress as a trigger.

Ashamed and afraid, Georgina would conceal the bodily changes underneath beanies or caps, but this

only aroused suspicion amongst her peers. So she tried to embrace the bodily changes by pulling out

clumps of her own hair, almost like a party trick performed on demand. Her actions were an attempt

to speed up the inevitable and excruciatingly slow transition from blonde to bald.

At that age, there was little that could have been said to console her. It consumed her entire identity

she was the girl with no hair. People would recognise her wherever she went. They couldnt resiststarting up a conversation and, assuming a sympathetic tone, rest their hand gently on her arm before

asking, So, how long do you have? The other extreme came in the form of blatant gawking and

sniggering, mainly from children in the playground. Then there were her friends whose myopic world

view rendered them indifferent to her struggles. She couldnt decide which reaction she hated more.

Anything thats different is scary, and to combat that, people bully, she reasons. Not fitting in took a

further emotional toll on Georgina as she was undergoing a course of cortisone injections to try and

stimulate hair growth. These left her head sore, swollen and bloodied. There is no known cure for

alopecia, so when her condition progressed to a new and more aggressive stage, it was decided to stop

treatment altogether. Before, it had been her strong personality that was a target for bullies. Now,adjusting to life without hair made her feel even more alone.

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Sports were a welcome outlet for her stresses and anxieties. A powerful determination and natural

ability saw her dominate at anything she tried. For the first time, competing was a forum where she

was noticed for her ability instead of her appearance. Taekwondo became a passion amongst other

basketball, tennis and swimming pursuits. After attaining the highest honour in martial arts, a black

belt, Georgina reminisces on all the hours she spent training as a form of catharsis. There was

nothing else quite like it for me in terms of recovery. It was an escape to a no judgement zone and I

would go there as often as I could.

At one point, her mother proposed she wore a wig. For most girls this may have seemed like a simple

solution, but for Georgina, it was a matter of denying who she was. She didnt want to live a lie and

appear normal and healthy because she wasnt, and above all else she didnt want to concede to

societys superficial expectations. The cost for a wig of genuine donated hair would have been an

expensive investment and, even then, conflicted with her active lifestyle. A beauty of its own

manifested itself in her decision to stay the way she was. It was a defining moment in her personal

journey when inner strength overcame self-consciousness.

The crippling body image issues she faced where more than your average teenager. To compensate

for feeling vulnerable in social settings, Georgina was loud and projected a certain confidence. Mere

months from being eighteen, and still, anything overtly feminine is an anomaly in her wardrobe. On a

subconscious level she does this so people cant compare her to other girls. Instead her style is more

practical than pretty, featuring jeans and athletic Ts in favour of dresses and heels. Wearing

makeup is uncomfortable for her, as mascara clumps on thinning lashes and to draw on eyebrows

requires both patience and a steady hand. A running joke within the family is that her beauty regime is

as simple as giving her head a polish.

Since high school Georgina has gone on to study human movement and exercise science at theUniversity of Queensland. The degree is challenging, but considering what she has already overcome

in life, she continues to meet its academic demands with enthusiasm. When asked about the future,

Ideally, I want to be a rehabilitation specialist who deals with the strength and conditioning of

athletes with injuries. These selfless aspirations come as a result of losing her hair during the

formative years of her childhood, at a time when sport was her only source of genuine enjoyment.

While physically and emotionally painful at the time, in the long term, going bald has enhanced her

empathy for those around her. When people assume she is a terminally ill cancer patient, it puts

Georginas life in perspective. She is able to draw a sense of liberation from the non-life threatening

disease and in defying everyones expectations. Firmly of the belief that everything happens for a

reason, she tilts her head back and laughs. The sound is joyous and pure. She is finally comfortable in

her own skin.