Welcome to Plathville Star Moriah Plath Opens Up to Her Dad, Says Childhood Alopecia Made Her Feel ‘Ugly’

Moriah Plath talks about her struggle with childhood alopecia.

“I would look in the mirror and say, ‘You’re ugly. Nobody’s ever going to love you,'” she recalls on a new episode of the TLC reality show. Welcome to Plathville.

“When I was a girl, when I was 3 years old, I lost all my hair for a few years completely, not even my eyebrows or eyelashes,” explains Moriah, who at 20 is the second oldest daughter of Barry and Kim Plath’s nine children.

“I was completely bald,” she says in a clip from the episode he shared Today.

Continuing to share her struggle in the confessional, Moriah says, “The doctors said it was alopecia, but it was a rare type of alopecia because it all fell out immediately and came back years later,” she says. “Wherever I went, kids my age made fun of me: [at] Church, [by] my brothers and sisters. And that’s when I really started seeing myself as different.”

Barry and Moriah Plath.

TLC

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According to the National Institutes of Health, alopecia areata occurs when “the immune system attacks the hair follicles and causes hair loss.”

It usually affects the head and face, and the most common type is “alopecia areata,” where a person develops bald spots the size of a dime on the scalp or elsewhere. But more severe cases can cause hair loss all over the body.

The cause of the disease is unknown. “Researchers do not fully understand what causes the immune attack on hair follicles, but they believe that both genetic and environmental (non-genetic) factors play a role, according to the NIH.

Jada Pinkett Smith shares photo of her hair ‘Get Back’ as she continues to battle alopecia

While sharing a meal with her father, Barry, the two discussed the mental and emotional impact of the disease on Moriah, who said in her confessional that she made sure that “every member of my family is not allowed to show a picture of me when I was younger to anyone. And never tell anyone.”

“I just wanted to completely block it out as something that happened to me,” she said.

And as she tells Barry, “When I got my hair back, it was like, ‘Okay, it’s not me anymore. Let’s forget it.’ You know, I asked everyone not to talk about it,” she says.

Moriah Plath.

TLC

“True, but it’s okay to talk about it now,” he says.

As she says she felt different, Moriah tells her father, “I mean, I was different. You didn’t treat me different.”

In fact, she adds, “I think you and mom are the only ones who have actually told me I’m beautiful. Her dad, clearly moved, says, “You remember that, right?”

London marathon runner with alopecia responds to social media troll who said she looks like a ‘sick, ugly man’

But Moriah also told her father that she had some misplaced anger and struggled with bullies at school, which contributed to her self-esteem issues.

“I was angry for a while because you couldn’t fix it, and you were my parents and you should have fixed it, but you couldn’t,” she says.

Barry Plath replies, “We were all helpless.”

“The doctor said you can’t and they didn’t know what to do,” she said. “It’s not your fault.”

“I’m just sorry that the children, who are sometimes cruel children, did what they did,” he says.

“Those words really affected me,” she says.

Her father agrees, saying, “Sometimes they cut like knives.”

Welcome to Plathville airs Tuesdays at 10pm ET on TLC.

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Source: HIS Education