Moriah Plath's Childhood Alopecia Made Her Feel "Ugly" and Unloved
Published Sept. 27 2023, 9:46 a.m. ET
The Gist:
- Welcome to Plathville's Moriah struggled with alopecia during her childhood.
- The condition led to her low self-worth.
- Years later, the reality star is more at peace with her experience.
Many of us have difficult things from our pasts that define us today, and Moriah Plath of Welcome to Plathville is no different. In her case, however, her childhood diagnosis of alopecia was hidden away for years — until now.
Although the reality star once tried to pretend that this upsetting time in her life never happened, she is coming to terms with having lost all of her hair as a kid.
Moriah Plath's alopecia diagnosis truly shaped who she was for many years.
As other sufferers know, alopecia is a type of hair loss that occurs on the scalp, face, and body, per the American Academy of Dermatology Association. It can begin at any age, and for Moriah, at age 3, she received her diagnosis.
"I would look myself in the mirror and I would say, 'You are ugly. Nobody will ever love you,'" she heartbreakingly recalls during an episode of the show.
She goes on to explain, "I lost all my hair for several years completely, not even eyebrows or eyelashes," per People.
Moriah, who described herself as "completely bald," shared more about her experience with the incurable disease, saying during the show, “The doctors said it was alopecia but it was like a rare kind of alopecia cause it just all fell out immediately and came back years later. Everywhere I went, I was made fun of by kids my age: [at] church, [by] my siblings. And that’s when I really started to see myself as different.”
Moriah tried to block out her alopecia experience when her hair came back.
Moriah was seemingly in denial about having had alopecia, relaying that “every single one of my family members knew never to show a picture of me when I was younger to anybody. And never to tell anybody.”
Moriah admitted she wanted to "block" out the very hard time in her life, and in one scene of Welcome to Plathville, she says to her father that when her hair returned, she decided to "forget" about the alopecia.
Moriah's parents Barry and Kim made her feel "beautiful" when she had alopecia.
In a moving Instagram post shared in May 2023, Moriah said about her father Barry Plath, "He’s shown me the meaning of unconditional love."
Moriah's parents were very supportive during her struggles with alopecia.
Indeed, it seems that during the years she had alopecia, Barry and his ex-wife Kim were a source of support for their daughter.
“I think you and mom were the only ones that actually told me I was beautiful," Moriah tells Barry on the episode.
Still, her parents couldn't make her pain go away completely. "For a while I was angry because you guys couldn't fix it and you were my parents and you were supposed to fix it, but you couldn't," she shares.
Today, it seems that Moriah is more comfortable with her past, since she is addressing the experience with the condition on a TV show. Since as many as 160 million people around the world suffer from alopecia, there's no doubt that the reality star opening up about her own diagnosis will help others feel more seen.