The woman i found again

ALHAMDULILLAH

The Woman I Found Again

A personal journey through alopecia, faith, healing, love and the mercy of allah.

Written by Dr.zaara tazyeen.

"I lost myself... and by the mercy of Allah, I found her again."

A story I kept inside for years — now written so I never forget how far Allah

brought me.

The Story I Never Thought I Would Tell

There is a part of my life that I kept to myself for years.

Not because I am ashamed of it, but because it hurt too much to talk about.

I went through alopecia totalis — an extremely severe stage of hair loss — where I

lost the hair all over my body. My scalp hair, my eyebrows, my eyelashes,

everything.

And for a young girl growing up in a typical Indian society, where appearance can

be noticed, commented on and judged, losing my hair was never simply about

losing hair.

It felt like I was losing a part of my identity. My femininity. My confidence. My

willingness to be seen.

Eventually, I felt like I was losing myself.

Behind a Locked Door

There were days when I would lock myself in my room for hours.

I would shut the door, stay away from everyone and disappear into my own little

world.

Sometimes I didn't want to talk. Sometimes I didn't want anyone to see me. And

sometimes, I didn't even know how to explain what I was feeling.

I was grieving the person I used to be.

I missed the girl who could walk outside without thinking about whether people

were looking at her. I missed feeling beautiful without questioning it. I missed

feeling like a normal girl.

There were tears, silence, overthinking and questions I had no answers to.

Nobody could see everything that was happening inside me.

But Allah could.

A Life-Changing Phase

I went through depression and loneliness. I lost confidence, and there were

moments when it felt as though my entire world was falling apart.

Living in the society I grew up in made some parts of that journey even harder.

There are things I experienced that would take a book to explain, and there are

still things I may never find the right words for.

But somewhere in all that darkness, something changed.

I became closer to Allah.

When I Had Nothing Left to Hold On To

My relationship with Allah became stronger. My prayers became different. My

faith became different.

When I had nothing left to hold on to, I held on to Allah.

My family stood beside me through a journey that was painful for all of us. They

watched me struggle, watched me lose hope, and still kept going with me.

For almost two years, I went through treatment, hope, disappointment, prayers

and more hope.

There were moments when I genuinely thought my hair would never come back.

I had almost accepted that this was going to be my life.

And Then Allah Gave It Back

After one to two years of treatment, prayers and holding on when I had almost

lost hope, Allah gave me my hair back.

Alhamdulillah.

But looking back now, I realise that Allah didn't only give me my hair back.

He gave me myself back.

The hair that returned became a reminder of something much bigger: a chapter

can be painful without being the end of the story.

The Hijab That Changed Its Meaning

During those years, I started wearing hijab.

At first, if I am being completely honest, I wore it because I wanted to hide.

I wanted to hide my hair. I wanted to hide myself. I wanted to walk outside

without feeling like everyone could see the thing I was trying so desperately to

hide.

My hijab became my shield.

But with time, something beautiful happened.

What I initially wore to hide myself slowly became something I wore for Allah.

I started understanding hijab differently. It wasn't about hiding because I was

ashamed anymore.

It became something I chose because Allah loves hijab.

And somewhere along the way, the meaning changed completely for me.

The Man Who Helped Me Meet Myself Again

After I got my hair back, the fear did not disappear immediately.

When I got married, I had a bob cut. To someone else, it may have simply looked

like a haircut. To me, it represented how far I had come.

My husband came into my life while there were still parts of me that were

healing.

He helped me rebuild the confidence I had lost.

Years later, he encouraged me to cut my hair again — at different lengths, in

different styles. At every length, he found me beautiful.

Eventually, he even encouraged me to colour my hair.

That took so much courage because after everything I had been through, I was

scared to take risks with my hair again.

But he did something I once thought was impossible.

He helped me stop being afraid of my hair.

He helped me enjoy it again.

He helped me see myself through love rather than through the fear I had carried

for years.

Sometimes I feel that Allah sent him into my life to take care of me.

Not because he was the one who healed me — Allah did that — but perhaps

because Allah chose him as one of the means through which that healing reached

me.

He didn't cause the wounds.

He simply loved me through the places that were still hurting.

He helped me meet the version of myself that I had lost somewhere along the

way.

The Healing Was Not Over

Even after getting my hair back, my healing was not completely over.

After one or two years of marriage, tiny patches would still appear here and

there.

Sometimes my hair would grow beautifully in one place while another small patch

appeared somewhere else.

And every time it happened, that old fear would come rushing back.

What if it starts again?

What if I lose everything again?

After everything I had been through, even a tiny patch could bring back years of

memories.

The Ruqyah I Was Given

Then Allah placed another small piece of my healing in my path.

My mother-in-law gave me a ruqyah to read for hardships.

She did not know the full extent of what I had been through. She did not know

what those little patches meant to me or how much fear was behind them.

She simply gave me something to read.

But sometimes Allah sends help through people who have no idea how much their

small act will mean to you.

I started reading it. I prayed. I placed my trust in Allah.

And slowly, that problem went away.

Alhamdulillah.

Later, after about a year, I told my mother-in-law that the ruqyah had helped me

heal completely from that problem.

Looking back, I see Allah's mercy in that too.

Allah is the One who heals, and He can make even the smallest act a means of

comfort and healing.

Four Years to Find Myself Again

My healing did not happen overnight.

It took me almost four years to truly come out of that phase.

Four years to rebuild my confidence.

Four years to stop seeing myself through the eyes of people who had hurt me.

Four years to feel comfortable being me again.

And today, I can finally talk about it.

Without hiding.

Without feeling ashamed.

And most importantly, without crying.

Not because what happened didn't hurt.

It did.

It changed me.

But today, when I look back, I don't only see the girl who lost all her hair.

I see the girl who survived.

The girl who kept praying when she had almost lost hope.

The girl whose family kept standing beside her.

The girl who found Allah in the darkest chapter of her life.

The girl who eventually found love, confidence and herself again.

And I am proud of her.

What I See Now

When I look back at my life, I see Allah's mercy in places where, at the time, all I

could see was pain.

The treatment.

The prayers.

My family.

The hijab.

My husband.

My mother-in-law's small act of kindness.

The hair that came back.

The confidence that slowly returned.

None of it felt simple while I was living through it.

But today, I can see that every chapter was shaping me.

There was a time when I thought my life was falling apart.

Now I realise that Allah was simply writing a different chapter for me.

A chapter I couldn't understand then.

But one I can be grateful for today.

Alhamdulillah

For every tear. For every prayer. For every moment I thought I could not

continue. For the family who stood beside me. For the husband who helped me

find confidence again. For every unexpected means of healing. And above all, for

Allah, whose mercy carried me when I could not carry myself.

"I thought I was losing everything. I did not know Allah was

leading me back to myself."

This is not only a story about losing my hair.

It is a story about losing myself, finding Allah, learning to heal, learning to love

myself again, and discovering that sometimes the hardest chapter of your life can

become the one that brings you closest to your Creator.

Alhamdulillah for the woman I became because of it.

The true motive behind writing this story is simple: you are not alone.

In a world that often tells us our worth is tied to how we look, facing a condition like alopecia can make you feel completely isolated. But my darkest moments became the very path that led me back to myself, to a deeper faith, and to the realization that my worth was never in my hair to begin with.

If this story brings comfort to even one person who is struggling in silence, or helps someone look in the mirror and smile through their tears, then every part of sharing this vulnerable journey was worth it. May you always find the strength to find yourself again."