Hi, I am Kathi Tait, known as the Baldwarrior. My story is one of trauma and transformation and the secret to true freedom.
It starts when I was 8 years old and my older sister of 16 months finally died after a 5-year battle with Leukemia. I look back now and see my younger self isolated in the pain of her best friend suddenly disappearing, even though my Mum had told me it was going to happen soon, it rocked my world and changed my life.
A few months later, after the funeral and trip home to New Zealand, the flowers had finally stopped, and we were trying to live a normal life again. Then life struck and my lesson began.
One day, out of the blue, my hair started falling out. It was the girl that sat next to me at school that noticed first because, suddenly, there was hair all over my desk. Then I started seeing it everywhere, on my pillow, in the bathroom sink, anywhere. It was scary and I was again bewildered.
This led down a path of non-stop doctors and specialists and becoming a guinea pig for them. Nobody really knew what caused Alopecia then and it was blamed on ‘stress’. I believe it was my body manifesting the trauma I had suffered that had never been faced, released, or healed.
[blur]As a result of the experimentation and the bullying I experienced at school I grew up to believe I was a freak, abnormal, and unlovable. I spent my teenage years ostracised by my peers until my hair grew back at around 15 years old.
This wasn’t the end though. My Alopecia represented itself again at 19 after a bad breakup with my first serious boyfriend and the rollercoaster began again. It was a cycle of hope and despair and again I felt like a freak. So, I self-sabotaged! I got caught in a violent relationship at 20, had a baby to him at 21, and finally escaped with a young baby and a few belongings only to become homeless for 3 months while we tried to get a house.
What followed was my 20’s where I was figuring out not only how to be a mother but also how to support my child on my own as I refused to allow any contact with his violent and unstable father and so I also refused child support out of my own principles. I did figure it out, I educated myself and worked hard but part of me was always kept hidden.
The truth is, I spent my 20’s and 30’s desperately wanting to be like everyone else. I wanted to be accepted, I wanted to fit in, I wanted to belong somewhere. I didn’t feel like I did, I never felt ‘normal’ and so I wore wigs to at least look like everyone else. But I was actually carrying around this giant secret of being bald. I was petrified that people would find out I was a fraud and a freak. Wearing those wigs changed my life because I allowed it to control me. I limited what I would do in fear of discovery, like a thief in the night.
The weight of carrying that secret weighed my soul down. I was not happy, I was alone, and I was shoving it all into a box in my head, so I didn’t need to face any of it. In my mid-30’s I met and married a sweet man who was a bit younger than me. He was the first guy to ever love me despite my baldness. I’m not sure I was in love with him, but I was in love with him loving me.
During the 3 years of our marriage I went off the tracks and my non-existent self-confidence radically shifted into an ego trip as I started a business, became well known in my town for my expertise and revelled in finally having some success. I took it too far. I became unbearable at home, pushing my husband to have more motivation and sadly, drove him away.
I was devasted by our breakup and spiralled back into self-sabotage. I drank myself to sleep every night, I took long walks with our dogs and I didn’t eat properly. I was stuck in a black hole again and the only person keeping me on earth was my precious son who was by now 16.
A few months later I met another man who would help me completely change my mindset. It was a tumultuous relationship full of love and drama and tears and it rocked my world. We were married in our backyard and for 5 years I saw the world differently and started to realise how wrong I had been all along. I learned that my baldness didn’t make me a freak, it made me unique. I learned that the power of the mind can change your life.
At 41 I finally embraced my baldness and threw the wigs in the closet – never to be worn again! I remember the first time I went out to a shop bald, feeling exposed and naked, and my husband whispering in my ear that no-one was even looking at me. I couldn’t believe it. Was that really true? Did I have a chance to not be ostracised because I was different?
Over the next 3 years I grew stronger and went everywhere bald. I realised the weight of that secret had finally been lifted and I felt so free! I also divorced my second husband, because as much as he helped me and taught me self-acceptance, we were also being very toxic to each other because neither of us had healed our baggage.
So, I took 2 years to heal myself. I learned about the mind, I learned about how our mindset affects everything in our life. I learned how to change mine and embrace my uniqueness. I then moved back to where my son lived. He has always been my inspiration and my grounding, and I knew I needed to be near him again to get back to me, Kathi.
I also decided to make my head a piece of art because I was usually stared at anyway! I used to get the ‘C’ question all the time (do you have cancer? Are you a survivor?), now I get asked if my tattoo hurt instead. I love it. By embracing my uniqueness, I realised I had learnt such an important lesson, finally, and that I had to share it and help others who also struggled with Alopecia and acceptance.
So, I created the Baldwarrior Movement in 2018 and started to share my story online. I have had thousands of people with Alopecia since then reach out to me and share their own struggles and thank me for inspiring the self confidence to accept their own hair loss. The culmination of my life’s struggle and the work I want to do in the world with the Baldwarrior Movement to help others transform their mindset and their lives is featured in my podcast which I launched in August 2020. I sought out an incredibly special podcast partner who has also faced severe trauma and healed herself and together we are sharing our stories, our experience, and our skills with the world to inspire change on a greater scale. We are Bald and Blonde – Mindset Evolution.[/blur]
Hi, I am Kathi Tait, known as the Baldwarrior. My story is one of trauma and transformation and the secret to true freedom.
It starts when I was 8 years old and my older sister of 16 months finally died after a 5-year battle with Leukemia. I look back now and see my younger self isolated in the pain of her best friend suddenly disappearing, even though my Mum had told me it was going to happen soon, it rocked my world and changed my life.
A few months later, after the funeral and trip home to New Zealand, the flowers had finally stopped, and we were trying to live a normal life again. Then life struck and my lesson began.
One day, out of the blue, my hair started falling out. It was the girl that sat next to me at school that noticed first because, suddenly, there was hair all over my desk. Then I started seeing it everywhere, on my pillow, in the bathroom sink, anywhere. It was scary and I was again bewildered.
This led down a path of non-stop doctors and specialists and becoming a guinea pig for them. Nobody really knew what caused Alopecia then and it was blamed on ‘stress’. I believe it was my body manifesting the trauma I had suffered that had never been faced, released, or healed.
[blur]As a result of the experimentation and the bullying I experienced at school I grew up to believe I was a freak, abnormal, and unlovable. I spent my teenage years ostracised by my peers until my hair grew back at around 15 years old.
This wasn’t the end though. My Alopecia represented itself again at 19 after a bad breakup with my first serious boyfriend and the rollercoaster began again. It was a cycle of hope and despair and again I felt like a freak. So, I self-sabotaged! I got caught in a violent relationship at 20, had a baby to him at 21, and finally escaped with a young baby and a few belongings only to become homeless for 3 months while we tried to get a house.
What followed was my 20’s where I was figuring out not only how to be a mother but also how to support my child on my own as I refused to allow any contact with his violent and unstable father and so I also refused child support out of my own principles. I did figure it out, I educated myself and worked hard but part of me was always kept hidden.
The truth is, I spent my 20’s and 30’s desperately wanting to be like everyone else. I wanted to be accepted, I wanted to fit in, I wanted to belong somewhere. I didn’t feel like I did, I never felt ‘normal’ and so I wore wigs to at least look like everyone else. But I was actually carrying around this giant secret of being bald. I was petrified that people would find out I was a fraud and a freak. Wearing those wigs changed my life because I allowed it to control me. I limited what I would do in fear of discovery, like a thief in the night.
The weight of carrying that secret weighed my soul down. I was not happy, I was alone, and I was shoving it all into a box in my head, so I didn’t need to face any of it. In my mid-30’s I met and married a sweet man who was a bit younger than me. He was the first guy to ever love me despite my baldness. I’m not sure I was in love with him, but I was in love with him loving me.
During the 3 years of our marriage I went off the tracks and my non-existent self-confidence radically shifted into an ego trip as I started a business, became well known in my town for my expertise and revelled in finally having some success. I took it too far. I became unbearable at home, pushing my husband to have more motivation and sadly, drove him away.
I was devasted by our breakup and spiralled back into self-sabotage. I drank myself to sleep every night, I took long walks with our dogs and I didn’t eat properly. I was stuck in a black hole again and the only person keeping me on earth was my precious son who was by now 16.
A few months later I met another man who would help me completely change my mindset. It was a tumultuous relationship full of love and drama and tears and it rocked my world. We were married in our backyard and for 5 years I saw the world differently and started to realise how wrong I had been all along. I learned that my baldness didn’t make me a freak, it made me unique. I learned that the power of the mind can change your life.
At 41 I finally embraced my baldness and threw the wigs in the closet – never to be worn again! I remember the first time I went out to a shop bald, feeling exposed and naked, and my husband whispering in my ear that no-one was even looking at me. I couldn’t believe it. Was that really true? Did I have a chance to not be ostracised because I was different?
Over the next 3 years I grew stronger and went everywhere bald. I realised the weight of that secret had finally been lifted and I felt so free! I also divorced my second husband, because as much as he helped me and taught me self-acceptance, we were also being very toxic to each other because neither of us had healed our baggage.
So, I took 2 years to heal myself. I learned about the mind, I learned about how our mindset affects everything in our life. I learned how to change mine and embrace my uniqueness. I then moved back to where my son lived. He has always been my inspiration and my grounding, and I knew I needed to be near him again to get back to me, Kathi.
I also decided to make my head a piece of art because I was usually stared at anyway! I used to get the ‘C’ question all the time (do you have cancer? Are you a survivor?), now I get asked if my tattoo hurt instead. I love it. By embracing my uniqueness, I realised I had learnt such an important lesson, finally, and that I had to share it and help others who also struggled with Alopecia and acceptance.
So, I created the Baldwarrior Movement in 2018 and started to share my story online. I have had thousands of people with Alopecia since then reach out to me and share their own struggles and thank me for inspiring the self confidence to accept their own hair loss. The culmination of my life’s struggle and the work I want to do in the world with the Baldwarrior Movement to help others transform their mindset and their lives is featured in my podcast which I launched in August 2020. I sought out an incredibly special podcast partner who has also faced severe trauma and healed herself and together we are sharing our stories, our experience, and our skills with the world to inspire change on a greater scale. We are Bald and Blonde – Mindset Evolution.[/blur]
To See the Full Article, Click Here:
Kathi Tait
Kathi Tait, the Baldwarrior, is an Author, Speaker, Podcaster, Transformative Coach & Management Accountant. As the founder of the Baldwarrior Movement, which spreads awareness of Alopecia and fights body image social norms, she inspires women globally to start believing in themselves, take back their power and live authentically by sharing her personal struggles of death, bullying, domestic violence, self-sabotage and single parenthood. Kathi is one of the hosts of the podcast Bald and Blonde – Mindset Evolution with another coach from Florida Keys and its debut has been a hit. They are now heard in 45 countries! Her first book Baldwarrior: My Journey from Self Sabotage to Self Love is pending publishing this year.
Kathi takes the stage as often as possible at schools and events to spread her message and loves to do guest appearances on podcasts as well. She is determined to impact the world and help others take their power back from social norms.