“I didn’t look in a mirror for years – maybe four or five years,” former England and Team GB forward Heather Fisher says matter-of-factly.
“Looking back, I felt disgusting because people look at you like you’re a something, not someone.”
She is explaining how she came to terms with losing her hair, the battles she has faced with her identity and the struggle for acceptance from others.
Sitting in her living room, it is impossible to miss a white wall adorned in black handwriting.
Take a closer look, and you see there are hundreds of motivational quotes and personal affirmations.
The words tell a story even before she begins to share hers.
‘May feel lost’. ‘May feel uncomfortable’. ‘All part of the transition’. They are just a few of them.
Fisher retired as an England player four years ago after a career mainly spent as a flanker that spanned more than a decade and also included a cameo in bobsleigh.
She was part of the Red Roses squad that won the Women’s World Cup in 2014, and played rugby sevens as well.
She competed at the 2016 Rio Olympics – where Great Britain lost in the bronze medal match – and for England at the 2018 Commonwealth Games on Australia’s Gold Coast.
But some of her toughest battles happened off the pitch.
In the countdown to the 2010 Rugby World Cup, her hair began to fall out. It is believed to have been triggered by a serious back injury.
Just over a month later, it had all gone and Fisher was diagnosed with alopecia, an auto-immune condition that destroys the hair follicles.
“All my hair fell out in about five weeks. I was holding on to strands of hair,” she recalls.
“I went to camp with my team-mates and my coaches actually shaved my hair off.”