Woman with polycystic ovary syndrome shares how she finally learned to embrace her body hair

A woman suffering from polycystic ovary syndrome, which causes her to grow thick hair on her face and body, has told of how she has come to accept her body hair.
Leah Jorgensen, 33, felt like a "freak" for her body and facial hair, so for years, she spent so much time shaving her entire body. She has polycystic ovary syndrome, which causes her to have male-pattern hair growth on her chest, her chin, and her stomach.

The hair began to grow when she was a teenager and from the age of 14 she was bullied for the way she looked. Because of this, she wore full-sleeved, high-necked shirts and trousers to hide her hairs. In her twenties she began shaving, spending hours removing the hair from her chin, cheeks, upper lip, chest, stomach, arms, legs, and back.
Leah’s look led to low self-esteem and insecurity and this stopped her from getting close to people. She didn’t have her first kiss until age 27 and avoided the dentist for twelve years. She continued to hide from the world until an accident made her realize it didn't really matter what she looks like.

Leah said: "I had never seen women who looked like me. I was so ashamed that I didn’t want to talk about it. ‘My way of coping with that shame and embarrassment was to hide. My daily goal for a long time was to just get through the day without anyone noticing how hairy I was.
"Because I have so much of it, it was very difficult to hide it. I developed a terrible case of anxiety and it really took a toll on my mental health. I had a bad experience with my doctor. She had never seen such an extreme case of hirsutism and she was startled and made a facial expression. She had a figure on a piece of paper and she drew where the hair was. I was so sensitive that it really upset me and made me feel like a freak."

She continued: "In junior high school a classmate noticed the hair on my face and there was this group of girls that would tease me about it and call me a man. I felt ashamed, embarrassed and scared, like I was somehow less of a woman. I covered up with clothes and shaved my face, and if I was going to be showing any part of my body I would shave it. It gets hot and humid here in the summer and I would wear hoodies year round so I would be drowning in sweat. People would ask me, 'Why are you wearing that?' and I was just like, 'Leave me alone.'
"I was really convinced I would lose my friends and my family would disown me and I wouldn’t be able to get a job or a boyfriend, I would just live a miserable life alone."

Everything changed in 2015, when Leah was hit by a car. She had to be taken to hospital by ambulance, and then had her clothes cut off by paramedics to undergo surgery. This meant people saw the extent of Leah’s hair growth but to her surprise, they weren’t at all bothered.
She recalled: "I realized no one cared what I looked like. They just saw me as a person. It really helped me to get over it."
From that moment onwards she decided to stop shaving and hiding away her hair. Leah now embraces her hair, wearing low-cut, sleeveless tops and skirts with bare legs out in public without worrying about what people think.

Leah now boldly shares photos of her hair on Instagram. Next month she will be photographed for a book promoting diversity, called Underneath We Are Women.
"I realized that I never really disliked how the hair looked. The problem was not with the hair, it was with people’s perception of it," says Leah. I thought, 'Enough is enough.' I didn’t want to run from it anymore. People definitely stare or try to take photos but I expect that because you don’t really see women who look like me."