Why I Don't Let My Hair Define Me

While I no longer have rainbow hair, and have given up my unicorn crown and some days I do miss picking what colour to try next. I'd actual forgotten what it's like to just wash my hair, dry it and than forget about it rather than it having to constantly colour or bleach it and make sure it didn't clash with my outfit. While dark hair is mainstream you may say, or boring which is completely fine, you know why? Because it's just hair, literally nothing more nothing less. When I was younger my hair was everything, I suffer with alopecia - It comes and goes, but it made me very self aware and I loathed even having it cut as I cling on to every inch.

Flash forward to a couple of years ago, and I couldn't tell you what length, style or colour it would be. I took back control by just doing what I wanted, because when I really sat down and thought about it I could be waking up with none. I'm not a lady that could rock the short hair or go bald, but wow do some ladies own it and power to them I think it can be incredible empowering to just not have any. Nothing to hind behind, just you. I've met a lot of people who have just shaved their head because they like it, a lot of girls probably can't imagine not wanting any hair because they put so much value on it. I also had the pleasure of meeting Gail Porter, who I found really inspiring as she also has alopecia and has talked openly about her journey with it. She's done so much to raise awareness, and helped a lot of women face it head on. She's one of the funniest people I've ever met, and it's sad that before losing her hair she wasn't given a voice in the media. But I'm thankful that she does now, and she is kicking it's butt.

When my hair was at it's worst I had massive bald patches, and I'd never felt so low. Growing up all I heard was "your hair is your crowning glory", which was meant in the nicest way but at the same time I guess it give me a total complex about hair. Of course sometimes hair is just taken without a choice not just with alopeica where hair falls out in massive clumps, some lose hair during cancer treatment or trichotillomania an impulsive disorder to pull your hair out. It's amazing how many of us just take our hair for granted, how many times have you moaned about a bad hair day this week I'm guessing probably once or twice already right. I still do, it's human natural to forget what we have but it's good to wake up every now and than and really see what you have but not let it control your life. It's so easy to let every bad hair day stop you from doing what you want, you build it up in your head and it can be a crushing blow in confidence. To this I say, grab that dry shampoo or that headscarf, hat or and just do your best and go. I mean what's the worst that could happen, the earth implodes because your hairs a little frizzy.  

So why are we still letting hair define who we are? Is it down to advertising, having images of women with bombshell hair stuck in our faces at every point. Women not being described as clever, funny or having anything important to say but ranting on when a women dares to change her hair and it becomes front page 'news'. Maybe we're not, maybe most of us have stop giving a shit. It's refreshing to see so many embracing  alternative hair colour, but has it gone full circle and just become another trend rather than a stand against being defined. Even cultural hair has blended and it's social acceptable to experiment with styles, which is beautiful. I think for a lot of women embracing their natural hair has been well overdue, the amount of friends I had who relaxed their hair and destroyed it in the process. I grew up in the 90s were it was just starting to happen plus we stole looks from the 70s and 80s and made them more defined, poker straight hair, corkscrew curls, double buns, cornrows, dreadlocks, weave in crazy colours, Mohawks and undercuts but even than there was still a lot of ignorance. I'm happy that I had such a mixed group, that we use to experience with each others hair. We just had fun, because we were kids who didn't have You Tube how to's to show us how it should be done and had to learn the hard way by burning, breaking and making a mess of each others hair. Honestly we weren't that bad, but yeah hair did suffered. Sometimes not to mention eyes, I loved wearing chopsticks in my hair because I was obsessed with Japan and Geisha who wear Kanzashi in their hair often almost poking my friends eyes out. 

Where does hair rank for you? For me it's really not a factor more just a nice visual bonus when meeting someone, like when I introduce a friend to someone else I'm not like " This is blah blah who has amazing hair right" because that just makes me sound like I'm giving thee shadiest most back handed compliment ever. I'm sure there are some, who are that shallow that they would only be friends with you because of your hair. These people steal oxygen, and I'd rather talk to myself in the mirror than have a 'friend' that bases our friendship on how I look. I know first hand how it feels to cry into clumps of hair laying on the bathroom floor, and panicking that I would embarrass my friends with my bald patches. Never told friends, and when I think back to how much time I wasted trying to cover it up all the time I'd like to go back and slap myself. Trust me you are not embarrassing anyone, it's embarrassing that anyone would not be your friend because you have hair missing or you have no hair at all. I won't lie some people may just stop talking to you, but trust me when I say these are idiots that you really won't and don't need in the long term you will be so thankful they are not around. You may find like me that you meet and make some amazing new friends, people who are going through the same as you. There are so many support groups for everything I mentioned above, and it does help to talk about it. 

Some people will always assume that if you have a certain hair style, cut or colour you must tick certain boxes and fall into certain groups. When I had coloured hair, it didn't make me any more important or less than anyone else. Yes I'd sometimes get odd attention, or people would shout nice comments about the colour. There were a couple of times were people would be nasty, but to be honest I get that anyway as I tend to dress pretty oddly. In the end I had to ditch it, due to my hair being fried from changing my colour so much and it was triggering stress which triggered my alopecia  But I'm still me, it's easy to depend on hair to define you. Personal I would rather it be an add on, I mean who really wants to be know just for their hair. Well maybe some people do, personal I'd rather someone say "yeah Laura the really funny weirdo" well actual it's probably just " that weirdo over there" but no one wants to be define just on their hair right. Saying that I'm not sure if the same applies to clothing, while sometimes my clothes can define elements of my personality they again are not the be all and end all of me. I guess really it's down to not caring about what other people think of you, it's your head and your choice and actual it's just dead protein filaments anyway. How do you feel about your hair? I would love to hear your side.