hair.

a few weeks ago i did something i'd been considering for a few months. i decided to get my hair chopped off. when i walked into the salon and told my stylist, amber, to chop it off, she was concerned. and with good reason.

"is everything going ok with your husband?" she asked, and i laughed and assured her things were great.
there is a good reason for her question. it seems that whenever i experience some kind of emotional trauma, i do drastic things to my hair.
if it pleases the court, i present exhibit A.

when i lived in hawaii, i had long, golden hair. alex, that boyfriend i always say i'll talk about and then never do, who was on his mission at the time, liked my hair long and had told me to grow it out while he was gone. in hawaii, i started realizing how much he wasn't the greatest boy for me and started trying to fall out of love with him. trying.
so, naturally, i chopped it all off and dyed it black.

i wrote alex to tell him about my new hair and these were his exact words.
"that's okay. it will grow out before i get home."
a month later, i had it cut even shorter.
that physical act of changing something he didn't want changed, really did help give me the confidence to get over him. a year or so later.

oh, and we can't forget the time i got married and had my hair bleached. as i have mentioned many a time, marriage freaked me out.

yikes.

yeah. so when amber asked if things were going ok with travis, she really was concerned. probably for good reason. but after i convinced her that things were fine, i was just worried my hair was getting thin and wanted to help it look healthier, she agreed to do it. 

after washing my hair and settling me into the swivel chair, amber took a close look at my hair. "it looks thinner, doesn't it?" i asked her, worried about how quiet she was being. she lifted a lock of hair and showed me in the mirror. 

"it's strange. "she said. and then kept looking at my roots and then the tips. "if you look here at the bottom, you can see the very last of the bleach from when we took you blonde." she motioned upward a bit more. "and here is where we dyed it back to brown. and then here is where we dyed it most recently, brown again. but the hair looks so thin, and so unhealthy. i've never seen your hair like this." she pondered over it for another few minutes. " if you look at the roots, though, these three inches are growing in thick and normal. it almost looks like you went through something really stressful or traumatic about eight or nine months ago." 

eight or nine months ago, you say? 

like exactly around the time i was seriously depressed and considering ending my life? 

when i finally started to confront the assault and understand my PTSD? 

"funny you should say that." i told her. "nine months ago i started going to counseling for some things that happened a long time ago." she smiled and made a comment about taking up the profession of a psychic or something. and recommended a multi vitamin to help my hair continue to heal. 

and the thinning, sickly hair? she cut it off. literally cut off the damage my hair showed from my trauma. 

like any time you have a lot of hair cut off, it felt light and free. and if you're following my metaphor here, it was more than just hair that felt lighter. 

(i didn't take a proper "before" picture, apologies. 

a lot more hair came off than it appears from this picture.) 

hair doesn't lie.

(like how if you drug test someone's hair, it's way more accurate because the drugs stay in the hair longer. seriously.) 

like i was saying, hair doesn't lie. my hair says that nine months ago i experienced something extremely stressful and traumatic. it also says that my roots are growing in strong and healthy. 

a few days after my haircut, i was triggered by being somewhere that brings up awful, terrible memories. like always, i have a cycle of numbness, denial, anger, panic, and depression. i can always feel myself slipping back into the cycle and feeling powerless to stop it. but this time, as i experienced that panic and tried to breathe through it, think through the terror that overtakes everything, i remembered those three inches of healthy hair. it didn't stop the panic, the anger, or the depression that followed, but it was something to hold on to and consider. 

i'm taking vitamins for the hair. 

and hope for the rest.

xo