I’ve had long hair for almost my whole life… and when I say long, I mean it. In Kindergarten I was constantly sitting on my hair and getting it caught in the zipper of my jacket; very much a 21st century Rapunzel if you ask me. Since then, I’ve gone through stages of cutting my hair, and immediately wanting it to grow back out again.
The curtain of hair I craved was so heavy that I had constant headaches, and I was passing out in the summer because my hair made me overheat. Despite all that, I refused to get rid of it. Having long hair was the only feature I believed made me pretty. For a socially anxious teenager trying to survive middle school and high school, I felt like having excessively lengthy hair was the way to go.
Ladies, if you have long hair you know there comes a point, usually when it reaches your lower back, that your hair becomes the “community hair.” You mention cutting it off and your friends immediately gasp and respond with variations of “you can’t!” and “but it’s so pretty” and “why would you do that? I’d DIE to have hair like yours.” When I reached this point during my sophomore year of high school, I simply listened to them. Then I realized something: I’d started using my hair as something to hide behind.
In situations where I felt anxious, I’d play with my hair. I’d duck my head when I had to answer a question, allowing it to obscure my face. I touched it so much when I had to present a speech in class that my teacher threated to take points off my grade if I didn’t wear it in a ponytail; this sent me into a fit of nervousness, and I was left feeling that I couldn’t possibly stand up in front of everyone without that curtain of hair to hide behind… and I hated myself for it. By that point, the ends of my hair were fairly dead, so I took a major step and cut it all off.
I loved how it looked, but felt self-conscious. I immediately started letting my locks grow out again and continued doing so for the next 4 years, which brings us to where I am today. I’m more confident than I was in high school, but I still had those same tendencies to tie my hair to being beautiful, and I was still using it as a shield. So, after some thinking and a Thanksgiving break with nothing to do, I got almost 10 inches of hair chopped off.
Now I’m forcing myself to accept how I look without worrying about the length of my hair. I’m forcing myself to face my anxiety head on instead of hiding behind a sheet of hair when I’m nervous. To my own surprise, I don’t think I’ll be letting my hair grow out again anytime soon.