My Hair Story
My hair story reveals a transformation from being normal on the outside and having anxiety on the inside, to being abnormal on the outside and learning about wellness to heal from the inside out. Losing my hair turned out to be a lesson in listening and creating a path to healing, starting with a dedication to meditation, float therapy, and spa research.
A little about my hair history. Since I was twelve, I've donated my hair to Locks of Love, four times. They require a minimum of 10 inches so my hair would often be down my back and then I'd chop it off, trying out different hairstyles.
In my early 20s, I developed Cronh’s disease, an auto-immune disease of the digestive system which altered my life forever. On the surface, I was bedridden for a few years and then had a lot of catching up to do. I tried to fit in socially, living in Seattle with a boyfriend, working part-time jobs and internships, and studying interior architecture at an art school downtown.
But underneath, I was struggling. I didn't know how to care for an auto-immune disease and on top of that, I was trying to live the typical architecture student life with lots of coffee and very little sleep.
The health setback taught me a lot about personal strength but it didn’t prepare me to be patient with others. I had a difficult time finding patience when others mistreated me. It was also difficult to find work that suited disabled individuals, visible or invisible.
Putting on some pink glasses may have helped me express that I was trying to be fun and studious while dealing with an invisible disease. I also wanted something to distort my view of the world around me. Perhaps I was responding to the dreary work environment, or society at large was depressing me.
Support from family was another challenge. For the first nine years of Crohn’s disease, my mom told everyone that I just had stomach aches. She didn’t want to believe my reality and I couldn’t make her so it created an extra layer of stress. It took me a long time to learn that when others are so far from maturity, it’s not my job to care for them.
The way I dealt with my emotions, chronic pain, and poor mental health also created more stress.
How I dealt with stress:
weed, caffeine, procrastination
How I should have handled it:
meditation, nutrition, talk therapy, and journaling
I started smoking weed when I was stuck in bed, sick from constant bloody diarrhea. It helped my traumatized appetite but it didn’t help me communicate what was going on. Stupidity runs in my family but that’s no excuse. All this to say that there were multiple layers of stress accumulated into an unhealthy fallout.
In January 2019, my hair started to fall out and I feared the balding was another disease. I later found out it was alopecia which is common for those with an auto-immune disease but I didn't realize how much stress I was under.
My hair kept falling out, the bald spot kept growing, and twelve more spots appeared. My hair was falling all over my arms, the floor, and in the shower, and I couldn’t continue watching the failure of my health in the middle of all my school protects, work requirements, and adulting. So I shaved it all off.
My dermatologist gave me shots which helped with the balding but it didn't address the stressors. I was so overwhelmed with establishing my career, finding work, and balancing doctor appointments and socializing, that I had a hard time eating every day, everything about food gave me so much anxiety, upset, and pain.
Shaving my head gave me one less thing to worry about and it gave me more energy to focus on being present and paying respect to my food. I started meditating every morning for an hour and this gave me authority over my worn-out emotions and time to listen to my thought patterns to break down my seemingly overwhelming to-do list.
When the spas started to open back up, I dedicated my healing journey to a couple of float marathons.
When I floated with long hair, washing the salt water out would take about 2 to 3 rinses. What's so great about having little hair is that it's really easy to get in and get out. I'm extremely grateful that I got to float every day because, at this stage in my life, I needed to give myself an abundance of self-love and attention and the float tank was the perfect place.
Float therapy helped me work on healing the internal scars, emotional traumas, and anxieties with food and socializing. I had built a foundation of 200+ hours of floating with time to examine my emotions, stresses, mental reactions, and self-acceptance. With a mixture of saunas, halotherapy, and floats, I felt ready for my next chapter.
I moved back to Los Angeles and since then I've kept my hair this style for a couple of reasons. I want to maintain simplicity in my life and I want to respect my body. The few years of neglecting my health, might not be visible to an able-body student but for me, it depressed my mind, destroyed any healthy habits, and weakened my vitality. Now I know the capacity at which I can push my work ethic and not listen to those who suggest to “work your butt off”. My body said no and I'm learning the lesson of how to listen.
This is also a new version of myself, the Spa Research version, the version that did hundreds of hours of meditating, hundreds of hours of floating, and wrote about all these different health benefits. I researched wellness for the benefit of my body and the outcome of my beauty. I'm looking at this stage of my hair story as a symbol of poise in my integrity, self-love, and understanding.
My hair story is part of my life story and trauma, but it is also very much a part of my mission for health and wellness. It's who I am when life veres me away from beauty standards and I stand in my character because beauty is not about hair, it’s about self-love, self-care, and self-respect.
February 6, 2024
