My hair and coping.

My natural hair is wavy, which had no place in the fashion era of my teenage years.

I remember seeing so many shampoo ads with girls who had such smooth silky hair and I kept asking my mother to get me those so I could have hair like theirs. Going out was such a pain, because every time I saw myself in the mirror before leaving the house, all I could see was a head full of twirly, confused hair. Every time there was a slightly important event, I rushed to the salon (eventually got the equipment home, of course) and straightened them out, almost like an Indian mother shushing a child trying to get them under control in front of friends who I needed to impress.

The final straw was drawn when there was a new high-end technology in the market, something to the effect of “rebonding” or “permanent straightening” when I was in high school. The word “permanent” was enough to convince me that this is what would change my life forever. I made a deal with my parents, to score well in my board exams in exchange for this rather expensive treatment. I fulfilled my end of the deal, so they had to.

Once it was done, I was ecstatic! I could use words like straight, flowy, shiny for the first time for my hair. I could get out of my house without even giving it a second thought. It felt worth every penny and every second I crammed my syllabus to make this happen.

But, like most things, it was too good to be true. I realised the treatment wasn’t as “permanent” as I thought, so I went on to get it thrice in a period of six years. For some reason, it felt a little less satisfying each time.

After all this, I was left with was much lesser (because of the hairfall), and weirdly crinkly hair that looked as artificial as what my entire identity felt like to me.

Even though it gave me a spurt of confidence in my teenage years, my heavily treated hair became a hindrance in my will to live authentically.

After a long phase of going back and forth with my stance on my hair vs. my identity, I finally found out that my semi-curly hair was now an acceptable form of fashion. This is when I realised that trends will keep changing, but changing with them is going to be utterly exhausting, not to miss expensive.

What I am trying to say in this long drawn story is that your coping mechanisms may be useful at one point of time, but if they are not useful now, they will only push you back. Sometimes, we don’t even know what these mechanisms are, or how we are masking them.

An unbiased view of understanding yourself and what is not working out for you in therapy is one way to find out. Understanding what maladaptive coping styles, behaviors, people, beliefs you are holding close to yourself goes a long way. This will gradually help you develop tools which can help you feel safer to move forward.

Now, my new (read: original) hair makes me feel at peace, and more confident than ever!