hair as a metaphor
I’ve long since used my hair as a metaphor in my writing.
My hair, and the changing of it, always reflected some internal work unfolding. I’ve had every colour from blonde to brunette, from red to blue to purple. During my growing up years, my hair represented resentment as it was cut short; a side effect of the illness snaking its way through my body.
Losing my hair post transplant was one of the hardest losses, despite everyone trying to assure me it really wasn’t that bad. And maybe it wasn’t - I made it work with hats and wigs and extensions, and it did grow back - but seeing the clumps on my pillow represented a loss of autonomy and choice in a way that hit closer. It was the cherry on top of everything else I’d lost.
After the passing of friends or clients, I’ve dyed my hair as a way to signify that something is different here. I cut my hair in mourning after the loss of my son. And, last year, after dying my hair darker, I ended up in the emergency room. The hospital I was taken to by ambulance was the same hospital I’d been at the year before when I had sepsis, where I was conscious as my bone was drilled into and my screams to stop were ignored. I dissociated to get through, I attended my husband’s work Christmas party the same day I was discharged, and I dyed my hair back to a lighter shade almost as soon as I was able.
Hair holds trauma.
Knowing this, it makes more sense that when my hair unexpectedly went significantly darker than I was anticipating during a recent salon visit with a new stylist, I had a full blown meltdown. I lost sleep for days. I became anxious and agitated.
It was never about the hair.
The memories that haunted me were ones of the loss of autonomy, where I was given something very different than what I wanted, where I wasn’t seen, wasn’t heard, wasn’t validated. Again.
It’s a narrative common to those living with chronic illness, who often feel like their bodies don’t belong to them, and choice isn’t a luxury they have. My hair had become the one thing I had some semblance of control over, which made it harder when I lost it, when I couldn’t keep it, or when my attempts at regaining autonomy felt like they shattered around my feet.
It wasn’t about the hair. It genuinely wasn’t even that bad. It was just dark, which made my already pale features appear even paler, which made me look sick. The darkness of my locks reminded me of hospital admissions, and a lack of control. I did my best to ground myself in reality, but the reaction circling through my nervous system was historic.
The thing about embodied trauma is it isn’t rational. My nervous system bypassed all forms of rational thought and was existing on pure survival energy, detecting threats that weren’t even there, directing fear energy towards people who didn’t ask for it.
I lived with hair I hated for a few days, attempting to both rationalize my feelings and figure out my next steps. I noticed the people pleaser in me when it felt easier to internalize the discomfort rather than express my displeasure. I got quieter, and smaller, as I spun myself around the old story.
I booked an appointment at a new salon, one I hadn’t stepped foot in since my latest surgery, hoping my reclamation to self would go quietly unnoticed. Here’s the thing about reclamations, though: when there is so much on the line, the becoming is never easy.
Admitting I didn’t want to live with the discomfort (or dark hair) was the first step. The second was walking through the doors of the salon and realizing the people who remembered me remembered a very different version of me. I was staring my growth in the face, and for a flicker in time it felt like imposter syndrome. Not me comparing me to someone else but me comparing me to me. What power it took to stand confidently in the centre of my own life.
As I told stories of my life to the people that remembered an older version of me, I noticed the weight these stories carried, how heavy it was to be the girl living in the centre of the trauma. And what if I didn’t have to anymore? What if I got to choose a new story for myself?
I’m talking about my hair but I’m not talking about my hair (see the hair as a metaphor thing?). I’m talking about living inside survival energy, jumping from chaos to chaos for so long, and then finally there being another way. I get to change the story.
Looking in the mirror, old self and new self, I think I stepped into the life I’d tried so hard to conjure up before. I’d fought so hard for a seat at the table, to prove my worthiness and why I’d survived when others didn’t and to make that second chance worth it, only to realize I don’t have to make myself smaller to fit into the room just in case somebody notices and decides to take me off the guest list.
The life that I worked so hard for, that I fought for, is mine. To do whatever the hell I want. (I made the joke to my husband that night ‘who died and made me the boss of my own life? oh yeah, that would be my organ donor’ which is both dark humour and also true).
So it’s not about the hair. It was never about the hair. It was always about coming home to myself. And isn’t that what it’s always about anyway? It’s how we tell the story. Sometimes we just need a really good metaphor to help us get there.
