Somethin’ new is growin’ in my garden…

Watching change take place in our lives can at times be confusing and even terrifying. Even at times when change is supposed to be good. This is because of the unexpected outcome of the situation you might find yourself facing.

Having alopecia can present itself in the very same way. It’s full of all those twists and turns in our emotions…and not just for the person with alopecia but also for the people who view us. However, what I feel people who are struggling with their alopecia need to understand, is that you must first focus on how you view yourself first and foremost. Understanding and owning your feelings about your alopecia is conducive to how others view you as someone with alopecia.

What does owning your feelings about your alopecia really mean? While it can mean different things for different people; there is a common thread amongst everyone…and that is “being honest with yourself” no matter what those feelings are. For instance, I failed miserably in the beginning of my hair loss at being able to view myself in the mirror. I had to explore why it was so painful for me to look at? And the answers did not come easy. Nonetheless, I had to let the answers in and explore them.

You see, I am an African American woman who grew up in a family of mixed races and cultures. It was also at a time in my country where being of African descent was not was not widely accepted. Being brown skinned with tight, kinky hair wasn’t the way to go in my country at the time, nor was it widely accepted in my very own family. As a child my hair was kinky, thick and long. In my family, we were taught to make our hair as straight as possible…at any cost…absolutely no “nappy” hair allowed. There was much distinction between my family members who had the “good” (naturally straight, or soft and curly) hair and the nappy ( soft, but wool like texture, very tight and hard to comb). Many concoctions surfaced on how to obtain the “straight look”, none of which were very healthy. There was the “hot comb”. My mother spent countless hours with me sitting between her knees with a large jar of “Bergamot” grease that looked like a big blue jar of Vaseline. And it stunk too! She’d part my hair with a comb the size of a yard rake, place the heavy wrought iron comb over an open fire on the stove until it was smokin’ hot. Then section by section by section she’d run the comb through my hair all the while listening to the sizzling noise of melting grease wrap itself around each kinky little strand of my hair. When this ritual was complete, my hair was shiny, straight and hanging down my back. Then she’d complete it with beautiful hair accessories, pat me on the butt and send me outside to play.

Then came the afro, out went the straightening comb and in came the “Dippity Do” hair gel, foam sponged curlers and the afro picks. Although, I don’t want to admit it, I owned one of the hair afro picks with the peace sign on the end of the handle. This ritual consisted of parting my hair in sections, slapping on some gel then rolling the ends as tight I could before going to bed. Very often, I woke up with a headache from sleeping on the rollers…but I had the “baddest” afro after removing the rollers and “picking out my fro”!

Next decade, around the early 80’s came the chemical processing, “Blue Raven” black henna die and the mullet cut. You dare not have one piece of kinky hair showing, especially not around the carefully geometrically cut sides around your ears. Remember the movie by Prince?…”Purple Rain”…you know the one I’m talking about…where everyone had lopped sided hair with half a bang covering your entire right eye…yeah, that was “hot”! One eye showing. My hair was so lopped sided, I thought I was going to fall to one side. And let me not forget to mention the burns I achieved from the chemical perms. If you didn’t feel the burn, then your hair wasn’t straight enough. If you burned out your bangs or the back of your hair, you just simply glued in some chemically straightened fake synthetic hair you could find from your local hair shop. All this so that you could look like you had straight hair and be accepted. I’ve got the Cicatricial Alopecia to prove this ritual.

Sometime in the very late 80’s and early into the 90’s my culture and my family began this transition into Afro centric hair styles. All this was great, however we began to braid our hair so tight that you had to pat the top of your head when you got an itchy scalp simply because you couldn’t get to your scalp from underneath the tightly woven braids. When the bald and thinning patches began to surface, we started clipping, sewing, welding, dipping, etc., just to look like we had long hair.

I don’t mean to bore you with all my hairstyling transitions, but trying to explain that I had spent decades trying to look like everyone else and to be what was considered as “looking acceptable”. I spent a small fortune doing so. So much went into this investment and not just monetarily. I spent an even larger fortune on the whole psychological aspect of it all.

Next, I was faced with not having hair at all. I didn’t know how to deal with this. I watched the hair on my head rapidly disappear, chunk by chunk, strand by strand. Clogging up the drains in my house, sweeping the hairs from the floor, …all the while listening to my family complain of countless individual hairs showing up in odd places of my home. Then there was all the hiding of the missing patches of hairs using those hair toned crayons from the local wig store. I spent a fortune on fortune tellers ( hairstylists and dermatologists)all of them telling me their next strategy they were going to try. Again, all so that I can look like everyone else. All my efforts and angst fell upon deaf ears and I lost the mighty battle of trying to look like everyone else. So what was left?…Me, that’s what!!!!!

I looked inside of me and asked myself why my new reflection terrified me so much. I had spent decades trying to look like what I believed was acceptable and what everyone else wanted me to look like. This was impossible now, so I began looking at what was good about my hair loss situation. And surprising to me there was a lot of good things about it. Well for one, I saved a heck of a lot more money.

But the best thing was that I explored other things about my very existence. I became more educated, more giving, more compassionate, less self-absorbed, more spiritual, more creative, more sexy, loving…the list continues to grow. And the most miraculous part about me embracing these new found jewels in my existence was that other people began to view me in the very same aspect. And Ladies?…men do find women with no hair attractive. Many even very accepting about how you chose to live with your alopecia. Men?…we love your bald heads, no eyebrows…so flex those muscles and your million dollar smiles.

So, let your hair go, let your feelings about your hair go, LET IT GO…strand by strand, negativism by negativism and discover your NEW GROWTH, even though its not your hair growth. Actually, now that I really explore this concept, It appears to me that “growing discoveries” are really the key to” letting go” and ultimately accepting everything about yourself.

Somethin’ new is growin’ in my garden…