When I hate my hair, I hate my life...

[Gypsygirl]

First off, I know I am blessed...in many ways! I am married to my soulmate, blessed with a precious kids and wonderful family... I couldn't be happier with my career and I love my friends to pieces. I am a positive person and tend not to worry about things that are very "physical realm". But...I have a confession to make. When I hate my hair- I hate my life.

This is embarrassingly shallow, I know! And I may as well be walking around naked for all to assess my body– because psychologically that's how I feel. But, it's my truth- exposed. LOL And, I don't think I am alone! What is it about volume and waves, or lack of… The texture, the color, the health and the style of those dead cells that spurt from my scalp each month and that govern my emotional well-being? I don't know!!! I am sure that according to some people, this could meet the diagnostic criteria for neurosis. I admit, I am in a passionate love-hate relationship with my unruly locks- because sometimes, they insist on expressing themselves contrary to my wishes! ;)

How can something as benign as hair impact my attitude??? It's ridiculous... It's shallow... It's narcissistic. Sometimes I think my thoughts must be no deeper than a puddle after a summer rain. Why is my hair so important to me? My hair puts me in tune with nature and I love the femininity of it. I don't think I am the only one who loves long hair for spiritual reasons! I am not exactly a Christian but I think the bible makes numerous references to hair. What is the first story one thinks of? Yes, Samson and Delilah... Samson's hair equated to his physical strength. When Delilah, in an act of betrayal, had Samson's hair cut off while he was sleeping- his extraordinary strength vanished. I think this story brought increased consciousness to our hair...hair care was born! ;) Even our language supports our identification with hair. Clichés like, her hair is her crowning glory... Interestingly, hair does surround the crown chakra...
I am rambling... LOL

But, when I have a bad hair day, everything else just seems to follow suit! When my frizz factor pegs the Richter scale- even with products- my attitude escalates, too. For some reason, people seem to especially enjoy critiquing my mane on those very days. LOL But, I get a lot of compliments as well. One woman chased me down in a parking lot to inquire who cuts my hair, how is it cut, and what products do I use because she "loved it"... :) I do receive many compliments. People kind of act bi-polar when expressing their opinion about my hair. They either love it or hate it. Like me! No shade of grey. I've had people dismiss their societal manners and feel free to comment on my hair's "unruly" appearance. Just this week, an older man spoke to me. I saw him looking at me, then he finally approached and said, wow, I just can't quit looking at your hair- it's, uh, really wild!! I smiled and responded, well, is that good or bad? He wasn't sure! LOL He back paddled and with a smile said, uh, I don't know you well enough to asses that yet. Huh???

All of this just to say that I love LHC and in fact, every single one of you to pieces because I know I'm not alone. I have evidence that I'm not. I need some support. Because, when I hate my hair, I hate my life! LOL Do you ever feel this way? Does the appearance of your hair influence, positively or negatively, your attitude? Tell me! :)

[rapunzhell13]

Actually, I'm the opposite! When I'm happy with life in general, I barely notice my hair. When I'm miserable with life, I notice every tiny little "flaw" with my hair and it drives me beserk!

[Gamma Vector]

I'm not sure if it's the hair impacting my mood, or if a sour mood impairs my ability to manage my hair, but sister, I hear ya. It's funny: my mom has even commented on the fact that she can tell when I'm having a bad day because my hair starts making Medusa faces at people.

[Night_Kitten]

My moods are definitely affected by my hair, if I like my hair then my mood is much better and the day is much brighter, but if for whatever reason I don't like my hair that morning, my mood is down and so is the rest of the day...

I don't think it's shallow, because our hair is attached to our heads and is a part of us (unlike clothes, makeup, jeulery and such...), and is a representation of us and a big part in our look and the impression we make on people we meet...

[kristymarie87]

I am deffo like this!! If i do my hair and dont like it, it impacts on my whole day! I feel unatrractive, messy and just sulk the whole day!! Its terrible.....so now im just going to wear it up in an attempt to forget about it for a while!

It is quite shallow i guess, like you say, i'm happy with my relationship, life and dont really have much to moan about except this stuff on my head which doesnt quite deserve to be labelled as hair as far as im concerned!!

[sibiryachka]

This makes me think of The Waitresses' song "Everything's Wrong If My Hair Is Wrong" ;) You're so not alone, someone already wrote a song about it!

[Smile4Kiki]

I can absolutely relate but more so about the current length than its behavior. That's actually what has prevented me from growing my hair long for the past two years because every time I get to that awkward length (around shoulder and a little before) I hate it and decide to chop it back to chin. I'm struggling through this phase now and because of LHC have thankfully not had the urge to cut. My poor DBF has had to deal with my I hate my hair, I hate my life moments a lot lately.

[Dreams_in_Pink]

I hear ya :) I remember crying and yelling when my barely-SL hair ended up as an afro after using curlers! I felt down all day long :(

[PiroskaCicu]

I can definitely relate ! When I don't like how my hair is, all of my self confidence goes down the drain. My hair really does effect my mood and self esteem. For example, when i cut my hair into a pixie, I hated it for months and months, and I was depressed for the whole time it was short. It took 2 years for it to finally grow past my shoulders. I am much happier and more confident, but I still wish it was longer. When my hair was very long I was a much more outgoing, happy person.

[Calaelen]

You're definitely not alone on this. My hair can definitely affect my moods. When I can't get it to sit right in a style, or I can't find the energy to take care of it, and it ends up looking tangled and horrible, I do get very down and negative. Even to the point of thinking I'm going to just hack it off to chin length.

I am a very emotional being, and I do have strong reactions, whether positive or negative, to even the smallest things. I get teased often because there is nothing I just like, when I like something, I love it. I get ridiculous amounts of joy from the smallest little things, and have had to make it public knowledge that I am very easily amused.

On the other hand when something is not working out as I'd like, it can throw me right over the edge. Lately my hair has been one of those things, quite often, and because of physical limitations I have a hard time caring for it, and then get very down. Now I've started a scarfing challenge where I'll put my hair up and cover it with a scarf each day. I've found it to be so freeing, because every hair doesn't have to be perfect, I don't have to think of my hair when out and around people, and I am starting to see it as more glorious when I let it down at night.

I am the first to admit that my hair, and growing it, is an obsession, and I think it has been good for me to get it off my mind by scarfing it each day. I've also found some very cute ways of wrapping it up, and am liking how I can match my scarves with my outfits :)

It is also very neat to not have to talk about my hair all the time. When I meet people, or hang out with friends, my hair always comes up. Now I've just let them know I am scarfing my hair as an experiment to see if it reduces breakage, and that is it, no more hair talk.

Thanks for the interesting thread, and for opening up to us. One thing I will say is that I don't think it makes you shallow or ungrateful to feel that way about your hair. There are many other things that contribute to that feeling, loss of control, for one. We always hate when we can't make things just so, and something that is permanently attached to you having a "mind of it's own" is frustrating. :p

[LovingLife]

YOU ARE NOT ALONE

but I think that the way my hair falls has alot to do with how I'm feeling as well maybe rather than the other way round :)

[eezepeeze]

I know exactly what you mean! If I can't get my hair to cooperate in the morning, it just make me feel out of sorts all day.

[starlights]

Actually, I'm the opposite! When I'm happy with life in general, I barely notice my hair. When I'm miserable with life, I notice every tiny little "flaw" with my hair and it drives me beserk!

i so agree!! :)

[Carolyn]

Oh you are so not alone in feeling like this. A bad hair day has always affected me negatively. When my hair behaves and looks good then I can see beyond it and forget about it. When it looks awful, that's all I can think about that day. Bad days and bad hair days seem to go hand in hand. I'm not sure if it begins with bad hair or the bad day. Some people would think that was shallow and self absorbed. But it is what it is :shrug: It's how I am. I'm not going to apologize or make excuses for being who I am. The only place I bitch and moan about bad hair is here and I know you guys understand. I don't force anyone in real life to listen to my hair woes. They already think I'm nutty/weird enough as it is. I don't need to add hair obsessed to my list of flaws.

[Angela_Rose]

Oh, lady, you are so not alone. Ain’t my hair happy, ain’t nobody happy. I wonder if part of it is the personification we (the collective LHC “we”) seem to apply to our hair. I know I worry about my nightbraid plotting to strangle me to death in my sleep! How many of us have quipped something along the lines of, “my hair is in a bad mood today!” I know I have, certainly.

And the legend I told GypsyGirl is that of Thor’s wife, Sif (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sif_by_Dollman.jpg), and how Loki managed to lop her flowing golden hair all off. As you may or may not know, Loki is also called “The Trickster” and he’s mischievous at best and disastrously evil at worst. In any case, he decided he was going to play a trick on his friend Thor and he balded Sif, Thor’s precious wife, of her shimmering locks of thick, golden hair. When Thor found out about it, there were threats of dismemberment (Thor has a… thunderous temper, hence his stature as the Thunder God) and Loki’s pleas for clemency. He promised he’d go to the Dwarves, the great metallurgists in the mountains, for a new head o’ hair for poor shorn Sif. Long story short, Loki manages to have the Dwarves make Sif’s new hair out of strands of gold which are magically attached to her scalp and stay there for all time, growing only more beautiful as time carries on. Sif is considered a Goddess who is associated with fertility, marriage, and home-making as her hair is now considered a metaphor for the health of fields of golden wheat. As her hair was shorn, she lost of much her spiritual power but when Loki restored her locks so was her power restored to her.

[x0h_bother]

I am edgy when my hair is wrong. One time I was dressing for an interview and nothing 'looked right,' and my fiance said, "(x0h_bother), go straighten your hair." I was like, "Why? I was going to do it after I dress." "Just do it. Trust me." And he was right, nothing went right until my hair was fixed and out of the way and I felt like it looked good. And if it's not right, I spend all day playing with it trying to make it right, which does not work. :(

[spidermom]

I'm more the other way. If things in my life are going wrong, I start wanting to cut my hair off.

[Henrietta]

I know that feeling. In my case there's connection in both directions. Good hair day means good day in general. And when I have a good day, I like my hair too.
In every case, I am trying to make something better. Hair or the rest. Then the second problem disappears too;)

[Chiara]

Ohhh yes my hair is def a lightning rod.

Sometimes in the morning I'll think 'its OK it doesn't need a wash and I don't have time'.... if it later becomes evident that this was the wrong decision, I can spend the whole day feeling miserable and wanting to hide. In fact, I once snuck off to the gym at work and washed my hair, at lunchtime. Immediate mood improver! I think it's worth noting that my hair tends to get greasier at certain points of my cycle when I tend to feel more melodramatic about life anyway...

Mind you, I am a bit more relaxed about it after I did 8 weeks of WO. I learnt that my hair actually didn't look so bad (in fact a few people at work gave me compliments?!?).

[tinker bug]

I am the same way. Whats worse is its been like this for a while... my 2-week rule ends on Monday, and I think I'm going to cut back to waist and turn all of the wispies around my face into layers. Fingers crossed I'll like it!!!

Maybe you could buy some new hairtoys? That helps me quite a bit usually when I'm unhappy with the length. Or you could treat yourself to something else to take your mind of off it?

[wtchmel]

I can understand that statement, to an extent.
Be thankful you have hair, there are millions who would more then likely give anything to have your glorious hair, even on one of the 'bad' hair days.

[trillcat]

What does this say about us?
If the hair goes wrong, it ruins your day, your week, your month.....It ruins your self worth
This is to me is a sad trend to see.
Being here on these boards we have those days with long hair, or growing out, or short or shaved pink, purple, silver, grey, black, red, bleached, straightened, henna, we have bad hair days.
It kind of comes with the turf.
If I based my self worth on my hair, I would need many, many high power drugs.
I am not saying this to dismiss the feeling you all have, but if your hair looks a bit odd, and you really stress about that, you are not going to have fun with long hair.
*ducks many flames*

[ghost]

I agree! Having pretty hair is a big deal to me, so if it looks overly-damaged, or if I'm upset because it's not much longer yet, it's frizzy or just not behaving the way I want it to it ends up coloring my feelings about the day whether I want it to or not.

[abritta3]

Thanks for opening up! You are not alone! If I have a bad hair day...I get severely cranky and I am sure everyone notices lol

[going gray]

I'm more the other way. If things in my life are going wrong, I start wanting to cut my hair off.

This is exactly the way I felt, hence each time I'd get too around 24", I chop it all off. Why, because it's the only thing I have complete control of in my life.

[CaityBear]

Definitely about the same for me. A bad hair day completely ruins my day. I feel depressed and ugly and like crap when my hair looks like crap. Some days I just put my hair up in a bun and don't look at it all day because I'm annoyed with it. haha

[Henrietta]

Definitely about the same for me. A bad hair day completely ruins my day. I feel depressed and ugly and like crap when my hair looks like crap. Some days I just put my hair up in a bun and don't look at it all day because I'm annoyed with it. haha

That's exactly what I do too. And it helps a little. At least I don't see the haystack, though I know it is there. And then I am trying to make my day better, eating chocolate or sitting in the sun. If the hair is bad, let the day be so-so.

[Gypsygirl]

*ducks many flames*

LOL, Trillcat! ;)

Thanks, everyone. Funny, it never occurred to me that it might be the other way round but thinking about it, that explains a lot... Hmmm...

[julliams]

If I'm having a bad hair day I just put it in a bun.

If I'm going out for the evening (which rarely happens with one has two tweens) I get very frustrated when I can't get my hair right or if I'm only left with 5 minutes to sort it. If I feel that it doesn't look nice it can make me feel flat and not very special for my evening. But on a day to day basis I really don't pay much attention to how my hair looks when I'm out and about. i probably spend more time looking at it when I pass a mirror just walking around my house.

[lilravendark]

I can understand where you are coming from, long hair wasn't all I was but when I had it I felt better about myself I dont know if it was the femininity or also the feeling closer to nature thing the way it moves with the wind, how it flows with the water I miss that. Now I have shorter hair it doesnt feel like me and it hasnt for a while but I'm thankful I have hair and it is growing and soon it will be back to its former glory so I'm still a long hair at heart and those days I get discouraged I remind myself I'm on the path to being me again which isn't just growing out my hair but it is a small part of helping me feel better its like getting a piece of yourself back.

[CrisDee]

For me, it's not so much about basing my self-worth on my hair, but rather my hair being a reflection of what's happening on the inside. I think the OP was referring to a single "bad hair day" affecting her mood for the day. I can be that way as well to an extent, but for me there's a much bigger concept at work.

In the past, when I've had severe problems in my relationships that I guess I've known in my soul meant the end of that relationship, I've reacted in frustration and despair by hacking off all my hair. (Feelings of anger and powerlessness to change the situation?) I've done that three times now over the last 25 or 30 years. Each time, the end of the relationship has followed within a couple years of the hair-hack. (You'd think I'd have learned by now to just end the relationship!) And each time I've hacked off all my hair, I've gained a bunch of weight that makes me look dowdy/lumpy/matronly/frumpy. The weight sticks to me like glue, no matter what I try, until my hair gets back to about shoulder length and I start liking my appearance again - then and only then does the weight come off.

With this pattern, I'm due for another relationship-end within the next year. It would have happened by now were it not for finances (or lack thereof). I'm sitting here fat as a pig with short hair, hating every single aspect of my life. (It doesn't help that for financial reasons I had to give up a job that I absolutely loved to go back to doing a job that I absolutely loathe, but pays a lot more.) I'm trying desperately to cultivate a "this, too, shall pass" attitude, but truthfully, it's not working. I'm just living for the day that my hair is shoulder length - I truly believe that there is some sort of spiritual power in hair (as mentioned by several people above), and I'm hoping that something - my job, relationship issues, etc. - will receive the power to be better by then.

[Toadstool]

Trillcat - you are quite right (no flames!) but it's not easy to change how you measure your self-worth, particularly if it's ingrained over many years.

I have body dysmorphia and hate being so shallow but it doesn't make it go away!:)

[Toadstool]

[quote=CrisDee;1208518]

I'm sitting here fat as a pig with short hair, hating every single aspect of my life.
[/quote

Yes!!! Sorry you feel like that but just to let you know I feel like that mostly these days too. I'm not suggesting this is a solution for everyone but I'm going to change my antidepressants.
It's interesting you say about the cycle of once you like your hair,you start to lose weight, and how it's all about your whole life. For me, it's more like the OP, i just look in the mirror and instantly my mood crashes.:rolleyes:

[LouLaLa]

When I have a "bad hair day" I usually come on here search for a fun hair updo etc and then put my hair up in it, then I sidle over to the friendship board and feel cheered up that there are so many nice people here :) In this was I can usally forget its a bad hair day after learning a new braid/give myself a head massage etc. Failing that a nice lipstick and perfume cheer me up!

I think this is a good place to vent if youre having a bad day/ bad hair day!

I cut my hair off after the end of a bad relationship to liberate myself but it was silly as I missed my hair!

In some cultures people cut their hair off during greif too so hair is really quite culturally important and is usually seen as a womans "crowing glory" and also height of hair signified wealth (wigs, feathers, jewels etc).

I dont think I have a deep reaction to hair/life but I suppose others are more connected to it.

[pepperminttea]

I can definitely relate to this, too, with my skin as well. At 22, I still get acne, often the cystic kind, especially on my chin. I get about 5 days out of every month when my skin looks okay, sometimes less. I definitely have more of a spring in my step those few days than the rest of the time. Same with hair really; if it's having a good day, it's a little boost. I used to fret about going out with my hair at all oily, but since learning a few updos and using a BBB to smooth out the comb strokes, I like that I can make my hair look presentable on a bad hair day - and often that gives me just as much satisfaction as freshly washed hair. :) Like yesterday; I need to clarify and until I do my hair's not a happy camper - but I detangled and clipped it into a figure-8 bun, and it held like a rock, and you know what? It actually looked nice, too. :D

If I'm happy, a bad hair day isn't something that'll bring me down, necessarily, but if it's already a bad day I notice other bad things more, my mood tends to plummet. But in terms of general self-esteem, with longer hair, I sometimes have days when I feel more beautiful than I can ever remember. And I think it's that, more than anything else, which will stop me from cutting it.

[lhangel9]

I have to agree totally!!! Even as a child my mom used to say that I wanted hair so long that it touched the ground. Now, when I'm having a bad hair day or if it simply isn't the length that I want it to be, I hate everything around me. I know it sounds a bit eccentric, but that's the way I feel when I hate my hair.

[Yozhik]

Yes! If I'm having a bad hair day, like it's very oily but I don't have time to wash it, then I feel much less self-confident and outgoing. If, however, I have newly washed hair with bouncy ringlets, I really do bounce more and feel better about myself!

Sometimes I do manage to have both a bad hair day but a good "me" day, but in almost all cases, that involves me putting my hair up and away and forgetting about it :)