Had to release and let that go as I can learn to embrace my hair and everything else about me! After all....My black is beautiful! Learn to love your kinks! Don't deny your roots!...they say.
I know I'm not supposed to say I hate my hair, so I'll just say...I strongly dislike my natural hair most of the time. It's just not beautiful to me, or manageable for that matter. It has no style and won't hold a curl. It poofs up in the slightest humidity and looks and feels like cotton. What's to love about that?
I love beauty and everything beautiful! And because I feel beauty doesn't necessarily come natural for me, I love the ability to create beauty as well as enhance the beauty I do posses, and that of others as well. Like an artist I enjoy crafting makeovers of the hair, skin and nails, solving problem areas and enhancing aesthetics in others as well as myself. Thus raising self esteem and confidence. That is my passion.
My TTM
I suspect it all started between the 4th & 5th grade. I remember I was 9. But I can't be too certain why or what triggered TTM for me. I can only remember feeling self conscience, insecure....and anxious. I was a nervous kid....apparently. Though I didn't realize anything was wrong with me other than I was painfully shy and I bit my nails. But I would think that was normal seeing as how I had already attended 6 or more schools between kindergarten and sixth grade! Some in different cities or counties or whatever. I was a kid. They all seemed so far away. With each new school came a whole new set of teachers and students. Mostly I remember being in nice neighborhoods and good schools though.
Social skills were not my strong point and life at home was a bit strict and sheltered. By fourth or fifth grade, the most traumatic thing I had experienced was Grandma dying, and our family moving across the country! Back then I lived in the Midwest and I had only encountered mostly Whites, some Blacks, some mixed like Mom, the Jewish community, and an occasional foreign exchange student of Asian decent. Then we moved to California, and I saw mostly people of Spanish decent, with hair down to their butts just like the dolls I used to play with. That was the first time I remember putting my hand to my head, running my fingers through it, feeling around, twirling my fingers around a coarse strand of hair and pulling it out. See I could feel the difference between the Trinidad roots and the "white side" of the family in the texture of my hair. Some hairs were fine and flexible and others were coarse and wiry. Those had to go. With hopes that they'd come back silky and long like mommy's hair. And so I pulled strand by strand until I had a noticeable bald spot in the top of my head. My hair was short, fine, and thin so most of the time, I couldn't cover up the spots. So in junior high school, I wore a scarf to hide my hair and the bald spots and just tried to outgrow it!
I only say I hate my hair because I have yet to conquer this urge to pull, although not for the same reasons anymore. It's become more of a nervous habit. (Although I'm quite sure a psychoanalyst would label this behavior as a form of self hatred)...and also because of all the many times I have tried to embrace and love my nappy dappy cotton puff hair, I still don't know how to work with it, what to do with it, or how to style it. Oh, I've tried it all! Most stylists say I have a very nice soft grade of hair. But even when I have it styled by another professional, and I think I've finally found something that may work for me....two days later a bald spot appears! And I honestly don't recall pulling that much.
I put on a wig for fun at home for the first time in the sixth grade and I remember the feeling of instant confidence once I looked in the mirror at a full thick head of hair. My Auntie corn rolled it for me and suddenly, I didn't mind if you looked me in the eyes. I thought I was cute. I never actually wore a wig until after high school. To wear a wig in school, uh...no. Weaves were not around yet, actually individuals weren't popular yet either. Just corn rolls...which you couldn't do over bald spots.
Fast forward to today and wigs and weaves it is! Just about everyone wears extensions! And I'm okay with that now, I think...
I found the following information to be very interesting and helpful! Check it out.
http://www.perfectlocks.com/blog/busted-top-5-african-american-hair-care-myths-revealed
National Trichotillomania Awareness week is October 1-7, 2010.
Please visit http://www.trich.org/involved/ntaw.html for more information on TTM and to find ways you can get involved.
No comments:
Post a Comment