#but no yeah seriously as soon as I self-diagnosed it's like a switch was flipped

[kingdomoftyto]

I never used to give much thought one way or another to the whole "diagnosing characters with your own label/disability/illness/etc" but ever since I figured out my autism, like.... I get it. Damn, these characters ARE all autistic af. Good for them.

[my-half-thoughts]

Shedding the Fear

I had locked myself in the bathroom to the suite. There was a towel laid under my feet. My stomach had been churning all day. I felt like I was going to vomit. I was shaking, my knees practically buckling beneath me. I faced the mirror, staring down at the sink, where I had lined it with a plastic bag. I was clenching the edge of the it with one hand and in the other, I held a pair of scissors. I couldn’t bring myself to look up at my reflection; I was too worried that if I saw the look in my eyes, I’d back out.

I took a deep breath, put the scissors down for a moment, and opened a case in front of me. With trembling hands, I plugged hair clippers I borrowed from a friend into the wall. I fumbled searching for the number two setting: two millimeters, the length I usually buzzed the hair on the the sides of my head to. I flipped the switch to be sure it was set up right. My stomach flipped as the clippers turned on. I set it back in the box and picked up a hair tie, pulling the hair on the top of my head into a high ponytail.

I looked at myself in the mirror. I was terrified of what I was about to do.

One of the attributes I was once well-known for was my hair. Throughout high school, my “signature look” was my short and colourful hair. I would keep the sides of my head shaved fairly short, while the top was kept a bit on the longer side. It would cover my forehead, unless I had pulled it back into a topknot. I was constantly complimented on the fun colours I would dye it. I actually almost won best hair for a senior superlative (and I would’ve if they hadn’t misspelled my name on the ballot). I took great pride in my hair.

It hadn’t always been that way, though. During my sophomore year of high school- the year I first cut my hair into a pixie cut- I began dating a junior- we’ll call him Jeff. He had only ever known me with short hair, since we had met after it was short. He would playfully run his fingers through it. I dyed it red a few months into dating him- the first time I had ever dyed my hair- and at the time, he seemed very happy that I had done so. I was happy with it, and I was glad he was, too.

Things suddenly began to change, and he seemed to distance himself from my fun way of expressing myself. He claimed my hair didn’t smell the same anymore, and he wanted that back. I thought that was odd, but I brushed it off as the dye still being fresh. When I got it re-dyed, he was inexplicably angry at me, and it brought me to tears.

I didn’t dye it again for a long time.

There was a time we were talking by his locker during my junior year and he said that he wished my hair was long, like I used to have it. I laughed, confused.

“Why? You never knew me with my long hair. You don’t even know what it would be like.”

“Yeah,” he said. “But I want to know the old you. I want the old you back.”

I’m the same person now! Why do you want a version of me I don’t want to be anymore? I wanted to say. But I didn’t; I let it go.

Weeks later, I was joking with Jeff’s younger sister that hair wasn’t necessary and we should just shave it all off. We laughed over it and the moment passed- until Jeff pulled me aside and went off on me about how he couldn’t believe I would even think to suggest that to her, what was I thinking. I tried to explain to him that it was just a joke, nothing meant to be taken seriously. He was still upset over it, and I couldn’t understand why.

One morning, in the last month we were dating, we were sitting on a bench and looking through pictures on his phone before the homeroom bell rang. We stumbled across one of me wearing one of his hats, a playful pout on my face. We laughed, and he mentioned how much I looked like a boy in it.

I wasn’t offended, but I was taken aback. I didn’t like that statement.

“Why would you say that?” I asked, no longer laughing.

“You do! Just look at your face and your hair- it’s so short!”

“I- I don’t think I look like a boy,” I said.

“You definitely do.”

“Can- can you not say that?” I asked, getting more uncomfortable. “I don’t like that.”

“Well, what else do you want me to say?” Now he was getting upset.

“I just- I don’t want you to say that, I really don’t like it, I don’t think I look like a boy at all,” I swallowed hard. “I look like myself.”

“Which can be like a boy sometimes, just look at your hair, it’s so short.”

“But- ” My eyes were getting hot. “It doesn’t.”

He scowled, rolling his eyes. “I can’t help that you look like that, you know boys have short hair.”

“That’s- that’s not true,” I stammered.

“Yes, it is,” he huffed, crossing his arms. “I don’t understand why you’re like this.”

I blinked back tears, a feeling of shame- why shame?- taking over me.

“Please don’t say that,” I asked again. “I don’t look like a boy.”

“Yes, you do!” His voice was rising.

I stood up. “I don’t, and I’m going. The bell is going to ring soon.”

I started to walk away when he grabbed my arm and pulled me back.

“Don’t you walk away from me like that!” He yelled. “Why are you being like this?!”

“I- ” Tears began to stream down my face. “I don’t want you to call me a boy! And I need to go to homeroom, I don’t want to get in trouble,” I whimpered.

“Stop being such a fucking baby.” He let go of my arm. “God, I don’t know what to do with you sometimes.”

The tears kept falling, and I could feel myself getting angry.

“What do you mean? I just asked you not to do something that makes me upset, why can’t you do that?”

“Because you’re being such a child about it! You keep your hair too damn short anyways, you look like a dyke,” he spat.

I couldn’t breathe.

“I’m leaving, I’ll talk to you later,” I choked out as I turned around and walked to homeroom with my head down- something else I did that he didn’t like.

I don’t remember what he called out after me, but I remember breaking down in the bathroom because of it, dry-heaving over a toilet because I was so upset.

Days after that encounter, he broke up with me (because of the now-constant fighting), and I dyed my hair midnight blue because I needed the change- and the happiness that came with the freedom was intoxicating.

Those were just a few of the encounters I had with Jeff over my hair. I could never please him, it was never up to his standards. Nothing I did could.

I began buzzing the sides of my head to create the undercut look I had for a while and dyeing it more frequently, two things he would’ve been livid about. I had- and still have- a good-sized collection of Manic Panic hair dyes of various colours, hair bleach, toners, and products to keep my hair fun and healthy. People would ask me for help or advice on how to dye their hair and maintain healthy hair. People loved my hair. I reveled in it.

A year and a half into dating Dan, my current boyfriend, I jokingly-but-not-jokingly asked him over text what he would do if I shaved my head- we love hypothetical questions and discussing our responses. He begged me not to, that he loved my hair. I felt everything in me drop.

But hair grows back, it would grow back. I sent him.

I know, it’s just, I don’t know, I don’t think you should do it. He sent back.

A familiar feeling of shame that Jeff had once made me feel overcame me and I dissolved into tears. I told him he sounded like Jeff and it made me feel awful. He realized what he’d done, apologizing profusely, sending love, and reminding me that I am my own person and I can do whatever I want with myself. He apologized every day for a week after that.

Months later, I knew I needed to trim the sides to restore my undercut. I was trying to grow my natural hair colour out- it had been so long since I had seen it- and was impatiently waiting for the damaged and dyes ends to disappear.

I could always just shave the whole thing, a voice in my head said. I tried to smother that thought, but it had blossomed in my head once again. It was so appealing, so tempting- but what would people think? Dan, my friends, my family- what would they think?

Dan and I were texting that night, and he, trying to keep my mind off the rough day I’d told him about, was telling me how his mom, who had recently been diagnosed with breast cancer, shaved her head. I mentioned how I’d been thinking of doing the same.

If you do, I want to play with all the fuzz!!!! He sent.

There was no hesitation in any of it, no protesting, and I felt the flutter of butterflies in my stomach.

I was going to do it. This was my choice. I was going to shave my head. Nothing could hold me back now.

I was going to shave my head.

So here I stood over the sink, with the ponytail in my fist, the scissors open and positioned to cut at the hair. I had decided against buzzing the sides first, just in case I wanted to wait. I wasn’t going to wait anymore. I was done waiting.

I took a deep breath, blinked back the tears that threatened to form, and began to hack at the hair. It took a bit, since it was a large chunk of hair, but I cut through the ponytail, and it wasn’t until I looking down at it in my hand that I felt the weight I hadn’t known I was harbouring leave me.

I turned on the buzzer and with no hesitation, I sent it through the hair on the top of my head. The giddiness in me grew more and more as more and more hair left my head, fell to the sink, fell to the floor.

Ten minutes later and I couldn’t stop staring at my reflection. The smile wouldn’t leave my face and my eyes were bright and I kept running my hands over my now-fuzzy hair. My head was shaved. A newer sense of freedom washed over me- one I hadn’t felt since I had dyed my hair blue those days after Jeff had left me.

I honestly can’t tell you why I felt such a strong sense of self to my hair. Maybe it was because it was something I had control over, a form of expression that wasn’t just clothes or makeup or jewelry. Maybe it was to spite Jeff and the way he made me feel about myself. Maybe it was because I thought it was made me so uniquely me. Maybe it was all three. Maybe it was something entirely different.

Regardless of what it was, it’s gone now. I’ve shed that part of me, and I decided then that I wasn’t going to care what other people thought of what I did (a cheesy decision, but one I’m so happy I made), that I didn’t care if they didn’t like it. And even though I thought that, all of my loved ones- and even strangers- have been nothing less than supportive of what I’d done. I let them rub it and I love their silly exclamations of how fuzzy it is; they make me smile. And when they ask “Why did you do it?”, I answer simply:

Because I wanted to.

(Me)