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2:56pm December 7, 2012

[This post is in the disability tag because a huge reason for the problems with my hair is being in bed constantly. Images show me, one with my hair loose, one with my hair braided into two braids. My skin is pale and my hair is very dark. And I have a small amount of facial hair on my chin. And large, clear plastic glasses. Small nose. Small mouth.]

So I’ve been growing my hair. The first picture is how long it is loose. The second picture is two braids. it goes a little past my shoulders now.

The point of the braids is that my hair gets incredibly tangled. It may look straight on the outside front part. But it actually has this continuum from straight to wavy to curly throughout different parts. The curly parts usually result in this weird state I get into where the surface, especially in the front, may look well taken care of, but everything beneath the surface, especially towards the back, is one giant mat.

I finally got rid of the mat recently after spending literally about six to nine hours just lying there detangling my hair. And I realized that with thick hair of lots of varying textures, I’m going to have that happen over and over again if I don’t do something. I thought of all kinds of things, but I finally came up with braids. I wasn’t sure whether I was going to end up with one, two, three, or five, but I ended up with two being the easiest to take care of and maintain. All I have to do is unbraid it every day, comb it out with a wide-toothed wooden comb, and then braid it again, and I have hair that I can keep in bed with me without too much in the way of tangles. It starts getting frizzy pretty fast, but if I redo the whole thing once or twice a day, it ends up working out pretty well.

I have to say I’m really relieved about this. I had thought I might have to go to a hairdresser (who would then advise me to cut the mat out and keep my hair short) or something, but this is something that either I can do, or caregivers can do, with minimal trouble. I usually do it while I’m on the toilet in the morning because there’s a mirror there and it’s one of the only times I sit up all day. I’ve been doing this for weeks now, I think, and it works. It completely works. I do wish I could sometimes wear it without the braids while I’m in bed, but that just seems to invite all those little hairs to start tangling into each other.

Wow. I’m always amazed when I can write an entire post about hair. But I actually like my hair these days. And I’m glad I found a solution to being in bed all the time and having thick hair that loves to tangle at the drop of a hat. Because people have, after seeing the rat’s nest from hell, been advising me to chop all my hair off, and I don’t want to. I’ve spent too much of my life doing that, largely because it’s so difficult to keep it from turning into one giant rat’s nest. But what I’m doing lets me keep my hair. Yay. Now my only hair problem is that it keeps falling out, apparently because of the physical stress my body has been under, particularly from that long period without proper nutrition. But it’s so thick that no matter how much falls out there always seems to be more.