I am not sure when it began, or even if I am completely over it, but I had a period during my pregnancy and after the birth of my son where I went through what I called hair depression. I do not know if there is a textbook definition for this but I can definitely describe it to you.
I didn’t mind co washing my hair but, to hell heck with deep conditioning*. I didn’t want to see a steamer* much less sit under one, no styling just messy buns and finger detangling but not with any sort of energy or focus. I did not purchase any new products or try anything new and I yanked out my single strand knots. All in all I was completely over my hair.
Hair depression is pretty much that point in your hair journey when you don’t feel like doing a daggone thing to your hair and you just don’t care any more.
I was at that point right before total neglect and I knew I had to get it together. Hair was my business, I wrote about it, I read blogs about it, I listened to other women as they expressed excitement over big chops and had a ton of questions about how to care for their hair.
I could answer the questions, because despite my ‘situation’ I still considered myself pretty seasoned in this natural hair thing, I have come a long way from 2009, 5 years and counting but that doesn’t mean I do not get frustrated with my own hair from time to time. The question is how do you get out of the funk?
Walk away
It is easy to say, snap out of it before you go bald! Go deep condition your hair and stop being lazy! But sometimes when you are going through this period it is better to just put your hair away in a safe place and just walk away. By safe we mean, a protective style, like braids, twists with or without added hair, or if you are like me, just bun it and forget it.
Now you can’t walk away forever but the hope is, you will miss your hair so much it will force you to do something about how you are treating it.
Maybe its not about hair
You will be surprised how stress can affect other areas of your life and the fact that you mind will tell you ‘no no, that’s the problem, its your hair” but the truth is, it may be deeper. Some of you might say, hair depression is not a thing, it can never be that serious; and you know what you are right, it might not be the hair at all.
For me it was my added responsibility, now I had this new little life that I was so in love with, will I be the best for him? What will his life be like? I was worried about everything surrounding my son and ignoring everything about me.
Eventually I had to realize that if I did not take care of me, how in the world could I take care of him? So examine your mind completely, get in touch with your feelings and really try to separate what was causing your depression, maybe you did not have to neglect your hair in the first place.
Yes i have been through hair depression. My fix is to cut it off and start over.
Everytime a natural hair vs the world vendetta occurs. Which is every other day! Funk city. I rant and rave to my husband, who probably isn’t listen, but, it makes me feel better.
Yes, I am going through it now so I am sporting a twist style with weave -color 350. I just love it. Great article.
Yes I have been in a hair depression. It seems to happen when the weather gets warmer and I agree with your post as well other personal issues outside of hair can really take a toll that you are unaware of. I truly do want to cut it off like big chop short, but my significant other prefers long hair. And since he is important to me and his opinion has value in my choices I decide to wear my hair in twists. He also loves my hair in twists, pinned up, and he has suggested locs, but I am not interested in locing my hair any time soon.
I also agree with staying social in the Natural Hair community. I always get inspiration from the different women. Thank you for this post. I also wrote something similar to this post on my blog http://www.tastyberri.blogspot.com
Oh yeah plenty of time I have!
I went through it fortunately my mom was there for me to talk to about different things. also after my oldest girl was born I dyed my hair bright red which made me smile every time i saw it in the mirror. My in-laws were very shocked but it helped me feel like I was still the same person before I gave birth.
I am currently in a hair funk. I’m getting through by keeping my hair in Senegalese Twists for the summer, and learning how to style my twists is very fun for me. However, I do miss my hair and at the same time I’m not looking forward to having to do it every day or every other day. I continue to search for styles I want to try when I finally take my twists out. Pray for me…fingers crossed
Sadly, I’m going through it now. I’d finally achieved shoulder length hair after doing my big chop in Dec.09. After all that care & work, in early May of this year, it took just one shampoo disaster to mess it all up. I took off my wig at the time and was preparing to wash, deep condition and re-twist. It’s as if my hair just tangled and seized up after shampooing.There was not getting out of it. I had no choice but to bc again. For some this is no big deal but when you have 4C hair that grows extremely slowly (come on 4 yrs to barely get to my shoulders?!!!), it’s not that easy to let things slide. Now I’m back to a TWA. I’m someone who was just getting used to the idea of letting go of my addiction to weaves, wigs, & extensions. Now I can’t even wear a wig since my edges are damaged and need to regrow. This is frustrating and extremely depressing for me. It’s even worse when it feels like every blog site only features naturals with long, thick, healthy looking manes. Having no one with compassion or sensitivity to talk to about this adds severe insult to injury. There aren’t any natural hair communities where I live north of Toronto here in Canada. It’s just really hard to take. I wish this wasn’t so painful. Good luck on your hair journey and be careful with your hair ladies.
Great article…and yes, I have too! It was both my hair and my personal life. So, i went to the huetiful l hair salon. I made the appt. a week in advance and every time I thought about it, I would get so excited. I got a treatment and a much needed trim. I also got great tips and later received complements on my hair.
As far as my life.. well, i’ll get it together, but I ain’t hating my hair anymore.
Thanks for the wonderful article. This is helping me with my essay on diversity in college.