As someone who lives with chronic depression and anxiety, haircuts and I have a complicated relationship.Īccording to a new study by TYME in conjunction with YouGov, 20 per cent of the 680 U.S. For whatever reason, changing up my look tends to give me a full-blown identity crisis. Yet, at the same time, I cry whenever I get a haircut. In times when I’ve been feeling particularly down about myself, getting a new hairstyle has always given me a temporary dose of oxytocin – it's been a way of feeling better about myself in times when I've been especially low. Maintaining long hair can require a great deal of products, time, and patience, and letting go of that maintenance can symbolise the letting go of the emotional labour of the relationship, too.įor me, my relationship with haircuts has always been incredibly complicated. “Grief after a break-up can drive someone towards making a big change in appearance, as a way of potentially lifting the literal and metaphorical ‘weight’ of the hair,” says Newman. When a romantic relationship ends, it’s common for individuals to want to make a change to their hair. However, doing so ultimately doesn’t eliminate our distress as these external acts do not appease our internalized anguish. In this way, Newman says, making a change to our physical appearance can feel akin to shedding a layer of skin in which we assume we will feel immediately better after the act. These pop culture moments are telling about the strong relationship between drastic haircuts and our emotional states.Īccording to Rebecca Newman, a psychotherapist based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, “When we’re going through a period of transition that is particularly painful, we tend to make decisions that provide immediate relief.” This can stem from the feeling of wanting to rid ourselves of intense or difficult emotions, causing us to make rash decisions such as impulsive purchases or getting a major haircut. In the second season finale of Girls, meanwhile, Hannah Horvath takes scissors to her hair after a bad OCD spell in which she punctured her eardrum with a q-tip and failed to write a book in one single day. Then there’s Deb from the 1995 teen dramedy Empire Records who shaves her head following a suicide attempt as a means to make herself “visible”. In the 1988 film, The Accused, Jodie Foster’s character Sara Tobias cuts her hair from a shoulder-length style into a long pixie after she is gang-raped and her rapists are not found guilty. Several movies have also captured the emotional experiences of women who have wrestled with trauma and gone on to hack some or all of their hair off. Shaving her head was a way of freeing herself from agony and exerting some control over the powerlessness she felt over her highly publicized life. While the moment is still heavily scrutinized by the media today, at the time Spears was in the midst of a divorce, reportedly dealing with a substance abuse disorder, and wrestling with mental illness. Back in February 2007, Britney Spears famously walked into a salon and casually shaved her own head. Our hair holds a lot of weighty emotions and drastic haircuts, particularly for women, are nothing new. ![]() ![]() In the salon world, this situation is not unusual and Benson admits she’s seen her fair share of clients who have come to her in a highly emotional state wanting to make a drastic change to their appearance. However, the customer wasn't in the right headspace to make the cut – she cried and ended up leaving the salon sans new ‘do. “She was really upset about it and she wanted to cut off all of her hair,” recalls Benson, who was in beauty school at the time but now owns her own salon in Brooklyn called Cut Loose. It was right after the September 11th attacks in 2001 when a client paid New York-based hairstylist Siobhan Benson a visit.
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