Is this...Hair Dysmorphic Disorder?

Around this time of the year, my most terrible (hair-related) condition kicks in:

Hair Dysmorphic Disorder is anxiety based on:

- The mistaken idea that your hair is longer/shorter or bigger/smaller than it is.

- An unrealistic perception of your hair's current state.

- A distorted view of what your hair is actually like.

-Watching too many blasted Youtube videos at a time

Symptoms may include (but are not limited to)

• Excessively switching up your routine every two weeks as the last one clearly wasn't working because your hair absolutely, most definitely has NOT grown since you last measured it two seconds ago ....

But I just ate some veggies now and they're s'posed to be good for GROWTH!
Why am I still at this length?!

• Spending a long time and a lot of money trying to cover up what you think is wrong with your hair - if you can't pay the bills but you can buy that fancy 130% guaranteed growth oil, and you spend half your life upside down and nauseous for the sake of growth then you may be suffering from hair dysmorphic disorder!
  
• Constantly comparing your hair to other people's on the internet and thus losing all sense of perception. (Please read An Inch is an Inch for an idea of what this loss of perception looks like. Also, beware of Small Girls with Big Hair, and also petite ladies who seemingly have 3 inches between their shoulders and their waistline compared to your 14 inches.)

The hair on the small girl has literally been copied and pasted on the bigger girl. Promise. 

• Constant incredulity at the difference between the 'growth' of your hair and someone else's - "How come her hair is growing so fast?? Mine doesn't grow. My hair is broken/useless/not as great." etc etc 

Ma'am! Have a seat. Her hair was already longer to begin with.

This often results in a sense of dissatisfaction, distress, and a lack of remembering how awesome your hair actually is.

Post inspired (especially the last point) by this picture and  then this picture.
How'm I gonna be this old and can't tell the difference between mebbe Armpit Length and definitely Waist Length??Mess...😅😂

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Oh dear.

In light of my recent reaction, I was really surprised (and saddened) to come across across this article discussing lead levels in a well known natural hair brand.

The link simply mentioned a beauty brand and I hadn't known it was going to be Alikay Naturals, since the site where I found the link was completely unrelated to natural hair.

For your own safety and information, whether you have used Alikay Naturals Bentonite Me Baby or not, I would urge you to read the article.

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Panic! At the APL Plateau

A couple of weeks ago, two weeks ago, I flew into a panic and a glum mood because I realised something was wrong.  I even wrote a post about it but I started using words like 'y'all' halfway through, which means I was really upset.

Extract:

If there's anything more depressing that comparing your progress against other, it's comparing your progress against yourself and finding yourself wanting. My ponytail in mini-twists in October was the exact same length as in January/February.
I have pieces in the front of my head that I'm still pinning up because they won't reach into my ponytail. Two years later and they still won't reach into the blasted ponytail!
...
This is not a setback. It's something that I've been ignorant of but it's been happening for a while.
When it comes to giving myself reasons why I'm not making leaps and bounds in all my hair-related incidents, please trust that I am always the person in the front of the queue.
I've told myself that:

• I'm tall (5' 11.5"), so it'll take me longer than other people to hit certain points.
• My fine hair means that splits and trims are inevitable.
• Half an inch isn't that big! Patience, grasshopper.
• Health over length, after all. 
• Shrinkage is so deceiving.
• You dyed your hair and it all broke off, so if that's not a major setback....
• Maybe I'm a slow grower, eh? It happens!

But I know I'm not a slow grower. My hair colour from last year has near enough completely grown out. If the ends of my hair had made the same progress, I would not be writing this (extremely whiny) post. My hair is growing - it just bloody well isn't staying there. 

I don't sound right when I say 'y'all' and 'ain't' and 'in this game' (yeah, I didn't include those bits...)

You see, I'd taken out one of my twists out and tugged at my hair and it ended waaaay earlier than it should have been.

So I went out and searched for a measuring tape, came home and confirmed it.

8 inches. 

This is a problem. Mainly because that nape section always retained length well, even back in the beginning when I had no idea what to do with the rest of my hair. But now I think it's breaking the most, because at the rate it retained back in the day, it should steadily be on its way to BSL.

It's not even APL. Heck, it's barely shoulder length reaching my collar bone!

Look familiar? This is me 17/10/2012.
And this is me 31/12/2011.
Aaand on the 1/1/2011.

8 inches. After 3 years. Somehow, 10 inches of hair has gone walkies. Other sections are around 10/11 inches.
I don't know what's happening but when I started this blog, it was not after just having cut off all my hair. And that was more than two years ago. 2 years = around 12 inches, no? I'm not even there!!

I know some people think length checks are stupid and unhelpful but when you realise that in two years, you have retained -1 inches (not even an exaggeration), would you say that hair was healthy? That everything's okay? And that's with me only length checking every year, which may be why it's taken me so long to establish a pattern and realise there is a problem.

In my panic, I started googling furiously, but the only thing that seemed to come up was that other ladies with fine hair like me who weren't plateauing were using henna.
I actually looked into it, remembered the mess (rented apartment, y'all), time and faff...eurgh.

Nope. But it does mean that as of now, I'm back on the Cassia. Part of my game plan and all that.

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One of those moments...

I'm typically skeptical of The Sun newspaper full stop, because I think it's a newspaper full of nonsense; a newspaper that's badly written and that seems to take joy in dispensing ignorance wherever it goes...

But if this story is true...about Nigerian parents who gave birth to a blonde haired, blue eyed child:

Blue-eyed blonde Nmachi, whose name means "Beauty of God" in the Nigerian couple's homeland, has baffled genetics experts because neither Ben nor wife Angela have ANY mixed-race family history.

Pale genes skipping generations before cropping up again could have explained the baby's appearance.

Ben also stressed: "My wife is true to me. Even if she hadn't been, the baby still wouldn't look like that.

"We both just sat there after the birth staring at her for ages - not saying anything."

Doctors at Queen Mary's Hospital in Sidcup - where Angela, from nearby Woolwich, gave birth - have told the parents Nmachi is definitely no albino.

Ben, who came to Britain with his wife five years ago and works for South Eastern Trains, said: "She doesn't look like an albino child anyway - not like the ones I've seen back in Nigeria or in books. She just looks like a healthy white baby."

He went on: "My mum is a black Nigerian although she has a bit fairer skin than mine.

"But we don't know of any white ancestry. We wondered if it was a genetic twist.

"But even then, what is with the long curly blonde hair?"

Full story can be found here

I'm not going to lie. My first reaction looked like this:

WHAT THE FISH!?!*

Most of the situations where this type of scenario arises concern I.V.F mix ups, but the fact this happened naturally is a real kick in the teeth to a lot of people who depend heavily on the genetic argument for why race is so important.Many people are simply brushing it off as a moderate case of albinism, but even so, the appearance of the baby in contrast to her family is what makes it such a good front page story.This just makes me want to side-eye 'purity of the race' people even more and if real, it may prove how incredibly complex genetics and the human race really are. We are all related, no matter how different our appearances may be - at a base level, we're all family. *Puts on dashiki and, sets alight incense, picks up guitar and starts playing"Kumbaya".*

..

* I love that cat. I wish I had a cat like that ^_^

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