Journey of My Hair Back from Violence - My Part Two

Since having my hair ripped from my scalp by a violent family member, I have been doing everything I can to heal my scalp as best I can.  Only a miracle will restore the damage, but I go by faith and not by sight.  One side of my head has been restored but the remainder still needs loving care.

I made a decision last year to shave my hair on the sides again so that I may better touch my scalp to apply the natural herbs and oils.  This has worked on my left side very well and that hair is now chin length.  I actually had to shave the left side twice.  My scalp actually was still tender so as it grew back my scalp would be so sore just by the weight of the hair.  Today the scalp has healed and I don't see any visible signs of scarring.  The hair from the follicle with the worst pulling out has now thickened.  Sadly my right side has more work to do, but I will continue to do what I did to my right side as I did on my left.

5 Steps to Follow

Let me recap a few tips I have learned when you have your hair ripped out.  Step one cut all the hair around it very short immediately and apply an antibiotic to help heal the wounds as well as an antifungal especially if someone ripped your hair out (their fingernails may contain a serious fungus and will contain bacteria).  Step two, begin using only natural products to take care of the scalp like aloe vera gel and flaxseed gel.  Step three, wash your hair often.  Actually, wash your hair more often than you usually do.  For instance, if you wash your hair once a month, now wash your hair every three days and do reapply the antibiotics, antifungal, and natural hair products daily.  The act of cutting the hair makes this process easier.  Step four avoid touching the area too much.  Step five once your outward wound has healed then begin doing scalp massages.  Shaving your hair in that area will help as well because it still may be tender once the hair has grown back in because there is still damage to the dermis unseen.  Massaging your scalp with proper technique and oil will stimulate the deeper healing needed.

Incidentally, what I learned about healing my scalp after violence has transformed my skin on my face too.  Over time I will share more things I have learned too, but for now, those five steps are the most important.  I also give credit to quite a few ladies I have followed on YouTube and Blogs and in due time I will mention those ladies.  I do NOT wish this journey on anyone, but if I can help women and children who are victims of violence then I think this journey is not for naught.



Peace Ladies!

Journey of My Hair Back from Violence - My Part One

So I opened up to you all that my hair had been ripped out by an unwanted touching through force.  I had to make the decision to tell about it because it has affected my blog that chronicles my journey to long hair.  How can I show you my journey to long hair when parts of my hair is missing?  Well I have been forced to be open with you.  So without further adieu, I am sharing some of the things I am doing to get my hair back.

One thing I have been doing since the first week of the trauma is washing those areas at least once a week with a conditioner.  I also apply an amla powder and henna powder mix to those areas.  I leave the mix on for at least 30 minutes and then I wash my hair.  Amla works great because it also strengthens the hair follicle.  Henna is great because it has natural anti-fungal properties.  When a person pulls your hair, then you never know what kinds of bacteria and/or fungus their nails carry.  In my case, I knew the person carries fungus, so I needed a good anti-fungal medicine to ensure my hair will grow back properly.

On my list of to do is to see a dermatologist.  This is beyond my scope so it is good to see someone who has more knowledge than you.  I will update you all when I do and I will be sure to post the questions I asked too.  Well, lastly, but not really lastly I went to the Lord in prayer!  I asked those in the natural hair community to join me in prayer and I believe that has by far been the most helpful.  Since, my blog's title incorporates the Bible, I will do another post on the prayers that I do for my healing and for long hair too.  Thank you for your time!


Peace Ladies!

MY Hair Tragedy

Since October, I have been dealing with a traumatic episode with my hair not of my own making.  Before that fatal day, I had been debating as to, "Whether I  want to display my hair on my new blog?", as I have been building it.  I struggled with the fact of my displaying my hair would breach my privacy.  I know that writing my hair story on a blog shares private facts about myself, but I was not quite up to displaying it with visual aids!  I ...  now,  have decided that I will show my hair soon, especially because what I am going through may help other women.  It is a subject that I have been familiar with and that I witnessed women in my life go through, but that I myself didn't allow myself to make it a thing at the forefront of my mind.  It is a subject that I have been a victim too over and over again, but now it has affected my hair too.  My hair had been the tool I used to break the bondage of my familial tyranny over my life and now,  the one who abused me the most, ripped good portions of my hair out.  So, I am now writing this blog for you, for the women who need to gain strength in getting out and away from bondage of all kinds!  I share my story to help others to get out of situations they may be in denial, or unaware through naivete and/or manipulation like myself.

Shalom!

Wear Your Hair!

I had not noticed that I had been accustomed to wearing protective styles so often that I had stopped wearing my hair out.  Am I embarrassed of my hair I thought?  How could I so easily tell another young girl to wear her natural hair out and I hadn't worn my hair out in months?  In fact, many people thought that faithful wig of mine was my real hair.  I was living a lie and not knowing it.  So this year starting in September of 2014 I decided to wear my hair out more.

It was a little hard at first because I had grown accustomed to just cornrowing my hair and throwing the wig on it.  I had also grown accustomed to styling my braids or two-strand twists with weave for added length and longevity.  I had to re-learn styling my hair.  I didn't however have to re-learn how to take care of my hair.  Luckily I had embarked on a new journey to finally grow my hair long and kick habits from my perm days (long overdue), which made my battle easier.  The hardest part was that my hair was in the darn mid-length stage and it made it very frustrating.

So I had to make a concerted effort to choose my hair over and over again.  When I first went natural, it was hard because I had grown accustomed to long hair and I had finally obtained the hair length goal I wanted with my permed hair.  So, I used weave to get me through my return back to natural because well my mother paid for it and I had a lot of college work to do being a double major and all in college.  This time, my second go-around at the mid-length stage because I had just colored and bleached my hair and it got damaged it made it even harder because I decided I wanted to wear just my hair.  No weave!  However, I am and was armed with the fact that I have made it through the mid-length stage before.  I know that it really is a matter of months before it goes away, but feels like an eternity!  I had to keep choosing my hair over and over again!

This choosing my hair over and over again I did the same styles like double-strand twists, but with my own hair and the good ole tuck and roll.  I did falter once in July and used weave for the double-strand twists because I was desperately tired in the morning and wanted the extra snooze.  After taking those out in August,  I soon regretted it because I had a few mid-shaft breaks even though I had gained some inches.  I rebooted and now I style with my hair alone.  I wanted to go back to what I was doing as a young girl and teen enjoying my hair, but my NATURAL HAIR!

One year later September 2015, I am wearing my hair through thick and thin.  I pledge to do this until I reach my hair goal of all my hair being bra strap length.  Of course, I have a longer goal, but I wanted to re-dedicate myself to accepting my hair that G-d gave me!


Shalom!

Awkward Stage

Hello Ladies,

This topic has been on my mind for quite some time... the dreaded "Awkward Stage" aka medium length hair stage.  All of you long hair naturals know what I am talking about.  Short hair naturals be prepared to embark on this stage.  Ladies in this stage, well I feel your pain!  You can get through it.  Just hold on and you will be out of it in no time!  Do not make the awkward stage your make or break stage in your journey to long natural hair!

I believe this stage is when a lot of naturals choose to either remain natural or go back to the perm (yes I said perm and not relaxer).  Why?  Well change can be hard and you already did the difficult thing of becoming natural and the short hair was a breeze.  You also overcame the feelings of not feeling feminine enough with short hair (of course not everyone feels this).  You may have also started to feel comfortable with seeing your real hair curl pattern and density.  Now this?

Your hair is too short to do the styles you see on blogs, TV, or even YouTube, but it also is too short to just get up and go.  So, your mind may wander back to the hair you were accustomed to, relaxed hair.  It is not that relaxed hair was any easier, but you were used to it!   You may reminisce about the first time your mother let you style your hair all by yourself.  It was so easy and liberating.  Of course, your mother still took care of the heavy lifting with relaxing your hair herself or you went to the beautician, but after that you were responsible for styling your hair.  As for me, the first time I was tasked with relaxing my own hair came when I went to college and I rarely did that.

Rarely perming my hair and not having my mother around just made the decision not to perm ever again so much easier.  The mid-length stage in the beginning of your journey, however, brings you back to the throws of your being an eight year old girl tasked with taking care of all of her hair needs, except you had to complete all of it.  However, now you don't perm anymore and you don't have your mother or beautician there to help you!  Maybe you do have a beautician to help you, but you still have to style your hair yourself.  Oh the discomfort, the discomfort.

I am here to tell you that you can make it and be content during this stage.  So ladies, here is what I did.  I protective styled.  I luckily had the natural hair community, which included my close friends to help me.  They kept me in check when I wore those protective styles too much or too long.  I also had my sibling and guy friends who would compliment me to death and ask to see my hair.  They all loved me through it and well it made that awkward stage much easier to fly by.  Right now I am back in the awkward stage again.  I big chopped my hair again (third time) in December 2013, however I only big chopped the front part of my head.  I also had to wean myself from being scissor happy (another discussion for another time), so I am back to the mid-length again.  This time it is easier and I know for sure this too shall pass.  I want to enjoy this mid-length hair--my naturally God given hair.

So You Wanna Go Natural?

I say to the women thinking of going back to natural, "Take a minute to think about what it means to return to natural, then forget about it and just do it!" the more you take the time to think about how to go natural, or how everyone will receive it, then the more you will not take that needed leap.  My natural hair story, that I will go into detail later posts, took me three years to realize because I did those exact things.  It was not until an unfortunate accident that I got the courage to just chop off all of my permed hair.  Once those permed tresses left, I felt liberated.  I delved head on into the beginning of my natural hair journey.  In my opinion, there are three steps one must take in order to begin the process.  Don't get it twisted (yes a pun); however, doing the big chop only begins the journey.   Also, I assure you missteps will occur that, but those missteps help you learn and don't worry because a natural hair community exists to guide you in loving the hair God gave you!

Do you remember when your mother first let you style your own hair?  Also, do you remember when the responsibility of taking care of your hair became yours?  Well, think of going back to natural as the rebirth of those childhood moments.  You have to re-learn how to care for your hair.  It took time back then, so why not give yourself a break and be patient enough to learn again.  Think of going of natural as the beginning of a sweet love affair.  It is exciting, a little scary, and a huge deal in the beginning because it is a first time, but in no time you will be a master of your own God given hair.

Certainly, there are questions you have that I wish I pondered when I first went natural because they haunted me later on in my journey (I will surely share more as we progress in our dialogue).  There are so many things to ponder like what can I do with my hair since it is not straight anymore, how will my friends and family respond, how will this affect me in the workplace, what is my hair type, texture, and density and more.  However, I say to you only concentrate on Identity.

How do you perceive yourself and why?  Do you love yourself, I mean really love yourself?  Too heavy for you, then let me explain.  I went natural in college, but I was still suffering from the I gotta ask my mother for permission syndrome before I go changing my hair.  This prevented me from going back to natural earlier.  Consider this, I had just left from under my parents wing at 17 years old, so I had barely been independent.  I had just began my the formation of my adulthood identity, me.  So, consider where you are in your life and give yourself a break in the deeper questions because you will learn the answer in time.  Sometimes you have to just go in at once knowing you are well able to handle it (I am picking up inspiration from Caleb from the Bible)!

Peace ladies!