018
There wasn't any incidents of acute stress at that time— it was just the ebbs and flows of my mood, as per usual. The severe dive my mental state took was out of nowhere, and seemingly unprovoked. I'm still uncertain of the specific cause.
But before that day, there was a new nodule of an unnameable feeling, a reaction that started inside me, and for some reason, my hair was the catalyst. I've always had long, curly hair. I took pride in it and it was part of my identity; I was the guy with curly hair that refused to do much to tame it. But my hair was the target of pure loathing now. I hated it, hated the way it felt, hated the way it curled. It felt like slime on my head, like pure putrefaction, like the rancid clumps of fur in tar. I would look at the mirror and my lips would curl in disgust, as if it was the most vile thing I ever had the displeasure of laying my eyes upon. And it was. I couldn't stand it.
Three days after, still in disillusion with my hair and unjustifiably repulsed by it, I found myself in the kitchen. A knife in my right hand, the blade on my left wrist, digging into where I knew my radial artery would be. I could see it pulsing in distress under the cold steel, sending an S.O.S that no one could decipher. I did not press hard enough to draw blood, but it was the thing I wanted most at that infinitely minute moment in time. The word 'CUT' was spilling from my brain and out of my ears. I was on the verge of collapse. But somehow, I managed to put the knife down. I got out of the kitchen.
An hour later, I found myself in the same position, with the same urge. Cut. Cut. Cut. Cut, cut, cut, cut cut cut. Again, I pushed away the insane chant out of my head and got out. The third time however, the compulsion was so lunatic, so overwhelmingly dominant, that I dug in and drew the edge against my skin. The blade was not sharp enough to do the damage needed. I dropped the knife and got out, heart hammering against my ribs.
I'm not sure where the connection was formed, nor why. But in my head, I knew that if I cut my hair, I would save myself from the grips of this obsession that took hold of me out of nowhere. That if I didn't do something right at that moment, I would soon be standing with that knife again, this time with my blood gushing out of me. I got out of the house, and went to the nearest barber—having no previous experience in cutting hair myself—and had my head shaved.
The magnitude of the relief I felt was something I wasn't expecting, but the moment I committed to removing this disgusting rug of hair off me, it flooded me. I felt like a spring being unloaded, like the weight of the world has been lifted off me. I almost sagged in my seat, as the clumps fell around me.
I don't know why it appeared—having never experienced it before—or why it was eased. But the urge to sever my artery is completely gone now. I still shave my head though, now by myself. I can't stand the few millimeters that grow between each session.
It's more practical. Ha, ha. It's a change. Ha, ha. It's more disciplined, I joke. Because why not, I shrug. There is no real answer I can give, even if they're not untrue, the things I say. But just in case I forget, in the sea of sarcastic explanations and discarding hand-waves, this is a reminder:
I shaved my head because it was either my hair on the floor or my blood on the walls.
And I still don't know why.