Can confirm the guy side of this. Have shaved my head in moments of crisis. Not something I consciously considered before doing it. Just felt… Idk, claustrophobic and needed to do something.
Also, when my mom was in the hospital last year, had I been able to get in with one, I would’ve had a tattoo by the time she got out.
I have full sleeve tattoos that started as piecemeal trauma tattoos. I get it.
I’m still highly considering a tattoo, but now in a much more stable place, so my needle phobia is helping keep my canvas blank lol
I really don’t like needles, but I’ve found that I really just don’t like them
INSIDE MY BODY INSIIIIDE ME OUT OUT OUT
and I really enjoyed getting my tattoo other than the mild amounts of pain. I still love it.
Also guy here, did this as well.
But uh, mainly because I literally cannot get to a haircut place. Been functionally hobbled for 6 months, car got stolen, don’t know anybody nearby with a car, no public transit, lyft or uber + a hair cut each month is actually pretty pricey when you are living on disability, waiting for public housing.
Been ordering delivery groceries for a while now, added a buzz trimmer to it this month.
At the rate my hair grows, it’ll be back to roughly the length I usually keep it at by the time my PT regimen gets me back into ‘normal’ shape (probably another 6 months).
So sure, I am in what most people would probably consider a crisis, but it makes practical sense too.
Either way, cutting your hair hair is literally a more healthy way to directly exert what little amount of control you have over yourself… but it is, at least in my experience, far more socially ostracizing than cutting yourself.
Not counting me cutting my own hair, I have know several people in my life who have done both or either of these.
When people cut themselves and this is noticable, people who care at all will be concerned and try to talk to them, suggest therapy. They receive more care and attention.
When someone takes all their hair off? They’ll be treated as if they are completely insane, should be avoided and are suspect, and/or are dangerous and should be institutionalized.
Hitting the nail on the head in that last paragraph.
Also, I’m sorry. That’s a shitty situation. It’s wildly unl unlikely, but if you happen to be in east TN, I have a car and don’t mind taxi-ing a Lemming in need
Hah, I am nearly a thousand miles away, but I appreciate the sentiment.
Today is the day I try to find a printer to print off a bunch of docs for the public housing thing… unfortunately, as my wallet was also stolen (multiple times), my checking account is somehow not in my bank statements, so i get to hope they’ll accept a raw csv file hastily formatted in excel and printed off.
I’ve done it before too, lowest point in my life, just grabbed some scissors and cut down my long hair :(
A little upsetting to see people calling it a trope, when it is a real reaction to trauma :/
Tropes can absolutely be based in reality. A trope is simply a commonly used stylistic device or convention in media. Sometimes it’s commonly used because reality just works that way. There nothing inherently cheap about it.
Cutting the hair short as a trope tells us that the character is in an extremely stressful or even traumatic situation and is trying to regain a sense of control. That’s a complex situation but can be told in seconds by relating to actual reality.
It’s not a trope in reality but it is one when used to convey a characters emotional state in a story.