Aabha Sewak
Trigger Warning: Bullying, Body Dysmorphia, Self-Harm
In my second grade classroom, my teacher spoke to us about animals. She told us that animals have fur or hair on their skin to protect their bodies. Little did the wide-eyed girl sitting in the back know how complicated a hair could be.
When I hit puberty, my body hair started to grow. It made its way up my legs and down my arms. I was hairier than most other girls and I didn’t mind it. After all, my body hair was just there to protect me, right?
Then, it all seemed to happen overnight.
The looks of disgust, the “oh, you should wax”, and the name-calling slowly began. I did not understand why people wanted me to get rid of something that protected me. However, I noticed other girls carrying their hairless smooth-as-marble limbs like trophies. I wanted a trophy too. I didn’t want my teachers and my peers to give me saloon addresses. It was drilled into my head that body hair is not feminine, that body hair is dirty, and that “women” cannot be dirty.
My age was deemed too young for waxing, so I found other ways to get rid of my hair. It’s surprising how creative young children can get when they want something, even if it’s toxic. The start was relatively harmless, I would simply cut my leg hair shorter using a pair of scissors. This worked until I realized the stubble would always show and the hair would grow back many times unrulier.
My body hair clung to my skin like poison ivy.
This was when I developed something similar to trichotillomania: a compulsive urge to pull out body hair. I would religiously sit and yank out my leg hair one by one. I would always leave patches of hair, which made my self-esteem drop even further as I was told I did not fit into any ideals of beauty. I began hating the hair that once protected me. I was picked on by boys whom I considered friends the same way I picked on my own hair and skin.
Soon, it transformed into a habit, a coping mechanism, and self-harm. The sharp tug on my skin distracted me from the greater pain I was feeling. I began doing it subconsciously, during study sessions, and in classrooms.
After a while, I started waxing. It stripped me of any comfort and left me feeling vulnerable, hairless, and lifeless. I walked around feeling like an alien in my own skin. Even after I waxed, I’d wait for the hair to grow back, just so I could cause pain to myself, to give myself the satisfaction of hurting my own body. I resorted to more gruesome methods, I’d use sharp objects like a pin to pierce the hair follicles and use cello tape to rip hair off.
My former bullies, of course, didn’t fail to notice the patches of hair missing from my leg and created another chain of whispers. In situations like these when I'd feel anxious, the hair-pulling was my only solace.
Recovering from something like this was one of the hardest things I had to do. I just had to ask myself a question: am I removing my hair for me or for them? I developed healthier coping mechanisms; whenever my fingers itched to tug at my hair, I’d find a piece of clay to sculpt. Obviously, recovery is never linear.
Even in the past year, I’ve had phases where I started falling into my old habits to reduce my stress levels. I remind myself to heal by looking at the permanent scarring on my legs, the numerous skin infections and simply at the pain it gave me, both mentally and physically. I’ve had urges to wax it all off because I didn’t want to explain myself each time and have “friends” make nasty comments.
Recovery is not linear and you should forgive yourself. Reclaiming my body hair was not about my femininity, but about humanity; after all, body hair has no gender. It was about creating my own body like the body of a human being and an animal.
After all, poison ivy does protect the walls of a house.
Now, I am my own knight and I wear my body hair like a shining armor, because not only does it protect me, it makes me beautiful and powerful.