I Cut My Hair to Fight My Depression

My plan backfired on me.

Sometime in August, my friend Liesl called my hair “luxurious.” At risk of sounding arrogant, she was right. I had some badass hair. I’m blessed with Italian genes that gave me long, thick, dark hair. It commanded attention. I hated it.

Men loved my hair. When I got divorced, I briefly saw a guy who told me my hair was what he found most attractive. I mention cutting it. “Never do that,” he said.

His social media was chock full of pictures of him and random women with long, dark hair. I was a cookie cutter.

I have a friend who grew a really huge beard. He said, coupled with a baseball hat and sunglasses, it made him feel invisible. It made him feel like he didn’t even really have a face. This, as odd as it is, made perfect sense to me.

Once or twice, a guy would come talk to me out in public because of my hair. He’d comment on it. One guy actually asked if he could touch it. Another time a friend of mine caught a stranger standing behind me, smelling my hair. This was not what I wanted.

I, like my friend, wanted to be invisible. I had long joked that my hair held all my sex appeal. So I…