Can you take care of your hair?

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i have NEVER EVER been able to take care of my hair- EVER. its very thick and wavy hair so it tangles easily. as a kid my hair was always tangled (borderline dreadlocks) and always in my face. I always, to this day, cry when i brush my hair because it can take over an hour and the pain is unbearable. When i was 16 my hair was died from brown to blonde and cut to shoulder length, it was very pretty, however i couldn't take care of it and it became extremely matted and infested with lice, the hair was cut off to about an in to 4cm long, (except for one side of my hair which was kept long at about half a foot.) it looked nice and was easier to care for but recently it became unbearable to care for. The longest part of my hair especially.

i recently cut off over half of my hair and now looks like this:


so like a pixie cut

Much easier to care for i am very happy with it.

How are you and your hair?

I can't take care of my hair either.
Mine is also very thick.
I can't stand brushing or washing it - just touching my scalp makes me physically ill.
Water running over my scalp feels like bugs crawling.
So I leave it for weeks until it's horrible and oily.
I will often panic and meltdown at the thought of washing it.
Then I end up with a headache afterwards.

No one understands my problems with this.
They think, "Why don't you just wash your hair? It's easy. You're dirty and lazy."

My hair's short now but the sensory issues are no less intense.

I keep mine pretty short, so I don't have to bother with it.

Yeah i get that a lot "just brush your hair! its not that hard"

One day my dad was telling me how people can tell what kind of a person they are by looking at their clothes and hair, and i thought about it and i asked him how do i look when i dont brush my hair? and he said i looked crazy and unwell or sick. I still dont understand why non-autistics would care how a persons hair looks unless it looks really cool like a mohawk.

People associate messy/dirty hair with unstable people whom they fear.

It's a common problem for me. I have trouble remembering to brush my hair, and sometimes I don't do a good enough job when I do brush it. Then it gets horribly tangled and it's even harder to get it thoroughly brushed, so it gets increasingly bad until I have these big matted knots that I have to either cut out or spend hours picking out. Sometimes I can't pick them out and they're too close to the scalp to cut, so I have to have my mom help.

At the same time, I like my hair long for reasons I can't identify. Certainly, even if I cut it, I'd have to remember to get it cut periodically.

I've found that shampooing it makes it more inclined to tangle, but if I go too long without shampooing it, it's all greasy and weird.

Thanks for that thought.

If they know the person is okay despite messy hair, that's a different story.

I can keep my hair pretty well taken care, but while I feel compelled to keep my hair long, it's a bit of a challenge for me to keep totally clean.

I may be wrong but KK may have meant that as a slight to NT people who freak out & fear and attribute all sorts of negativeness toward anyone not like themselves. If he didn't mean that, I do. I mean seriously, if you think about it that means they are setting themselves as the 'Standard of Perfection' against whom everyone else should be judged - that takes some ego!

I figured out that the best way to get a messy hair look without gel was just to keep my hair cut to a certain length, wet my hands with water and rub them in circles, each hand going in the opposite direction while pressing tightly against the top of my scalp. This causes my hair to knot all up, giving it a messy look that stays without the need for gel. Due to sensory issues I can't stand gel. I don't shampoo my hair daily, I only use it like once a week, but I rinse in a warm shower everyday. Shampoo will dry out my scalp and cause it to itch if I use it any more frequently.

I do generally dislike the speed at which the hair on my neck grows. The hairdresser place I go to offers to trim that for free inbetween haircuts but I generally can't be bothered to go there inbetween cuts and actually get it done.

My hair is naturally curly. I take care of it just fine, now that I know how. It took years to figure it out. It still gets knots on occasion, but it's long. When shorter, it's actually more curly and bushy.

People on both sides of my family have wavy hair, but I only think a couple of men and no women have/had curly hair, so there was nobody to teach me to take care of it.

I have to use special conditioner which coats the hair and allows it to detangle in the shower. Then I put oil in it, and comb with a wide-toothed comb only, no brush, ever! I let it air dry. It's the only way that my hair stays healthy, and I've got to wash it with mild shampoo everyday, or it gets build up from conditioner and oil, so it feels weird.

I finally have come to an understanding about this after having my NT mother explain this to me MANY MANY MANY times over the past.... ehh... 12 years? roughly? Maybe more? I would say they care, because the state of your hair Indeed IS imparting some sort of information about you. Whether you realize it or not.
Sometimes in the case of autistics it simply says "I don't understand or choose not to participate in the game of saying something with my hair" <- which is imparting that information.

I, however, wouldn't really be able to tell you what other types of hair mean, but apparently they mean something. I get different reactions based on how I do my hair... I'm still trying to make sense of that mess. I think it is very dumb, but apparently it is much much more complex than "I put my hair like this because this is how it is easiest for to style it and I very much like it this way."
Who knew...

However, my mother was telling me some basics like: straight hair means conservative and professional
super big hair means adventurous and spontaneous wavy/semi-curly hair.... not sure about that one I think it is pretty average. not sure.
apparently anything at an abnormal length or coloration is strange and to be judged with suspicion because that marks you as belonging to a sub culture or mean you hold a certain set of values... not simply that "I like this style".

My hair is incredibly thick and very difficult to care for, so I keep it short.

I personally have always had hair issues. I had extreme pain when brushing my hair and would scream bloody murder when my mom or anyone tried to brush it as a kid. I would run away and throw fits/meltdown... they would hold me down and rake a brush through my hair and call me an ungrateful brat for not putting up with it well.
So, I have bad associations with the topic.....
I hate hair.
I hate with a passion expectations of females to have their hair styled and in some particular way.
I HATE HAIR simply because I hate the social constructs forced onto me about my hair and what my hair looking a certain way means.

That being said- I think it is very gross when people have visibly oily and dirty hair (like with stuff in it and what not) I just plain old don't like it reminds me of homeless people that don't have access to showers....

However, other than that... I wish people were just allowed to do to their hair as they please! Just let people f*****g be! How hard of a concept is that?!

I for example have long hair because it is considered feminine and the people in my family would hate me if I cut it (I actually hate it...) I have been forced to maintain it (under threat of being disowned/tossed from the herd so to speak- I'm not kidding they are actually this crazy) at a very long length, because my family is extremely conservative and they think that short hair on women = bad/evil/unnatural. Consequently they hate all the female actors and such who have cut their hair in pixie cuts and what not.

I find it to be a pain.
I have curly hair that I straighten often because I find it easier to deal with.
However, I now know that one should NEVER brush or comb dry curly hair- if you do you are GLUTTON for punishment! you should always brush or comb it wet like in the shower (you loose a lot of hair though so try and keep a pile of it so it doesn't got down the drain and clog the drain!) and then let it air dry.
That is what I have found to be the most effective.

Curious, but do you like going to the hair dressers? I quite like it if I find the right sort of person who doesn't talk to me while I sit there. Also if they have the right temperature water and the shampoo they use smells nice - then I really like it because I don't have to do it haha. Outsourcing hair styling- quite like it. I would go often if I could! lol But I don't have the money for that!
I never go and do it all my own XD