Showing posts with label hair. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hair. Show all posts

Saturday, October 5, 2013

The power of hair

On the weekend I wrote about my three favourite ways to distract myself from my depression. There's actually a fourth way I like to shake things up when life feels really shit. This method of depression distraction is so radical at times that I felt it deserved its own post.

As a method of depression distraction, getting a new hairstyle can be a little high risk. Fuck it up and it could make you feel worse. Get it right and, I personally believe, it could be just the ticket to lifting the spirit. Even just a little bit.

Mood reviving isn't the only good reason to get a change in hairstyle. I, for one, have used the ol' cut 'n' colour for a number of different reasons. Here they are:


Making a statement against authority


There have been a number of times when I've made major changes to my barnet in order to make a rebellious statement to the world. But mostly it has been to piss off my parents or to give a big "fuck you" to the private girls' school, and their strict uniform rules, that I attended.

The photos below look pretty tame, but what you can't see under the top layer of hair in many of the pictures is a shaved undercut. These days kids get away with all sorts of  hairdos at school but things were different back in the 80s and 90s. We had to wear our hair tied back with a regulation 2.5cm navy blue ribbon if the length of our hair was below the collar of our uniform.

I wrote a post about my past embarrassing hairstyles back in May. For those of you who were lucky enough to miss the shocking photo evidence here it is! I'd hate to deprive you of a laugh at my expense!


The school years: Never been one to shy away from a pair of clippers, scissors or a bottle of hair dye!


The I can't be bothered with my hair phase


I also go through phases where I just cannot be bothered with my hair and I let it grow really long, don't bother getting it coloured (my natural colour is mousy blonde-brown) and just pull it back in a messy bun or a braid. It's that pulling back in hair elastics that I thought was contributing to my headaches (more on that later). I tried getting it chemically straightened thinking it would make for an easy to manage style but the straightening effect didn't last long at all.


My long natural coloured hair 


The everybody else is doing it so I am too phase


Pink, purple, orange, blue, green, yellow - any colour you can think of really. Permanent colour, semi permanent, hair chalk! Crazy hair colours have been all the rage for quite a while now. Earlier this year I decided I wanted to go pink!


Clockwise from top left: The photo I showed the hairdresser to illustrate how I wanted my hair done;
how my hair actually turned out; big smiles as the dye goes on; worried look as reality hits; posing for the hairdresser;
Bubblegum Princess from Adventure Time; a forced smile at home as I realise I look a bit like a cartoon character.


Argh! I just lost a whole stack of work I'd done on this post when Blogger showed an error message and I stupidly closed the browser without doing a copy/paste of what I'd already written into Word. The paragraph lost was basically about how upset I was at spending 5.5 hours and nearly $400 at a hair salon recommended by the biggest hair blogger in Australia only to walk out of the place with a completely different 'do than the one in the picture that I showed the stylist.

The pink did fade. I washed my hair nine times in three days desperately scrubbing out the dye that was going everywhere: on my pillowcase, clothes, towels. And when it actually got to a colour that I liked that only lasted a couple of weeks, but it never looked like the style I asked for.


Getting back to 'normal' phase


After a while the ends, that had been bleached to create that balayage effect, became so straw like that I had to get them cut off. I ended up going to a different hairdresser to get the good old half head of foils in order to restore any semblance of a decent hairdo.



From pink to blonde


Let's go crazy!


My most recent hairstyle change is probably the most crazy. Ever. From long blonde highlighted hair to short white hair with a few greeny blue streaks chucked in for good measure I sure have made a statement this time. Like I said earlier, I've never been scared to make radical changes to my hair. In fact I get a bit of a buzz (no pun intended - ok maybe a little) out of it.


Hair today, gone tomorrow



There's more to the change in style than trying to cultivate a new look. I have been having headaches that start around my scalp and shoot down through my head nearly every day for the past two or three years. I wrote about these headaches recently when I listed all the symptoms that have landed me here back in hospital. I also talked about my headaches when they seemed to disappear after I went 40 days without eating any sugar.

The pain always gave me this overwhelming desire to shave my head. As if my long, thick and heavy hair was to blame for the pain that's had me popping painkillers like lollies for years. Whether I had my hair back in a hair elastic or out falling down my back, my scalp still ached. Then last week, when I was readmitted to this psych hospital I've now been an inpatient at four times over the last five years, I decided: fuck it! The hair is going.

Have I been cured of my headaches? No. They are still there, messing with me physically and psychologically.

Do I feel refreshed from having a completely new look? Yes. I love that I have an actually 'style'. That I don't just wake up in the morning, throw my head forward, gather up my masses of hair and scrunch it into a hair-band. I love washing my locks everyday. Oh, the freshness of it all!

The moral of the story? Hair is fun, can make a statement, but cutting it all off won't necessarily cure you of chronic headaches.

Maybe I need to start thinking about cutting back on sugar again. Bugger.


Are you a person who likes to change hairstyles with your mood or
do you stick to the same trusty hairdo year after year?



V.





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Sunday, September 29, 2013

Three ace ways to distract yourself from depression

If you haven't noticed on my blog or on any of the other online places I haunt, I've been going through a pretty shit time. In medical terms I'm currently suffering from major depression combined with a shitload of adverse side effects from the medications I've been prescribed. Woohoo!

My life has been like clenching onto the side of a cliff with white knuckled determination not to fall into the abyss. It's been fucking hard work, and my hands are cracked and bleeding, but there's way too much good shit on top of that mountain. So much to fight for. Everything to live for.

I'm in hospital right now. At this moment I'm feeling ok but there have been moments in the last week where I've cried so much I've been almost inconsolable.

"Why are you so upset?" the well meaning psych nurses ask.

"Is there something your [doctor, family, group therapist] said to trigger you?" they want to know.

"You're not going to hurt yourself, are you? You are feeling safe... right?"

Yes! I'm safe from harm. This much I know is true.

But no! Nothing has triggered the flood of tears. I'm just fucking crying! I want to scream it at the world. I just don't know why I'm crying. The tears come out of my eyes as my heart is squeezed by the black hands of an unnamed doom.

The brain is a wondrous yet ill understood organ. My doctors don't know what's wrong with mine. They can't give me a neat little diagnosis. They don't know what pills to put me on so it feels like they are giving them all a go. One drug at a time, sometimes two.

Over these almost five months since the Black Dog came to take residence in my soul I've found a few cool ways to distract myself from his howling. I thought I'd share them with you. Don't tease me because I've been partaking in a fair bit of low brow entertainment. It's just for cheap laughs!


Big Brother


I love this show! (picture source)
OMG! I love this show. I've watched every episode from day one and I can't get enough. Weekends are hell because the show doesn't air on Saturday and Sunday!

Watching these Gen-Ys bitch and moan and scheme and backstab each other is so much fun! I feel so involved in their lives. I've cried at times while watching BB. I usually never cry at TV shows or movies! And how hot are Ed and Drew? OMG! Such eye candy. Some of the girls are pretty hot too.

Even Noo has got into it. Although he doesn't really understand what's going on. Noo just likes the characters that are nice to people. Noo's favourite is Drew and my favourites are Tim and Ben. Tim and Ben are not boring pretty boys there to be ogled - they actually have really interesting personalities and don't feel the need to conform in order to fit in. I like that. Tim is a bit of a schemer and you could say he has a bit of a nasty side, but at least he tries to stir things up in the house. Makes for much better entertainment for us watching at home.

I know the show is quite mindless but such a great distraction from the guilt and negativity whirling around in my head. It really is a worthwhile escape. I miss them all like mad on the weekends. Seriously. Noo says after the 6pm news every day "It's nearly Big Brother time!" and is devo'ed when I have to break it to him that it's Saturday so no BB.

Goodness knows what we will do when the whole season is over. Noo and I wish we could go to the final eviction. Won't happen. Maybe next year!


Candy Crush Saga


So addictive! (picture source)
Talk about addictive! For a long time I saw Facebook requests from friends asking me for 'lives' or publishing notifications of how they'd cracked another level. I saw status updates from friends expressing their frustration at not being able to pass up to the next 'episode'.

I resisted for as long as I could. Knowing my addictive nature I thought CCS could have the potential to take over my life. I've not been that wrong!

It was actually my Shrink who said I should play CCS as a way to distract myself from negative self-talk. It definitely works but crushing those bloody candies can also distract you from other things like - blogging, household chores, sleep....


Cat memes on Pinterest


Even when I'm feeling 100% shit just having a scroll through Pinterest cat memes can crack me up. This sort of thing would usually not make me laugh but for some reason these days cats make me LOL!

You can't tell me these aren't funny....


Hilarious... right?



So what do you think about my depression distraction methods? Funny ha ha or funny it's a good idea you're in the crazy house again Vanessa?


How do you cheer yourself up when you're feeling blue?



V.


Disclaimer: Clearly I am no doctor! I have had no training in the treatment of people with mental illness. This is just a post about what helps me sometimes forget my woes. I make no promises that anything I have said above will help anyone. In fact it could hurt you. For all I know you may be allergic to cats. 




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Sunday, May 12, 2013

Day 10: Embarrassing hair

Day 10, Friday: Most embarrassing moment (s). Spill.

What a blog prompt! Most embarrassing moment? I actually have to think about this because I can't remember the last time I was really embarrassed. Which is good, no?

When I was younger I was embarrassed all the time. I think I spent my entire young existence in a permanent state of embarrassment. I was so shy and so worried what anyone and everyone might be thinking about me. I craved approval. Now, of course I do still care what people think about me, but not as much.

Of course when I was drinking I embarrassed myself all of the time. I hated waking up and getting a flashback of the night before and cringing at the thought of what I had done under the influence. I can't even bare to repeat some of those stories.

Rather than describe my most embarrassing moment I'm going to show you some of my most embarrassing hairstyles. I've noticed a few bloggers lately talking about bad hair or bad fashion of the past. It's fun to look back and laugh at what I used to wear or how I used to do my hair. I guess in 10, 20, 50 years from now I'll think the same about what I wore today.




My hair is naturally ash blonde. I coloured my hair with henna when I was about 15 years old. Most people thought it was natural. That's me in the top left hand corner on the night of my year 10 formal sporting a very Molly Ringwald look.

Later in 1990 I shaved an undercut into my hair which you can't actually see in the second picture, but it is there. Goes so nicely with the 2 Live Crew t-shirt (sarcasm here). From 1989 through 1991 I was playing a lot with colour. Clearly.

The photo on the bottom right hand corner is me before leaving to go to my year 12 formal. I had a gob full of braces and the 'do the hairdresser created was a very strange interpretation of the photo I asked him to copy.

That picture of me taken in 1995 is an interesting one. That was a sad period in the life of my hair. Not long before it was really long and beautiful. One day I woke up bored with it so went to the hairdresser and asked them to cut it back quite a bit. The new look was quite good, once I got used to it, but when I went to get it trimmed again at a different salon the hairdresser totally stuffed it up. I went to a number of stylists trying to get the cut sorted out and ended up with really short hair (shorter than in this picture). I was dressed up like a boy for this photo because we were off to a cross dressing themed 21st birthday party.

After the short hair debacle of 1995 I have pretty much always had mid length to long blonde hair. That is of course until my recent dalliance with pink hair!




I quite liked this brief brush (get it - brush, hair - so funny) with the wild side of colour but I'm glad to be back to my standard half head of foils, mid length, layered, blow dried straight hair.





Tiredness is overwhelming me tonight but I really want to get this post out because I'm already a day behind with #blogeverydayinmay. Please excuse any typos. I'm off to bed.


What was your most embarrassing hairstyle?



V.







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Thursday, January 24, 2013

Giveaway: It is all about me (and you)!

Sponsored by Groupon

While making goals and achieving what we want is really important, so is being kind to ourselves and having a little break every now and then. You know, to just do something that is all about feeling good in the moment. Whether it be to read a book, spend the evening with your feet up on the couch watching TV until late or going for a massage, we all need a little me time for our sanity.

Being a sole parent with a limited budget the time I get to myself is so precious and I don't have a lot of dosh to do luxurious things. If I'm not with Noo or my niece Mala, I'm pretty much here in front of my screen working on my blog. My therapist is always telling me I need to set more time aside to do things that are just for me - for fun or relaxation.

If you follow my Instagram feed you'll know that I get my nails done pretty regularly. Every three weeks in fact. This is something I've been doing for years. I can't really afford it but it's a guaranteed one hour or so where I am sans kids and someone else is doing something for me. How good does that feel? Awesome.


babblingbandit.me nails (not related to Groupon)


At the end of last year when I was forking out cash left, right and centre for birthday and Christmas presents for the kids I suddenly got the urge to spend some money on pampering myself.

Not having a lot of money left over, I went and checked out some of the group buying sites that are around. Groupon had some great beauty coupons so I scanned the list of deals available and settled on getting my hair straightened.

I've always wanted to get a keratin treatment but never thought I could afford it. My old hairdresser told me it would cost upwards of $400 for my hair because it is so long. The deal I found didn't have any 'penalty' for long or thick hair so I was sold. I bought two of the deals - one for me and one for my sister.

Yolanda and I went along to the salon last weekend and had a lovely morning having our hair washed, treated and straightened while we sat there reading trashy gossip mags. The kids were with Nanna and Grandpa so we didn't have a care in the world for those few precious hours.

I'm thinking the next pampering coupon I'm going to buy is a massage. And lucky for me, the good people at Groupon got in contact and offered me a $50 gift voucher to put towards my next deal. But, because I'm such a generous soul, I want to give YOU a chance to take some time off from whatever it is you need a break from and get a little pampering... or you can use the voucher for whatever you want. They have stacks of daily deals for meals or, I don't know, go check out the Groupon website!

For a chance to win a Groupon gift voucher worth $50 all you have to do is: 

1. Like the babblingbandit.me Facebook page

2. Subscribe to the babblingbandit.me by entering your email address into the box at the top of this post

3. Tell me what you really need a break from and how you'd like to spend that break time

The most creative answer wins. This is a game of skill and will be judged on the creativity of the answer.

Just post your response in the comments below.

This competition is only open to Australian residents.

The competition closes on Friday 1 February 2013 and the winner will be notified shortly after.


Good luck!

V.



Disclaimer: This is a sponsored post. Groupon approached me and offered me a $50 gift voucher which I have chosen to giveaway. All opinions are my own in accordance with my disclosure policy.