I never considered myself a girl that defined herself by her hair.

This past May, people started to notice how long my hair was. When I would walk into my local coffee shop, I was greeted with "Hey, Rapunzel!" This past June, I had a stroke. This past September, I cut my hair off. I got a pixie cut, and I feel like a completely different person. When I had my stroke, I had a drain put in. In order to do that, they had to shave my head, but they ended up shaving only part of it.

When I finally regained consciousness, my hair was pretty much gone.

Whenever I would reach up to run my hands through it, I would hit a tube instead. I was in the neuro ICU for so long that I made friends with the charge nurse that was usually there. She braided what little hair I still had, and it made me feel like I was still a real person. She always used to ask what I planned to do with my hair. One side was completely buzzed, and the other side was about a foot long. I really didn't know what I wanted to do. I figured that I would cross that bridge when I came to it. Some nurses suggested that I leave it buzzed on one side, but just get it touched up. Others said that I should just cut it all off.

When I was finally sent from the ICU to a rehab facility, I decided that I needed to figure out what to do. I was in an inpatient rehab facility, but I didn't plan to be there for long. While I was there, my goal was not only to re-learn to walk, but also to get comfortable with touching my own head.

That seems like a really weird statement, I know. Like I said before, I had a drain coming out of my head for about two months. Eventually, it was taken out, and I got a stitch to keep it closed. Even though there was a stitch, there was still some scarring and it scabbed over. There was no hair there to distract me from the feeling of a scabbed-over wound. Right before I left ICU, they even re-buzzed my head so that they could stitch it up.

Eventually, I felt better about touching my head. I didn't notice the stitch as much as time went on. My mom trimmed up some stray hairs that they had missed when they shaved my head the first time, and I guess that I felt better.

When they eventually discharged me from rehab, I felt like the decision was more pressing than before. I stalled on it for a really long time. I blamed it on the fact that I was preoccupied with recovering, and said that I just didn't feel like deciding yet.

When I moved back into my apartment in West Virginia, six hours away from home, I figured that I really needed to decide. I could keep braiding it and flipping my hair over the buzzed side, but that was a lot of work. I could keep wearing hats and headbands, but I knew that I couldn't do that forever. Plus my hair would grow in REALLY unevenly.

My roommate convinced me that I just needed to suck it up and cut it, so I did. I hated it. A lot.

I didn't know what to do with it. Eventually, I ended up getting it actually styled. I liked that better, but I still hated it.

A lot of people would remark "Wow, you're so brave for cutting your hair!", but it wasn't brave. I just really didn't have a choice. Sure, I wish that it was a brave decision. I wish that I had decided it on my own. But I didn't. I felt backed into a corner.

You know the analogy about an animal that's chained to something? They're there for so long that they gnaw off the chained limb in order to escape. That's how I felt. My long hair was a chained limb, and I had to cut it off. Emotionally, it really hurt, and I still haven't come to terms with it.

My long hair made me feel more approachable. Whenever I'm out in public, people are less likely to approach me now that I've cut my hair. I haven't even changed my profile pictures on social media.

When I see people that I used to be friends with, I just pretend that I don't see them. I just assume that they won't recognize me. Sure, there are new tagged photos of me on Facebook, but I'm uncomfortable with every single one of them. My Tinder profile is still just photos from before my stroke. My Twitter avatar was taken only days before my stroke.

Eventually, yeah, I'll probably update my social media. But not now. I'm still not ready for it.