i have been obsessing over my grey (a lot) hair(long naturally curly brown) over the past 2 months and i cannot get over it. My husband found me a great hairstylist, but then i started obsessing over the maintenance of my hair. I have a great supportive husband and 3 awesome kids and i feel like i am not getting the most out of my life and that i'm being unfair to them. I know that there are greater problems and suffering that go way beyond what i worry about, but i continually panic, worry, cry, my mornings are horrible because i know i have to look in the mirror and i never like what i see. I am also becoming agoraphobic because i worry that people will see my hair and make comments. I used to be very active and social and loved my life and i can't believe that a hair issue could change all this.
Sorry the post is long it's my first post and i'm so tired and afraid. Any words of wisdom would help.
I am currently on lesson 3 of the program, listen to the relaxation tapes and on 25mg of zoloft with .5mg of clonazapam when needed.
Thanks

Miniol
Congratulations on your program and the commitment youve made to help yourself be in control again. Great job!

I am so not one of those people that are going to grow old gracefully I will fight it every stinkin step of the way but I also do need to accept the fact that life does march on and to waste precious time worrying about the silly superficial things like hair and anticipated health is so silly.

There are people out there that are dying everyday cuz they dont have water to drink and food to eat and medical attention for serious illness and we worry about hair? My first peice of advice is put it in perspective. What is it your really worried about?

In lesson 3 we learn positive self talk....dont focus on the greys what about all the others that arent grey yet and theres that magic weapon hair dye. I dye my hair every 5 weeks and then I dont see the grey. So you can so easily fix this.

Dont obsess about this...I know easier said than done but seriously your family loves you for you....not your hair or your looks. Of course looking good helps us feel good but feeling good also makes us look good. Remember that!

So next time you start hearing those thoughts in your head about your hair think of the mother that is fighting cancer and is dying with NO hair and has to leave her children behind way to early.....I bet those grey hairs wont be such a big deal then.

Teach your children that its what people are inside that makes them shine not what they look like. Do that by accepting you and them as you all are.

A gratefull list might be a good thing for you to make and hang up on the bathroom mirror.....so when you look and see a stinkin grey hair you read that list and you be gratefull you are alive and well enough to see that stinking hair.

Dodger

It seems common that people find a main thing of obsess over. With you, it is grey hair. With me, it is getting fired from my job.

Remember, what you are feeling, is just that...a feeling. It will go away. Let yourself feel it and realize you will survive at the end of it.

In the Bible it says to count in all joy when you face trials and tribulation. Because the trying of your faith produces patience. Patience produces perseverance. And perseverance produces hope. That is what we are all looking for in this program...hope.

Let yourself go through this and don't feel guilty about the pain right now. It will go away and it will get better, although it is impossible to see right now. And when you come out on the other side, you will have great skills to help others, like your 3 beautiful children when they deal with similar things. You won't just tell them "don't worry about it", you will be able to give them great ideas on how to process their fears and anxieties. That is something great to look forward to.

I have three children and a great wife, and that gives me hope. That I can help them.

thanks for reading my post, i often remind myself of the same things you have mentioned.i am not really sure what i am worried about but as i go through the program i hope it will become clearer.
Thanks for taking the time to reply and advise.
miniol

Thanks Earl.
I do feel guilty about the way i feel about this issue.
thanks for understanding,
Miniol

miniol, Just so you know, you're not alone. I too obsess about my hair. Now it's not only gray sticking out outside the color, it's so darn wiry. Or I don't care what the style is, I should just go back to real short. I can't believe how much time I spend thinking about hair. Dodger said it so well. Why do we spend all that time obsessing about self centered things when there's such a hurting world around us. This doesn't mean we don't give ourselves any time. It's all balance. I heard something the other day I thought was neat. We've each been giving 2 hands. One is to take care of our needs and the other to take care of someone elses.

I hated all my gray hairs, so my husband treated me to blondish highlights to hide them. It didn't take long and isn't hard to maintain. My hair is dark brown and turned out nicely. Just a suggestion.

I can honestly tell you, that my gray hair (now actually more pure silvery white) is the crowning point of my looks! I would not trade one single shaft of my silvery locks for a whole headful of my formerly very dark hair. I REFUSE to accept the mandates of the hair-coloring industry which spend huge amounts of money to try to coerce women, in particular, into feeling very negatively about turning gray. Truthfully, I have never received more compliments about my hair, which I wear near waist-long, before it turned color in my 30s. And, surprisingly, most of these compliments come from other women!
The bottom line is, if you truly hate your hair turning gray because of how YOU feel (not how society or Revlon tries to TELL you to feel), then by all means do what you have to do so that you are happy with yourself--so that you can be the best that you feel you can be!
But, wow! All I can say is that God's natural beauty parlor sure does one terrific job!

Oh my, gray hair ... tell me about it! I've got a ton. This doesn't happen to be what I obsess over, I've just picked like a gazillion other things to obsess over. But one thing I do notice is that for some things that are a problem or bother me, I take action. I seek out a solution, do it, then feel better and move on. For the things I obsess over, I usually don't try to find a solution (too depressed), or maybe I don't like my choices. THEN I obsess instead. It may help to talk your choices over with someone. For this, I see 2 choices. Color it or love it the way it is. Either one is fine so long as you believe it to be the right choice for you. Some people look fantastic with the silver streaks. I knew a woman, in her 30s, who had the sexiest streaks of grey going thru her black hair. She never tried to color it. Men would always comment on it and say how gorgeous it looked on her. Not me, I chose L'Oreal 6A Light Ash Brown Maintenance isn't that bad. It can get kind of exciting if I decide to change colors. A whole new me for 10 bucks at the drug store.

I read this post with interest, thinking to myself "Finally, someone with similar problems!"

My hair has always been of concern to me and after all it is called "our crowning glory". So much import is put upon it looking nice, in our culture.

When I started being concerned about all that gray, it suddenly came to me that it isn't so much a hair issue as it is a "getting older" issue. This culture makes so much of looking and staying young and for anyone to actually SHOW their age, it is Guilt inducing. The only thing that makes me feel better about this, is that those cutey models and trend setters will also look into the mirror and forever be traumatised by that first gray hair (or their first size 14, whichever comes first)!

I am not trying to minimize your feelings, they are yours and therefore important! I will not try to tell you that there are greater more serious things in the world to worry and stress about. But I will tell you that maybe there is a larger problem lurking beneath the surface that needs to be addressed. For me it was approval/fear of criticism/acceptance of self.

Hope that helps.
herebedragons

thank you all for you advice and stories. Herebedragon i do also worry about getting older and i have always worried about what people thought of me.

Well, I can relate to hair problems, tho' perhaps in a dif. way.
I don't have nice hair at all. I have very thin, fine hair. It is straight as a board without a perm. And limp. It is grey in the front but persists in remaining darker in the back. When I was younger it was a medium brown.
Nothing exciting about it.
I've lost quite a bit of it right on top in front, so I have to get a very "curly perm" to cover that spot up. After the perm is a few weeks old, it gets very fuzzy. It is just not attractive.
But hey, folks: It is just a matter of acceptance for me. Itis the way it is.
I guess I don't spend but just bare minutes looking in the mirror. And, yes, in the past I've probably let it keep me from socializing.
However, as time goes by, I spend less and less time worrying about the way I look. And reading on this forum has helped me a lot with that. Because I've been able to look into the hearts of those who write on here. You all share your experiences and that helps me to know that I probably am okay, too. I used to have lively, blue eyes that were an advantage to my looks. But now wrinkles have about swalloped them up!
Say there, girls, I've probably earned those wrinkles.
I wish you all joy in just being!!
And thank you all for sharing.
Be light-hearted!!
MJ

thankyou for sharing Cornflower.

Hi miniol.

I have a sister who's had grey hair since she was about 13 years old and an ex boyfriend that has been grey since his teens. When my mom was younger, I remember talking to her and hearing her talk about looking forward to having "salt and pepper" hair.

It's just a fact of life that things change, and sometimes sooner than we'd like them to. Whether it's like my sister and my ex, who had to experience it ealier than they'd like, or like my mom who welcomed it with open arms, we have to look at the positive in the situation.

We still have hair. There are people with alopecia, where their hair folicles die and their hair can never grow back.

I have a sister with seborrhea dermatitis. She had thick beautiful hair. Then in her twenties she started having problems with her scalp, now she has to wear wigs because she has only small patches of short hair.

Dye your hair if you don't like the grey, but make sure that you thank GOD for the hair that you have - grey and all. Don't worry about the grey because it's a blessing that we have hair at all - some people don't.