If these strands could talk, boy would they have some stories to tell. I’m sure they’d speak of the adventures they experienced since my childhood: the signature four plaits my mother made me wear every day for most of my childhood (three on picture day at school); the kitchen relaxers that had to be done by two people (because my hair was so thick it was the only way to get through with it before my head caught on fire); the two times I lost hair from burning it off (once by my hand with a blow dryer and once by a “professional hairdresser” and a crimping iron ); then finding a good hairdresser that made my tresses healthy and luxurious; then off to college I went, sans my trusty hairdresser, trying new things and new styles and not really knowing how to take care of my hair (i.e. more hair loss); and the hair color, Oh the hair color! I really do love the hair color (it was my real addiction). We won’t even discuss the use of Sun In to lighten my hair.

It was easy to keep offending my hair because each time I did horrible things to it, it just kept coming back for more. My stylist (the good one) always told everyone that I had “Can’t Kill Hair”. I wore that badge with pride and continued to use and abuse my locks in every way imaginable. I tried to go natural a few times before I truly committed and never made it longer than 3 months. So how did I finally decide to pull the trigger?

Being a psychologist, I viewed the whole process from that perspective. I was thinking about how relaxing your hair is a lot like being addicted to a drug. It’s something that once started is extremely hard to stop. I went through the The Stages of Change that all addicts go through when I decided to kick the “creamy crack habit”. I’ll tell you a little more about that. For most people, sobriety happens gradually, moving from being uninterested, unaware or unwilling to make a change (precontemplation phase), to considering a change (contemplation phase), to deciding and preparing to make a change. Genuine, determined action is then taken and the person attempts to maintain the new behavior (action phase). And finally, relapses are almost inevitable and become part of the process. This is exactly how my decision came to be. I went through the precontemplation phase for many years not even considering another option besides relaxing my hair. The next phase involved me not feeling good about how my hair looked since before I became pregnant in 2009. I had my hair cut early on in my pregnancy into a style that was very cute, but impossible to recreate at home. Of course, during my pregnancy, my hair grew thick and beautiful and I started liking it again. About three months after I had my son, postpartum shedding kicked in and my hair fell out. This is pretty common, since your hair doesn’t shed at all during pregnancy (but unnerving nonetheless). So, I was back dealing with hair that I was not at all happy with. My hair began growing back pretty quickly as this “can’t kill hair” tends to do. Then in April of 2011 I tried a new relaxer didn’t take very well at all which had never happened before. About one week later I started noticing my hair was shedding quite a bit. I thought nothing of it and figured it was just my routine shedding cycle, but a few weeks later when it didn’t stop and my ponytail was getting very thin I started to check my hair. There were huge chunks that were very short and broken off all over my head. This is when I moved to the contemplation phase. I thought “Well I have wanted to go natural for a while now and haven’t been happy with my hair in a long time, and with my hair in the shape it is in now no better time than the present”. It took me about a week of thinking, talking with friends, and a lot of obsessive research about transitioning, to finally commit to the action phase of the process. So, I decided to go natural and join relaxers anonymous (“Hi my name is Kim and I’m a relaxaholic”), and from there on I took things one day and a time.

I decided to transition as I had never really worn my hair short and didn’t really think I could rock it. My transition lasted about 9 months before I couldn’t take having to deal with the two textures anymore and I was eager to know what my curly hair really looked like without the relaxed ends. Once the relaxed hair was gone I never looked back. Fast forward to 9 years later and here I am with all of you. My hair flourishing, feeling like I know what I am doing, and wanting to share what I have learned on this journey with all of you; hopefully helping you to avoid some of the mistakes I have made. I’m still learning new things about my hair everyday and hopefully you will hop on this journey with me and share your experiences as well.