Split Ends: A Love Affair With My Hair

As a bisexual woman who never feels conventionally beautiful, my hair is a huge part of my image - a part that's torn me down as much as it's build me up.

Bridget Hamilton

That's me on the right. The very far right. The one distanced from the pack, looking over her shoulder, observing a seemingly impenetrable group of year 6 friends, all quirky in their own little ways, but none were 'weird' like me.

It was our last day of school and we had gone to one of the girl's houses for a barbecue - I think the parents had come too. I'd obviously taken my hair down, but I'm not used to it being in my face, so I'm fiddling with it subconsciously.

I can only remember snippets of this day, and they hurt. The girls in my class said I looked like a monkey and in some ways I probably did - visible arm and leg hair, bushy 11-year-old eyebrows, teeth I hadn't quite grown into yet. Unbeknownst to them, this playground jibe has survived well into my 23rd year of life, where I have just as much of a love-hate relationship with my hair and my dark features as ever.

Bridget Hamilton

When I came out in late secondary school my hair was a symbol. As I asked my hairdresser (a friend of my slightly-conservative mother) to 'cut it shorter' each time I went, it was a process of acceptance and reconciliation. Nowadays it's fairly normal to have short, even shaved hair regardless of your sexuality, but even as little as 10 years ago this felt big. I was staking my claim to a piece of land, and I even joined a local rugby team to prove it. When I got to frequent my first gay bars I was - like so many others - told I was 'too pretty to be a lesbian', and I longed for some of the sidecuts sported by girls I desperately wanted to speak to.

As my sexuality changed over time my hair changed almost as often. When I bit the bullet and tried having a boyfriend aged 18, I let it grow long and curly. My 'university' hairstyle was painstakingly chosen - a short graduated bob with a pair of soon-to-be-called-hipster glasses. I got a girlfriend and kept it fairly short. In second year, I let it grow out but when the girl and I broke up, it got lopped off again in an ever-dramatic fashion. I've heard of people painting bedrooms or getting new pets after a mid-life crisis - after each upheaval in my life I would cut my hair, like a small-scale Britney Spears.

Bridget Hamilton

Each time I go to get my hair cut, the stylist looks at me worriedly and checks I'm OK for him or her to go ahead. I smile and explain - I do this all the time. I'm not sentimentally attached to a single inch of it - it's a blessing and a curse. It grows, it shapes me, it disappears and it grows again.

It's time I got the chop again, I think. My boyfriend likes it long, but that makes me squirm. I enjoy the blissful few weeks of having shockingly short hair, how it feels at the back, how I don't always cover it with a hat, how it looks shaped with perfect precision around both my chimp-like ears. My ruthlessness with my hair has been an escape. It says what I want it to say - that I'm daring, perhaps, or maybe that it's the only daring thing I do.

Bridget Hamilton founded Verbal Remedy, a social community project that believes difficult topics shouldn't be difficult. Visit them at www.verbalremedy.co.uk