Why I'm Like Britney Spears

There are three things Britney Spears and I have in common.

1. We both have a mental illness.
2. We both are great dancers.
3. We both did something drastic with our hair.

Okay, so maybe number two is a stretch. Britney is not THAT great of a dancer.

When I was in hospital, I had a hard time believing that people were taking me seriously. I even had a hard time taking myself seriously. When a disease manifests itself in your thinking and feelings, it's hard to trust yourself. Thinking and feeling are supposed to be under your control, right?

So when you are feeling so sick inside, you find ways of showing it on the outside to prove to yourself and the world that you really are sick.

My theory is that this is what happened when Britney Spears shaved her head, in full view of the paparazzi. That was a pivotal moment, where everyone in the media went whoa - she really is crazy.

For me, a shaved head would not do it. Although I had a full head of hair when I was admitted to hospital, it had been shaved before as part of a library event. I didn't want to cut myself, and head banging had only landed me in seclusion. I thought about drawing all over myself with pen, but that seemed soooo grade school. Then I got an idea.

I asked my nurse (it happened to be Dave) for my electric razor. My wife had brought it in for me, and I was allowed it for brief periods of time to shave. I took it to my room, and used the little pop-up beard trimmer to shave off my hair...and my eyebrows. I put all of the clippings into the garbage can (lined with a paper bag), and returned the razor to Dave. He was looking down at some charts.

"Oh, thanks D'Arcy, I'd forgotten about that."

"It's okay, Dave. You took so long to check that I thought about pulling the back off and stealing some parts so I could electrocute myself tonight, but I didn't, so no harm done."

That made him glance up, concerned. That's when he noticed my new look.

"Why did you shave your hair and eyebrows off?"

"Well," I replied, "I figured that since nobody outside is going to see me for a long time anyway, I should try the Charlie Brown look. What do you think?"

"Interesting," he said. He pulled out my chart and made some notes.

As an aside, I do not recommend shaving off your eyebrows. Ladies, I don't know how you cope with such small, plucked ones. I learned that eyebrows are crap catchers - without them, all sorts of crap falls into your eyes. I was glad when they grew back.

I kept my head shaved, though. It was super comfortable, and meant that I no longer had to lather, rinse and repeat. I just buff it once a day. ;)