Today I discovered it has a name - tonsurephobia - the fear of haircuts, and that it is not at all unusual.  This post has nothing to do with being a minister and everything to do with being a human being.

I am a tonsurephobe... the thought of booking a haircut makes me anxious, when the day dawns my stress levels rise and by the time I walk through the door my heart is pounding and it feels as if I am shaking.  I take a deep breath and get on with it.  Afterall, I'm a big girl, I've ostensibly chosen to do this, it is meant to be pleasurable, and people  always tell me it looks nice afterwards. 

But I hate it. (Hate getting it cut, I mean, not hate the cuts I get)

And it is only the tonsurephobia that makes me do it, because the thought of ever having to go to a hairdresser out of pure necessity makes me more anxious than going voluntarily.  So there you have it!

I'm not very kind to myself about this.  I tell myself it is ridiculous, that even if (when) I don't like a haircut it will grow again.  That there are real things to be scared of, and hairdressers really shouldn't be one of them.

Five years ago yesterday I had 15-16" chopped off my hair (I measured the plait, it was a good 14") ready to start chemotherapy.  It had to happen, but I was so paralysed with fear that I had to get someone else to book the appointment for me.  Recently, the memory of that has been uncharacteristically vivid.

In theory, of course, I could choose to grow my hair again, but for various reasons I don't.  And they are all tied up with the tonsurephobia which is, I now realise, connected with powerlessness and lack of choice in the face of people wielding hair scissors.

The first such experience I know only by report... when I was small, the nextdoor neighbours persuaded my parents to cut my hair short on the pretext that it would thicken it up... I am told I looked like an orphan, and my parents were so horrified they did not cut it again for a very long time.

The next experience was at the age of ten.  My parents wanted me to try for a scholarship to an independent boarding school, which involved staying over for two nights.  Trying their best to disguise the fact that this was a family living on benefits, a mobile hairdresser was called in to colour (wash in wash out) and curl my hair... let's just say I hated it.  Hairdressing as fakery, and not chosen.  I didn't get the scholarship either (thankfully - the school closed a couple of years later).

Thereafter, I got my Dad to trim my hair, and so was in my late twenties before I went near a professional hairdresser.  Asking her to give it a 'good trim' of about 3", her inability to cut straight resulted in at least 12" being lopped off.  I was not happy and took to trimming my own dead ends off ever after, not really caring if it was level of not.

And then at 47, at almost no notice, it had to go.  Of course it had to happen, and the hairdresser was kind and gentle, the cut was careful and attractive.  But it was not a happy experience.

So my tonsurephobia is all about powerless and lack of choice, about not being listened to, or consulted, about not having an alternative... which means I never, ever, ever want to be in a place where I have to have a haircut that I don't ostensibly choose to have... which means I have to be brave and get it cut regularly even though it's a stressful experience... which means today I stealed myself and went to get it cut, and even though others tell me it looks great, I'm not so sure... but I'll get used to it and it will settle and then grow!

If I step back from me, and my particular rationally-based irrational fear, I begin to understand how other people's phobias and foibles might arise.  And, I guess if I put my minister head (with its freshly cropped hair) back on, how church and Christianity may be similarly anxiety causing for other people.