“What’s Up With These Chin Hairs”

Sometimes harsh criticism is the only way to make things stick in my brain – especially regarding appearance and health-related situations. You’re really not going to like this example, but I distinctly remember watching an episode of Tosh.0 back in the day where he made fun of an overweight person and just said, point blank: “Stop eating, Fatty.” And at the end of the day, it’s relatively valid. You will lose weight if you just don’t eat as much. Someone also once told me that, “Back pain means you have a weak ass,” which sadly might also be true because my lower back pain magically disappears if I start doing more lunges and deadlifts.

Anyways, in high school for like – maybe a week – my brother and his friends thought it would be funny to go, “Look at Kelsey’s mustache!” when in fact I did not have a mustache. But they knew that it would bother me, so they’d all inspect my face before agreeing with additional commentary such as, “Wow, that is a dark one!” But what you have to understand is that this joke was just kind of the flavor of the week, and the more you seem bothered by a joke, the longer it would persist. So really, credit to me for not making it a bigger deal. BUT IT DID REALLY BOTHER ME. And like most fleeting snippets of high school, I just internalized it. Until it resurfaced probably a year or so ago at my skincare place in Boston.

I refer to it as “skincare” and say I have “skincare appointments,” but the reality is that I mostly go there to get 40 units of Botox in my forehead twice a year. Which would be irrelevant to the story if not for the fact that I need to paint a particular picture regarding the type of nurses who work there. Have you ever met a girl who thinks: doctors are misguided, the government is against you, and insurance won’t cover anything you actually need??? It’s basically an entire staff of nurses like that – with overfilled top lips.

For a long time, I had this awesome girl named Kim who used to work at Boston Children’s and was very down-to-earth and normal. She gave advice based on what would look most natural for me instead of just, like, suggesting that I should get 2 syringes of filler for fun. But then she ended up moving back home to Buffalo to start a family and stuff, so I became somewhat of an Injection Orphan who was passed around by the other nurses.

So one day I go in for some sort of facial or chemical peel, and I’m with one of said ‘other nurses.’ When all of a sudden she goes – exactly in these words – “What’s up with these chin hairs?”

Immediately, this statement both 1) set off my deepest insecurities, and 2) sent me into an oblivion of self-hate. After responding with a variety of, “What do you mean’s” and “I don’t know’s,” she followed up with, “You should go get your hormones tested.”

Keep in mind, this advice is coming from someone with acrylic nails and 24-inch black hair extensions. But in the moment, I was too embarrassed to evaluate the credibility of the source. So like an idiot, I listened to her and went and got my hormones tested. And if you thought I felt embarrassed before, imagine how dumb I felt when I had to rehash this entire story to my Primary Care Provider only for her to look at my blood panel and say, “Everything’s normal. You’re fine.”

I guess I don’t know what the moral of the story here is. Sometimes harsh criticism has some truth to it (weight, back pain) and other times you’re just being gaslit (mustaches, chin hairs). Develop a radar that will help you identify the difference. Then continue to internalize your high school trauma. Enjoy the photo of pop sensation Britney Britney from Fairly OddParents.