Fiveheads

Nicole Ecker

When I tell you that I was literally bullied in middle school for the size of my forehead, I really mean I was bullied. I didn’t even know they were bullying me until high school when my friends said, “Nicole your forehead isn’t even that big anymore!”

What do you mean “anymore” …? It was big? That’s like telling a post-pubescent teen, “Your awkward stage is almost over! Yay for you!” None of us knew were in an awkward stage until years later when we look back at pictures. Instant terror. 

No one thinks about foreheads! Hair covers it up or most people just have better features to focus on. But not me. My forehead took center stage. It covered so much of my face that everything from my eyebrows down was sort of squished: big forehead meant big nose. Get the picture?

For a while I spent my days looking longingly at other people’s foreheads. I envied the girls who had cute foreheads that exaggerated their beautiful eyes. I envied the girls who had just-right foreheads, rounding out their face to a perfect shape. When I realized how large Tyra Banks’s forehead is, I was relieved! Until I came to understand that she’s a supermodel and it does not matter how big her forehead is. Maybe I should just become a supermodel and then all my problems would go away! No one would question the choices I make with my hair or the clothes I wear or just how big my forehead really is, right?

I was sort of always conscious of how big my forehead was, but I really became aware of it during the floor hockey unit in gym class. Everyone always got really competitive including myself. Because everyone was genuinely interested in winning a game, we would all be really into it and try as hard as possible. No, like, really hard. We cared so much that we would actually sweat. Droplets of gross water were visible on all of our faces. Specifically: the forehead. When everyone went to wipe their faces dry with their hands, they needed three, maybe four fingers to really get it all away. Me? I needed all. five. fingers. Five fingers to swiftly wipe away the beads of sweat that did not want to evaporate as easily as people who only needed three fingers. I never wanted out of something more than gym class floor hockey. Even though I made a winning goal. A big forehead and I can play sports? If Tyra Banks can be featured on the cover of a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit magazine with her big forehead, then so can I!

I’m really into laying by the pool in the summer time and being outside as much as possible so I can permanently damage my skin even with the massive amounts of sunscreen I lather on. I never forget to do my face. The problem here, however, is my forehead is a target. No matter what, I always get sunburnt on my forehead. It takes up so much of my head that it’s nearly impossible to avoid: no hat, shade, nor sunscreen could distract the sun from my blinding forehead. So, I got burnt. But it wasn’t the sunburn itself that bothered me. When the burn started to heal was the worst part; my entire five-head would peel off in patches of dry skin that left my forehead looking like a topographic map. Why do sunburns have to do that anyway? Why can’t they come and go in peace? Sure, they make you look like a flamin’ hot Cheeto sometimes, but a lot of the time they leave you looking like a nice, crisp loaf of bread! Of course, when they do start to peel, the peeling is addicting. I could sit in the mirror for hours just peeling strands of dead skin off my body. I make it worse for myself and my forehead: I do the peeling.

It took me until my sophomore year of college, after a break up, of course, to change my hair up a bit. Because every break up needs an “I’m better without you and therefore think changing my entire look will make everything better!” phase. So, I did it. And yes, it made me feel better. I went from a god-awful side part that I had for nearly my entire life to a sort-of middle part. Doing so drew more attention to my luxurious new hair and less attention to the size of my forehead; I really was living the cringey “new hair, new me!” thing all middle school girls said to get attention. Anyway, I knew my forehead got smaller because my friends said to me “Nicole! You’re forehead! It shrunk!” I think it actually did shrink: these days I can manage only four fingers to cover the whole thing! But it definitely was the hair that made it less large-looking. Do I thank my ex-boyfriend for that?

It’s not my fault that my forehead was that size. It was genetics, courtesy of my grandfather. His forehead is especially large now that he’s 80 and has a receding hairline, but it was always big! He passed that trait onto my dad and his 4 sisters, who then passed it on to my sister, my cousin, and me. It does run in the family, but mine always seemed to stick out the most which was rude and unfair. 

What was my fault was the attention I brought to it. Looking back on pictures, I always pulled my hair back into a half-up, half-down style revealing the massive state of Texas that I was graced with. In gym class maybe I didn’t have to use all five fingers! That’s just what fit the best! And in high school when I knew it was so large, I would always say, “Ugh my forehead looks soooo big today” to which my friends would reply, “Omg no it doesn’t Nicole, you’re fine!” I pointed it out constantly and used my friends’ fake responses as a coping mechanism to deal with the size of it. Their validation meant everything to me as I continued to pull my hair back and proceeded to say the same thing day after day, knowing that they were lying to me. Granted their responses were what I wanted to hear, but no one would have said anything to me about my forehead if it wasn’t for ME. Everyone craves compliments so pointing out the size of my forehead as a coping mechanism was the only way I thought I could get over it. No matter how many times my friends told me it didn’t look “that big” the more I knew it did. My coping mechanism failed and I still had a big forehead. 

I eventually came to understand that hating on and joking about the thing you dislike the most about yourself will only encourage others to do the same. It is important to fully embrace those features that you don’t like about yourself. And it’s probably true that other people don’t recognize these features the way you do. I know this because I have had people say to me before, “I wouldn’t have even noticed the size of your forehead if you hadn’t pointed it out.” I was my own worst enemy. It wasn’t my forehead nor those who bullied me. I thought making a big deal out of it would make things better, but my self-loathing turned into self-destruction. My friends still make jokes about my forehead to me from time to time but they don’t bother me as much anymore since I turned that hatred into love. Now, I fully accept my forehead for the way it is: a true fivehead. 

◊