Bye Bye Dreadlocks... 

Here it is 2023. Thank you for this video. ❤ My heart is full.

Interesting that in your dream your dreadlocks were blue on the inside. It reminded me of this poem: MASKS by Shel Silverstein She had blue skin, And so did he. He kept it hid And so did she. They searched for blue Their whole life through. Then passed right by- And never knew. I love your videos. They have helped me sort out so much about myself and my family. Thank you for making them, and thank you for being you.

This is a hugely brave step. The attachment you have to your dreads reminds me of a jacket I used to wear every day when I was in school. I felt like as long as I was wearing the jacket, I was safe and it would reduce my anxiety enough for me to somewhat socialize normally. Taking the jacket off would make me feel panicky. After that jacket, there was a hoody I would wear every day. There always seems to be something I'm hiding behind. I'm so incredibly inspired by your courage. Thank you for sharing this.

I realise this was ages ago now, but I just wanted to say that this is one of the most personally impactful things I have ever seen on youtube. I also had deadlocks which were an effective mask for me as a teen. When I cut mine, it took all day as I had a full head and I wanted to keep some of my hair. The first time I touched my head and felt the absence and strangeness of this integral part of my identity, I collapsed from emotional exhaustion. Thank you for sharing this with us.

I had a similar issue with hair, used to rock this massive afro for about 10 years. It felt like that was the only talking point for me. When I cut it off I was able to focus on my core issues, its been a long and strenuous process but Im starting to see breakthroughs.

ok, this video, if i got it right, was uploaded 7 years ago... it is still sooooo strong today. i don't know if you'll be reading this today, seven years later, but... THANK YOU !!!! your act was definitely very brave, courageous, daring. you set an example, you set a challange, you decide for a strategy, you stood to it. and i was in tears watching this video. i really was. now, i am a 51 years old guy, suspecting to sit well into the asperger spectrum. and... what i just saw, was an act that gave me the courage to be who i am. i don't know how to express my gratitude, but it is really, really, really strong. thank you so much for sharing this moment with us, with the world. you are a very brave and generous person.

There are no words. I've followed you for years and never watched the videos where you had dreads. Hard to say why. I recently learned that you kept them as a defense a couple weeks ago and finally psyched myself up to watch this one this morning. Your courage touched me to the core, and now I'm wondering what I hide behind. I have some ideas, and a new year is as good a time as any to commit to change. Your courage, wow, thank you for doing it and for sharing your journey with us. I'm a better person for having watched this video today.

Thank you for not editing out your emotions. This is beautiful and powerful.

That was actually incredibly moving to watch, especially considering what they represented - having seen many of your other videos prior to this. It was genuinely a brave thing to do. I bet you are glad now that you did it (even though they were really cool).

So proud of you, Paul. Well done. As I came to know of you 7 years later and as you're doing even better now, you were clearly right to trust yourself. Thanks for your years of blogging, so very helpful to me.

Incredibly handsome! Just found your channel and it’s helping me so much. I’m in my 50s and just accepting my diagnosis now. I feel less like an alien for the first time in my life with help from a few real friends and You!!!

This was tough to watch. I think cried literally at the same time you did. Maximum respect brother.

You're gorgeous...inside and out.

For someone that had the amazing opportunity to go to school with such an awesome person that Paul is and see him with dreadlocks those 15 years prior to cutting them, I can see it mean't a lot to see them go. Such bravery.

That must have taken tremendous bravery. Congratulations! You look very handsome bald. It's a great look for you.

love that it looked pretty stylish immediately after, maybe just needed a trim, but you still shaved the lot after anyway! I literally just threw mine away this week and then stumble across this video referenced in another channel. had shaved mine off a few years ago after about 20 years with them. only started learning about AuDHD this month. better late than never.

Bravo, Paul. Thanks a lot for sharing such a powerful moment.

I cried so hard the day I cut mine.I felt that emotion again watching this. Your videos sharing about your locks has given me lots to think about and my own relationship with personal image

What a courageous thing you did. Thank you for sharing.

That was so authentic and beautiful in any way possible, wow, thanks for sharing this huge step years ago ❤

You are an incredibly courageous and brave person!

It probably got worse after this video. Different sensations from the lack of hair. When I shaved my head I the water in the shower initially freaked me out. The breeze hitting my skin was distracting as well. Then strangers would initially react differently from the first impression. Not necessarily easy for many with autism. Your video quality and lighting/sound quality is so much better now. You look younger now than in the old videos.

The only way to grow as a person is to be able to let go of the past and move on, thankyou for sharing this ❤️❤️❤️❤️

Bravo brother! Daring to be a mere mortal, daring to be ordinary!

You look absolutely beautiful, with or without the dreads and beard.

dude thats true courage! ive had dreads for yeeeaars, shaved my head a few times but always went back to dreads, cuz i have ocd and cant stop playing with my hair. i love my dreads but sometimes i miss putting a comb through there...a few months ago i found out i had aspergers, my psychologist and people that know me well all say it makes perfect sense. ive always felt different and would think i was from another planet. ive been watching a lot of your videos and theyve been helping me a lot to understand it all. i finally feel that there are people like me out there...thank you!

Thank you for showing and sharing your emotion. Powerful video. Thank you!

How incredibly brave and vulnerable you are! Change is difficult enough! Our hair is such a external representation of who we are internally! Your previous video where you share your insights about how your dreads have been a vehicle for interacting with the world and hiding your Asperger's was very powerful. Your embrace of a new beginning symbolized by cutting off your dreads is SO SO BRAVE! Thank you for sharing this. I am an American psychiatrist on a long journey of learning about ASD to help my patients and I'm very excited to find you today. I plan to watch all your videos, starting from the beginning. I feel confident that you have a lot to teach me!

Thank you for having the strength to do this on camera. Your videos have helped me understand and learn more about myself everyday.

This video was incredible! I am so proud of you. I can feel the feelings through the screen... I hope you felt amazing after the fact!

Wow!...kindof new journey and reinventing?...still look very handsome 😍

Truly I was on the edge of my seat, I feel a similar attachment and companionship with hair. Something about it is very important. I have a certain way of relating to hair and I really enjoy this transformation you take

Thank you for sharing this journey. It was powerful to witness. You are very courageous.

Hey, Paul. My closest friend is autistic, and he has been taking care of me and my severely addled brain for many years after my own family abandoned me (I have a complicated and crippling mental illness that is not unlike schizophrenia). He's been going through a very difficult time himself in recent weeks, so I've been watching your videos since yesterday to learn more about ASD to help me better support him. He literally saved me from a fire last week, I'll have you know. Saved my freaking life. I will stand by him forever, and I thank both of you for being such amazing people - my friend has stood by me through every hell I've ever experienced, and you, Paul, have put yourself out there to educate others with such tremendous clarity and compassion. Peace and love to you, friend. You are so very brave, whether you believe it or not. It's not a matter of being brave for bravery's sake, or being fearless. You can be scared out of your freaking skull, quaking in your small pantaloons, but if you do the Difficult Thing and make it through the other side, then you've been brave about it. I shall pray to every loving god of every pantheon for your health and happiness in whatever form you need them most. I love you as I love the world.

You are wonderful, Paul!

I have done this once in my life before. It did not work out well. I had my dreads since school. Months after chopping them off, i got them reattached. Cutting my dreadlocks was a profoundly negative experience for me, once i got them back i found myself and was able to function again. You are definitely able to go through more than i was There is much significance and history in mine. I have had them more than half my life now. My identity and history are lost to me when i don’t have them.

You look amazing! You did a great job for a great cause, I'm proud of you :)

So humbled that you shared this video with us.

you are a really beautiful person. I love you for sharing this. It helps me understand myself. Thank you.

You are courageous. I don’t know how to share pictures in comments or I would show you my dad and I when I shaved my head. You are handsome and beautiful no matter what you do with your hair/beard.

I was saying O' nooo and holding my breath when you cut the first one. 💕 You, just be your authentic self whatever that might be.

“We are all luminous beings, why then do we not appear before each other radiant in our lumination?” -Terence McKenna

Your smile at the end!!! A new beginning ❤✨✨✨

Very brave. I'm all emotional & actually weeping watching this. You are extremely beautiful, not only physically but in your natural intelligence & courage to be so open & vulnerable.

Very brave of you. Top effort.

I cut my hair because my father has a hearth attack. For years he asks me to do it, I couldn't, for the same reason I eat the same thing every day, I use windows XP, I play age of empires the first version. He never knew I was Asperger... He died a couple of years later. When I cut my hair, it really hurt. I don't know how to explain it, but it did hurt. Still hurts. That happened 20 years ago :) When I saw you cry, I cried too. For me is hard, because one of the repetitions is "boys don't cry" I´m a 47 years old man. With a 20+- years diagnostic. I just want to tell you. DONT TRY TO BE A PART OF THEM. THEY DON'T LIKE US :´)

Thank you very much for sharing this moment 🙌 Maybe you felt weak in this situation, but I can promise you for us it was pure willpower visible... It takes much to let go! Thank you for all your hard work, your videos are great 👏🏻 learned through them a lot about myself 😅

This video just moved the hell out of me. That’s was very brave of you.

What an awesome example. Even Samson's hair grew back, by the way.

Thank you for the courage to share this.

Definitely an awesome kind soul!!!

Thanks for doing this Paul, brave and honest

Hey mate, I've just watched this and have teared up as I know that feeling. I feel I'm undiagnosed, my son was diagnosed quite a few years ago now and I guess I'm feel it's time for me to start the process of understand more instead of "just living with it".

i am so pround of you, Paul. You are an awesome human being. #aspie from brazil (almost nobody knows what is Asperger here lol I am glad I found your channel)

You are a very handsome guy, but most important is the inside the heart that counts. I see a very kind and gentle heart! thanks for your video's. I find them very helpful.

How majestic.

Congratulations! That was the bravest thing I’ve ever seen.

wow, you are so brave! 👍

That was moving & really brave.

I feel ya bro. I wanted to cry with you. I bawled my eyes out when I cut mine off. Called my pastor to talk to. Felt I lost myself and my identity. And have had a hard time finding my true identity since then.

I did the same with my emo hair, it’s really freeing. It grew back cooler somehow

Amen Bro, you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you.❤

wow! both with & without the dreads u look a lot like Adam Levine!!

This was intense...

What a beautiful man!

Well done fella! You look more YOU without that . I had a similar persona, which got me hooked up with all sorts of wrong friends and actually dragged myself away from being the "inner me". I am so glad tro no longer wish to be something I am not, and persuing an image I created to show that I was "different" inside. My only wish is that I had remained a Library Geek and never given up that persuit for knowledge for acceptance with my peers. I still love the Library lady whom was like a mother to me when I used to hang out there daily. What a release it must have been once done! I always wanted to grow a pony tail, but when I tried I hated long hair and now I hate it when my hair grows beyond clipper length ~ lol I am still awaiting my Formal Diagnosis, but am 95-96% ceratin of being on teh Spectrum, likely Aspergers. I cannot wait to get my wife and son some better understanding and help with understanding how I see the world and how it is that I am very adamant that Truth cannot be Error, and that Right is never Wrong etc. Thank you for sharing your experiences - I hope in time to make time to see more of the Vidoes you have shared. BTW: You look far happier and heathier now that you did back here. Keep it up fella (y)

I like this video a lot!

Very brave to share that :).

I can relate to this so much more than to what most people find hard to do... It's really hard to watch you letting go of that handlebar and to basically start floating again.

Something about growing and removing hair is so deeply moving

Well done - that took courage.

Looks so much better without. But I feel with yourself being five years ago.

This was so beautiful to me

I actually think you look much better without them. I cut my hair once myself, but could only manage it after I had a beer and even then I became so anxious, I could only do one side. The next day I had another beer, took a deep breath and cut the other side.

Respect x

♥️

I did my dreads pretty much when you removed your's, so in a way they lived on

You look so nice without those dreadlocs!!!!

awe, what a beautiful self :)

wowww!! amazing!! why did you cut them off and what have you done with your dreads after cutting?? :)

You look handsome no matter how you style yourself.

Do you often dream in color? It's apparently rare.

Cute both ways but your best look was with your buzzed head, just before the beard shave.

Good move

Omg you had dreadlocks !!

Your so sweet

People are diffrent. Haircut for me is refreshing, never blinked at it.. Its like cutting off old energy and old parts of me.. Which is allways a good thing.. Makes room for new.. Maybe thats why you get emotional.. You been holding on to parts of yourself for to long..

Long before the world was crazy over "cultural appropriation"

I know. You lost your coping mechanism. Tears are NATURAL. But they're not YOU. They are no more you than the shirt you choose to wear any particular day. Be you and be proud you are you.

Blue on the inside? Like they had fresh oxygen? Makes sense, because I can see how much it hurt to cut them off. They were part of you, like a limb.

Wow! I feel like my commenting will somehow rob you of your bravery in hacking off your hair. I hope not, so here goes. I loathe hair. Hair atop the head? Fine. Anywhere (ANYwhere) else?? Not so much. You used scissors. I used a pulse laser. Yep, I'm a hairless chihuahua, as it were. Sooo much cleaner in terms of odor, texture and physical safety (think zippers). Ya. I know . . . weirdo. Nothing new there. Once again, my applause at your bravery and, by the way, you are really very handsome; embrace it!

I think you look better without the dreadlocks.

I was going to like this video but I can’t because at this moment it has 444 likes and 4 dislikes and I can’t mess with that.

Aww you should have kept one rat tail

Y lobb m off ?

brave!!! you look better without those dreadlocks anyway. i would feel more comfortable around u without them.

You look nice with dredlocks.

You're fucking beautiful

I don't like the person whom forced you to cut your hair!