Today we’d like to introduce you to Lynda Peterson Galicia
Lynda, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
The daughter of an immigrant, I watched my mother work tirelessly to provide for my two brothers and I. My biological father (a California native) brought her here after she conceived me. She was 8 months pregnant with me and traveled by plane from Panama with my older brother (only 5 years old at the time) to Utah to build a life with her family.
Not too long after, she became pregnant with my little brother who was premature and needed extensive medical care. I was only a year and a half years old when he was born.
This is when my father left my mom for another woman. She was forced to fend for herself and her children in a completely foreign country not knowing much English and working a minimum wage job (in the 90’s it was VERY low) doing her best to try to keep a roof over our heads and food in our bellies. I never really heard much from him after that. He was very busy at work, in bars, and dating websites to be able to be a present father. Disappointing, I know.
It goes without saying that my family lived in poverty for quite some time before my mom could climb the corporate ladder of her job and earn a sufficient amount of money to provide for us. She never relied on the government for assistance as she firmly believed that her hard work would prevail, and that it did.
As a little girl, I missed my mom very much. I always wondered what it would be like to have her at home like all of my friends got to with their moms. My mom was a single parent the majority of my childhood, therefore, her priority was to be able to provide for us which meant really long hours and all the overtime she could get her hands on.
Even though this felt very straining on my relationship with her back then, looking at it now, I admire her. The amount of grit she showed over and over again in our lives is unimaginable. She always warned that there would be a day that she would no longer be here and that she wanted us to be able to survive this world when that day came.
We had gone through so much as a family, but the year of 2011 was the year that shifted us in a way that we would never revert back from. This is the year I became pregnant with my oldest daughter at the age of 15 and the very year we lost my little brother due to health complications.
You see, because my mom had to constantly work to provide for us, that put my older brother and I in a parental position for my little brother, Mark. Mark was autistic, nonverbal, and he had received a diagnosis at the age of 8 for Epilepsy. He had grand mal seizures and was required to take many medications to help. This placed a world of responsibilities on my older brother and I so that my mom could continue to make the money we needed to survive.
She would later find love and marry a man that was truly a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It started out fine, but ended very badly with him relapsing on heavy drugs, abusive behavior, and SA/grooming towards me. They ended their marriage in 2011. This year I would also experience extreme abuse from my oldest daughter’s father, both mental and physical. I left him after my brother’s passing.
After all of that happened, I became severely depressed, but also extremely determined to try to overcome all of my life’s tragedies. I couldn’t allow myself to become another statistic. All I wanted was to be able to provide a life for my daughter- much like my mother wanted for my siblings and I.
However, one thing I didn’t anticipate was her decision to leave the state of Utah to rediscover herself and her life. This meant at 16, I had to learn to live on my own with my daughter.
I was so young and lost, I ended up dropping out of high school and working full time at my local Little Caesar’s to be able to provide for my daughter and I. My brother and I ended up renting a small apartment together where he would gain custody of my nephew after not having him for the first 1.5 years of his life. I took it upon myself to help raise him while my brother attended college to become an aviation mechanic.
There I was in 2013, this little 16 almost 17 y/o, raising two babies, working full time, and still falling short of the money I needed to pay my portion of the bills and rent. It was incredibly defeating.
I became even more depressed, but this time, it was different. I began to question whether I deserved my life. I felt like my child and nephew’s lives would have somehow been better without me. My emotions became increasingly pessimistic before finally experiencing suicidal ideations. 2013 felt like it was never going to end.
It became so bad that I had to physically distract myself from my own thoughts. Then I made a Facebook post.
“Lms for a tbh in your inbox. :p”
Little did I know, the love of my life would like that very post.
The very day I was considering ending it all was the day my life would do a 180•.
He showed me a type of love I had never seen before. He not only became my best friend, he became my daughter’s too.
To help give you some perspective on the kind of man he is, let me tell you a story about the second time he met my daughter:
He tried very hard to win her over, but she just wasn’t having it. He’d make silly faces, sing, and play to try to get her attention despite her VERY judgmental glares and critical attitude towards him. When all attempts failed, he sat back and patiently waited for her to come around and eventually she did. After all of the reluctance, she decided to climb into his lap. He let out a celebratory laugh, but neither of us knew that my daughter would be the one having the last laugh as she, at the age of 2, seemed to have schemed up what I would consider a diabolical plan to lay any other efforts this man would try to rest so that she would have some “peace”. In the midst of my boyfriend’s excitement, she turned her head towards him and literally THREW UP ALL OVER HIM and his brand new jacket. In that moment I was sure he’d had his fill of experiences and was ready to head out the door- however, when I rushed up out of my seat to try to help him, he had already picked her up and cleaned her off first making sure she was comfortable and clear of any left over body fluids before even thinking about himself. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. He gently placed her in my arms while I stared at him in total shock. He grabbed an extra sweater from his trunk and made his way back to my apartment. I knew that night that this was the man I would be marrying.
In the span of 18 months, my husband (boyfriend at that time) would convince me that I deserved more. I deserved to try. I deserved a high school diploma. I deserved to take a chance on myself. I deserved to opportunity to live for once rather than survive. We also became pregnant with our second child right before marrying each other after a year of being together. I know how insane that sounds, but trust me when I say, when you know they’re the one- YOU KNOW. No question about it.
Thanks to his endless and unconditional love, I completed the remaining 12.5 credits I needed to graduate with my high school diploma in a span of 60 days. That’s a whole year and a half’s worth of credits done in two short months. I remember thinking to myself,’ If I could do get my diploma in two months, what else am I capable of?’
This started an avalanche within me. Everything I ever learned in my life was screaming to stick to what felt familiar- but I took a chance. My mother in law encouraged me to take a leap of faith and enter in a local cosmetology school’s competition for a chance to win a $5,000 scholarship. And I did.
Before I knew it, I was actually signing up for the career that would change my life in ways I never thought possible. While pregnant with my third child, I attended Paul Mitchell The School- Ogden from December of 2015 to April of 2017.
I began my journey in my career doing makeup, nails, and some hair color here and there. I was too afraid to join any salons out of the fear of dealing with immensely toxic work environments, so I opted for a home salon situation.
As my clientele grew, I decided to start with a booth rent salon to create a more professional atmosphere for my clients and I to work in. This ignited a spark of interest towards education for me. Learning to understand the Kevin Murphy styling line reminded me of my passion for the science of my craft. Each product, each color, and technique were all tools and my brain the toolbox.
It got to a point where I couldn’t get enough education. I found myself scrolling endlessly on either Instagram or YouTube trying to find any information I could to aid in my growth.
Eventually, I would move salons and from there my work sky rocketed. Pre Covid, the owner of the salon would work to bring in educators and opportunities to those of us who worked there. I was able to really learn all of the chemistry of the color and products we’d use behind the chair everyday. For that, I will always be grateful.
Fast forward to 2021, I began my journey as a hairfluencer. My focus had shifted to trying to get my love of hair education and art out to anyone who cared enough to listen. This resulted into me having my first brand deal at 6.5K followers on Instagram and 31K on TikTok.
I couldn’t believe it! I was officially receiving monetary compensation for the work I put towards my content creating.
I was on top of the world. I felt so confident with myself and my future, I convinced my husband to leave his job to help me more with our children and the house and in return I would work as hard as I could towards building our new life together. He believed in me so much, he did it and completed his last days of employment in June of 2021.
We were so excited to start this new journey together, but life had other plans in store for us.
I had a grand mal seizure while working on a coworker that November. 10 years after I lost my brother, I was diagnosed with the very disability that took his life. This broke me.
I didn’t know what to do. My medication made me feel like a completely different person but I didn’t know fire to recognize that while I was on it. All I knew was I didn’t want to switch medications and risk my health even further- especially after watching what my brother had to go through.
There were so many emotions and tears, even taking things day by day felt impossible.
I became angry, pessimistic, and incredibly depressed.
It felt very reminiscent of when I list my brother. Although I was experiencing so much, my stubbornness couldn’t fathom the idea of caving in, so I worked even harder to try to make my dreams come true, even when it felt impossible.
Because of that and my family’s undying support, I prevailed.
It was so extremely hard, but I did it.
During the 2 years that my epilepsy was most active, I managed to achieve receiving several nominations and awards in hair competitions and award shows and I grew my following substantially in both Instagram and Tiktok.
I even began my journey of becoming an independent educator where I gave myself the opportunity to travel the country while sharing my knowledge with likeminded artists.
Towards the end of June of 2023, my husband informed me of the keto diet and how it was originally made in the 1920’s for people with epilepsy as one of the first proven effective methods to reduce/diminish symptoms of epilepsy. I did it seeing as I had tried everything I possibly could before.
Before we knew it, October came around and I was able to go medication free. I stop remember experiencing joy for the first time and realizing just how much my medication affected my quality of life.
One way I always liked to compare how I felt in my medication was the scene from SpongeBob where Plankton sticks his mind control device in SpongeBob’s head, controlling his every move. No matter how much SpongeBob opposed the actions of Plankton, he had no choice in his actions. He was forced to do whatever Plankton pleased. That’s what it felt like mentally on this medication. This is why it was such a big deal to be able free myself from it.
When I did, my husband felt like he had his wife back and my children finally recognized their mom again. When I tell you 2021-2023 was the hardest years for my loved ones, it truly was. I would cry over the fact that I felt like such a burden to those I cared for so deeply.
Finally, I had my EEG scheduled to see if there was any seizure-like activity.
On 1/11/2024 I went to MckayDee hospital for my appointment. I was so nervous because I was supposed to be scheduled for the day before and found out that my appointment had been postponed to the next day and for those of you who don’t know, you aren’t allowed to have more than 4 hours of sleep the night before your appointment, Sleep deprivation is important for the accuracy of the test results.
A few days or so later, I received a call from the hospital to inform me that I was officially seizure free.
We cried in celebration of the big news. That day, I made a promise to myself to always put myself first and do what I needed to so that I could pursue my dreams and truly live my life with my family.
Since then, I have worked directly with many brands and am now a proud member of the OLAPLEX Pro Collective.
I also have a class tour scheduled for this year where I’ll be able to provide many other artists and educators with the opportunity to learn, travel, and educate. It’s very important to me to be able to extend as many opportunities as possible to my fellow artists as I want to see us all eat.
At the end of the day, I truly have my mother and husband to thank for my ability to persevere through any obstacle life throws my way.
I’m Lynda, I’m 29 years old, and u feel like I’m freaking 100 after everything- but man… am I grateful.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Oh man, I feel like I really gave you every single detail in the last slide, but as previously mentioned, I had faced many losses in my life, including family members, friends, my health, and so many other things.
I would have to say that one of the biggest problems I’ve faced my entire life was the ability to have reliable financial stability. Growing up in poverty had taken a really big toll on my life and my financial skills. Today it looks very differently for my family and I, but when I was younger, it was something that felt detrimental every single day.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’m an alternative artist located in Ogden Utah. The reason why this is important is because of how commonly known the area is to be very conservative and it isn’t very common to find people who are willing to take creative risks.
I found my passion in hair color and being able to create high contrast and visually striking color combinations that could feel very vivid and bright to one’s eye.
From painting cat skulls on shaved heads to creating alternating rainbow shine lines, I’ve been able to find all sorts of creative outlets, using hair color, extensions, and hair cutting to be able to create my masterpieces.
Everything that I create is done from a place of love and admiration for the beautiful colors this world has to offer as well as the beautiful souls who choose to express themselves in the daring manner.
It is my goal to convince the world that they deserve to have main character hair at least once in their life. You’d be surprised at how important self expression is.
We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
All I’ve ever known was risk taking. My life has never been easy. But I knew that I was destined for more and the only way I would ever be able to find out if that was actually true or not was by giving it my all every single time. That goes without saying that every risk I’ve taken has been a good one and the reason why I say that so confidently is because even the risks that didn’t work out gave me something to learn from. Ultimately, when you’re given the start that I was given, your biggest teachers in life are going to be cause and effect. If you are willing to comprehend the underlying lessons that are hidden with in each choice that you make, you will always persevere. One of my favorite quotes is,” If you are willing to admit when you’re wrong, you’ll always be right.”
Pricing:
- Color services- $85 hourly
- Cuts- $85-$130
- Extensions- Consultation required
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Www.linktree.com/lyndadidit
- Instagram: https://Www.instagram.com/lyndadidit
- Other: https://Www.tiktok.com/@lyndadidit
