u/Beautychaos

I shaved my head in a hypomania and then got diagnosed with Bipolar 2 almost immediately after.

I really miss my hair. I've always been a super feminine woman and I miss the length so much. It hid parts of my face I dont like.

Why couldn't I have done something less destructive? My hair was all I had as far as my confidence and I'm really struggling to find my sparkle again. 😭😭

Just posting my experience and I have to say I'm really sad about this. It was working so well for me, but I got the very rare side effect of swollen lymph nodes. My psychiatrist has never seen this before and had to ask a colleague if they have either.

I was on 25mg for about two weeks I want to say. It started as a tender neck that felt like I slept on it wrong, to two ping pong sized bumps on my neck. Not fun. They went away as soon as we stopped the medication.

Onto the next medication to hopefully treat my bipolar 2. My psychiatrist is trying gabapentin next.

I genuinely have never experienced this behavior before in all my years of struggling with anxiety, depression, ADHD and now probably a late diagnosis of autism.

I just picked up the clippers and did it. Nothing really made me want to do it and I did it anyway.

In 2025 my grandmother started experiencing dementia, and all of her built up trauma just opened up the flood gates with anger, yelling and violence towards me.

Okay fast forward to Aug 2025. I'm able to get out of the house and move in with a new roommate. Great. Turns out my roommate is a very angry person and also extremely triggering to my already shaken nervous system.

Then my cat died.

Then my grandma died.

No PTO to mourn my cat or my grandmother.

Jan 2026, I move in with my partner and it's fantastic and I feel like I'm finally to a place where I can just feel the grief I need for my grandma. For my cat. For all the trauma I'm trying to heal from and keep doing EMDR to help me become a better version of myself.

I am overwhelmed with burnout from my repetitive low paying job, possible late diagnosis of autism, and struggle with figuring out what career I want to pursue.

It's just so much. I'm not trying to seek attention which is the hard part because that's what it's gonna look like from the outside 😔