Hi, I'm a 23 year old male. I had been a weed smoking musician for many many years and took things very easy in life and last august i was pretty much forced to get out and get a real job and i started doing labouring/brick laying for a notoriously hard working man and hard working crew. I used to stay up until 4/5am and stay in bed all day, wake up, hang out with friends, make some music etc. and then it was completely the opposite, i was waking up at the time i'd go to sleep at and working a 10 hour day, so my whole life changed. I enjoyed it, but it did get stressful and i know it was hard on myself and my body. I started to notice my beard turning white, only a little...and i thought maybe i was going grey? my barber told me no and to get this checked and i thought nothing of it, until my whole chin turned completely white and i knew something was wrong. The day i decided to go to the doctor my mother noticed a very small patch on my head but said nothing because she knew it would break me. I had previously done some modelling, music videos, was crazy about my fashion and hair and always liked to look good..was actually very very vain to be honest. Anyway, i went to the doctor and he was very rude all he said was, nothing can be done its just a change in life and to basically get over it! he never even diagnosed me with anything, after i got home my mother told me about the patch and after some research realised i had alopicia areata. I went to a hair clinic where they gave me all kinds of shampoos and vitamins and stuff and gave me a weekly treatment of a laser and other stuff that i dont even know what it was. eventually i thought it was bullshit, it was only getting worse if anything. i did 7 treatments and realised i didn't want to continue and was reading online about cortisone injections so i sought out a dermatologist and got the shots about 3 weeks ago, so fair the the two patches he injected are growing back quite well..but with white, thin hair. Anyway, i've been getting very depressed about this, I no longer have any friends as i've just stayed in my house for the past few months and refuse to go anywhere at all because the anxiety of people seeing it or asking about it or anything like that kills me and i just don't feel like ME anymore, i feel its after taking everything from me. I used to be so confident, now i haven't got a shred of confidence in me. My mother suggested a couple of days ago of shaving my head (i had just let my hair grow ragged for months) and she shaved it right down to the skin with a razor, this wasn't a shock to anyone as i used to shave my head from time to time anyway but i did notice then that theres so many patches like there must be around 15! Basically around 40% of my scalp hair is gone and most of my beard is gone too.. What i'm looking for is some type of hope? some success stories? I'm feeling very very low, i know it might seem dramatic but i'm genuinely suicidal over all of this! how does anybody deal with this? i don't know what i'm exactly asking for or looking for??? i just want something...anything...i couldn't possibly feel any worse!