It’s been 3 days since I shaved and I’m still not sure how I feel about being beardless. I am getting used to seeing my face and my chin is causing less dysphoria than I expected. But seeing the 5 o’clock shadow from my thick, dense hair follicles that never seems to go away is causing a lot of dysphoria that I never felt with an intentional beard. And it’s aggravated by the fact that no matter what I do, my face is still getting red bumps and reacting poorly to shaving.

Unless I can figure out some technique that simultaneously gets me a smoother face with less irritation soon, I think I’ll just go back to the beard at least until I can afford laser therapy for my face.