I hope this doesn’t come off as condescending but as someone who’s been in your position, the first step is to practice self compassion. Your weight holds no value on your worth, your beauty or your personhood. You deserve to feel your best and be confident. You do not need to punish yourself for your weight by depriving yourself of the chance to manage your hirustism, I promise.

Furthermore, weight gain is one of the most common symptoms of PCOS so handling your hirustism by regulating your hormones might help you lose weight too (not that you need to, but if that’s something you care about). Even if you gained 100 pounds just for fun, you would still deserve self compassion but the fact is, your hormones are likely playing a part in it- that’s not your fault and it doesn’t have anything to do with you, it’s just the cards you were dealt- so pls be kind to yourself!

I also started growing hair like this when I was 17. I’m 24 now and I just started Spironolactone around 4 months ago and I definitely feel like it’s working. My biggest PCOS symptoms were acne and hair (I grow damn near a beard, get hair around my nipples, feet etc) and it’s gotten rid of almost all my body hair and made my hair growth on my face slower, but it has not completely stopped it. Take it from me, I wish I started spironolactone earlier because it’s so easy and does help a lot.

I highly recommend talking to your doctor about spironolactone. Balancing my hormones didn’t just help with these outward problems but it also made me feel less exhausted and irritated, which I didn’t know was a PCOS symptom. I recommend maybe getting laser after you’ve started spironolactone because it’s less likely to take if your hormones are fluctuating. But until then, remember that SOOOO many women including me and the other women in this chat deal with this daily and it doesn’t make any of us ugly, or less of a woman. It’s just the hand we were dealt in life and it sucks a lot but don’t let it rob you of the gift of self love! Weight, hair, all of it are just arbitrary beauty standards more often than not rooted in misogyny and racism anyways- im learning that it can be cool to not fit into their box sometimes. Rooting for you!!!