Shannen Doherty Talks Hair Loss as She Continues Sharing Her Own Experiences for Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Shannen Doherty continued her series of illuminating posts for Breast Cancer Awareness month sharing her own experiences as a survivor of the disease. For her latest post, she focused on the emotional struggle of losing her hair through chemotherapy.

While it may seem a minor side effect, losing one's hair can be one of the most traumatizing parts of undergoing chemo treatment because it is at this point that it becomes impossible to hide what is going on inside your body.

It also represents the loss of something major that has helped define your identity through most of your life as it is such a drastic change to your outward appearance, and certainly a look -- especially for women -- that is not widely accepted still.

Doherty shared that even as she started treatment, she was considering what could happen. "When I started chemotherapy, I tried a cold cap in hopes of saving my hair," she captioned a pair of raw images that showed the emotional pain she was undergoing on top of the physical strains.

"While it works for many and is amazing, it didn’t work for me," she continued. "My hair was falling out in clumps when I washed it, I had bald spots and it became increasingly harder to cover those up."

"I finally made a decision to shave what was left of my hair," she continued. "It was a battle on its own. I loved my hair. It had defined me to a certain extent and provided me with a security blanket of sorts."

Putting context to the anguish on full display in the pictures, Doherty concluded her caption, "I’m sharing with you the day the decision was made to shave my head."

Shannen Doherty is giving an inside look into "what cancer" really "looks like."

The "Beverly Hills, 90210" alum -- who has stage 4 breast cancer -- took to Instagram on Thursday for Breast Cancer Awareness Month to share details about her "personal journey" with the disease.

In March 2015, Doherty, 50, was diagnosed with breast cancer and, after years of treatment, she entered remission. However, in February 2020, she announced on "GMA" that her cancer had returned and it was stage 4.

In her post on Thursday, the actress posted two "truthful" photos of herself. The first shot featured Doherty, with no hair and a bloody tissue up her nose. The second image showed the star wearing blue Cookie Monster pajamas and a matching eye mask.

"For breast cancer awareness month, I'd like to share more of my own personal journey from my first diagnosis to my second," Doherty began in the post's caption. "Is it all pretty? NO but it's truthful and my hope in sharing is that we all become more educated, more familiar with what cancer looks like. I hope I encourage people to get mammograms, to get regular checkups, to cut thru the fear and face whatever might be in front of you."

"In 2015 I got diagnosed with breast cancer. I had a mastectomy and did chemo and radiation," she recalled. "I had many nose bleeds from the chemo. Not sure if any of you experienced this. I also was beyond tired."

The "Charmed" alum went on to share how she got through "what seemed impossible."

"I cheered myself up by putting on funny pajamas that my friend Kristy gave me," Doherty wrote, referring to the Cookie Monster ensemble. "Did they actually cheer me up? Yes!! Lol. I looked ridiculous and in that ridiculousness, I was able to laugh at myself."

She concluded, "Finding humor helped get me thru what seemed impossible. I hope we all find humor in the impossible. #breastcancerawareness."

In an interview with ABC News last week, the "Heathers" star -- who has two Lifetime movies coming out this month -- said work has "become even more fulfilling" following her stage 4 breast cancer diagnosis.

"A lot of people who get diagnosed with stage 4, they sort of get written off," Doherty said. "It's assumed that they cannot work or they can't work at their full capacity. And that is not true and that is something that I would really like for people to sort of stop assuming, and give us a chance to prove them wrong."

She also gave an update on her treatment.

"I am on my first protocol, which is a very, very big thing," Doherty shared. "So it's kind of like you just want to last on your protocols as long as possible so that you don't run out of protocols." (Cancer treatment plans are called protocols, per ABC News.)

"I'm going to keep fighting to stay alive," she said.

The "No One Would Tell" star went on to add that her battle with cancer has made her find "beautiful" things within herself.

"You really have to dig deep to face cancer, and in that you find all the stuff that you had hidden away," she said. "And it's beautiful things that you find. You find the vulnerability, you find your trust in people again, you find forgiveness."