OP, I can relate to everything you just said (except the weight gain). The brain fog, acne, fatigue, anxiety, everything. I grew up vomiting more often than a child should for what seemed to be no reason. The day that I was finally relieved of all these symptoms was literally the best day of my life. For the very first time, I could see a future for myself where I was happy and energetic.
In the past whenever I saw a doctor, they always either wrote it off as depression or too much junk food. One doctor put me on anti-depressants. Sometimes the other kids would call me retarded, and I knew a lot of people looked down upon me based on the things they said. These experiences brewed a whole bunch of angry emotions that were very easy to bottle up when I was on gluten… my body was too tired to really react to the things that I hated in my life. The day I gave up gluten was amazing, as it literally tripled my energy. But because I had so much energy, I felt like every angry feeling I ever felt was even harder to pin down. I was so happy to finally feel energetic and normal in this world, but I was so hateful of the people that made fun of me and assumed it all boiled down to simple teenager problems. After I figured out it was gluten, my once-trusted family doctor even dismissed it as a fad and assumed it was all in my head. There were so many others that even after going through this transformation, it made me so angry and hateful. My own doctor couldn’t even be happy that I felt good for once in my life.
I’m mentioning this because for a long time, I juggled anger and happiness (though I wouldn’t anywhere near as serious as bipolar disorder), and we’re more similar than we think, then it’s possible that might hit you in the same way. What got me through it was recognizing every painful, embarrassing, weak moment in my life that was caused by gluten and coming to terms that it all happened. And since it happened, my only choice was to let it make me a stronger person in the future. The angry episodes stopped about a year after giving up gluten, but sometimes the resentment towards the people in my past lingers, though I try not to bottle it up anymore and address it in a healthy way instead.
Anyway, sorry if that sounded random. If all of that is irrelevant to you, then ignore everything I said! If it is relevant, though, I just wanted to inform you of what I went through so that it doesn’t sucker punch you in the face.
The positives outweigh the negatives though! I’m currently building a skillset in web development at age 27, even working as a developer for a small startup to gain more professional job experience debugging and implementing online features. I’m treating each day like it matters and eating healthily, cleaning, walking my dogs daily, doing all of the chores and heavy lifting for my parents around the house. My energy really made it easy for me to take more responsibility for everything, both required or not. I absolutely know that you will feel the same way, and I encourage you to take you brain to the streets and explore all of the things you felt like you couldn’t enjoy anymore!
I’m happy for you, OP! Here’s to the future!