REALity check!

Okay, reality check time! Please take a peak at my unphoto-shopped pic and tell me objectively how I look... because I'm afraid I've lost all perspective!

P.S. Don't be afraid to be honest... I can take it! (but I did just get home from my sweaty job, so... not at my 100% in this pic)

Thanks

More Life-Damaging as an Adult than a Teen?

Has anyone over 21 felt that having acne as an adult is far more damaging psychologically (and socially) than when/if you had it as a teenager?

It just seems that when you're a teen with acne (as I have been), people - though cruel - forgive you for it because everyone assumes it's all a part of "growing" up... therefore, people assume a teen will "grow out of it" and - therefore - a teen with acne is treated normally because it is considered "normal" for a teen to have it.

However, once the years began falling off the calendar and I woke up one morning to realize I was a full-blown adult that still had a teen's acne, a horrible cloud of gloom formed over me. There is no one to forgive 'adult' acne, because an adult has no excuses: they're not going to "grow" out of it, their bodies aren't undergoing major "changes", no erratic hormones to blame, or other dismissive excuses. When you see an adult with acne, you see no light at the end of the tunnel. Adulthood is gaining the body you're going to live inside for the rest of your life, and it hasn't escaped my attention that people around me have slowly stopped offering me excuses and consolations - because there are none to give!

Has anyone else noticed this? And aside from being terribly depressing, or this could be my paranoid-infused acne talking, does anyone else feel that the phrase "water seeks its own level" could be true? Water, in this instance, representing a physical entity; so, people - in general - physically seek other people on the same level as themselves: gorgeous for beautiful, handsome for pretty, ugly for acne. ... I'm probably going to get into trouble for saying that, but I'm having one of my bad days, and these are the negative ramblings that pass through my head. So I'm probably just seeing what I want to see.

Anyways, am I making any sense?


~ Morgan

New to the Board

Hi -

This is my first post on this site, but I have known about it and visited sporadically for the last couple of years. I first came for the Regimen, but my skin... I don't know, it is some kind of ultra thin, sensitive thing and using BP on it at all (I tried subbing for SA, but no go) made it burst out in aggravated bright red irritation.

I feel like my memory has been tampered with. I think I started having mild acne in middle school, but I can't be sure. I know I had it in grades 11 and 12, but that was when I started the pill for a relationship I was in, and by the end of grade 12 I had awesome skin (at least, that's the way it seems from pictures).

When I went off the pill in University after my relationship ended, that was when I clearly remember beginning to notice my face and how horrible it had become. I mean, it went from mild to bad to "hiding-in-my-room-couldn't-talk-to-strangers-wearing-hoods-and-keeping-my-head-down-in-public" bad. Yikes. I can't even classify what kind of acne I have... I don't think it is what you would call "severe" - no cystic scary stuff. And yet I have everything else, it seems, plus a consistently red irritated-looking face and ... if anyone else has this, please let me know as I need to know if I am common or rare in this ... and a generally bumpy/large-pored/ridged uneven skin surface. Yeah, that explanation sucks, but what I'm trying to say is that I don't have what would otherwise be perfect skin with some pimples on it. No, it is pimples on the surface of Mars sort of deal.

Now, is that a part of having acne? What would that be classified as? Because I've seen people with a couple of zits here and there on an otherwise flawless face and I would kill just to have THAT. But this... no makeup can cover. My emotions are already strongly tied to my skin, but the thoughts I CAN'T bear are the ones that whisper this may be what I look like for the rest of my life.

For years and years I have tried OTC stuff, I have logged days researching everything from harsh dermatological treatments to holistic alternative ones, and now am seeing my doctor whom has prescribed me Differin (I've been on for 4 weeks now - my skin still looks like shit ). I am also on the pill again, thinking maybe that was why my skin was okay in high school. Who knows, right? It's like the quest for the holy grail, only we've each got our own to find... don't we?

*sigh*

Anyways, I have read quite a few threads here already and they are good, if for nothing else, to help me remember it's not just me.

~ Morgan