Acne took a fair bit of my 20s away from as I had intermittent bad periods of acne. I guess, in total, between 20 - 30, I lost 4 and a half years to acne. It's not much fun and also meant I lost many other things. The chance to strengthen and push my career was lost due to the hopelessness and lack of confidence I suffered from. I also became more cynical of life and the future due to acne. It still lingers today and I doubt it'll ever leave me.

You are all beautiful no matter what they say!!!!

Acne has taken many things away from me but it also made me lost. I was lost i felt like i had nowhere to go, i lost hope, i lost my drive, i lost my patience, and it cornered me into a dark place where I didn't know what to do or what I was going to do.

A lot of things. I was considered attractive by everyone in my family, friends, girls were after me. Then i got acne, it my ruined my face, life career. It took away my confidence, i can't even look to people in eyes when talking to them. I put my hands on face( almost like a fucking boxer) to hide my acne scars. I wanted to be a model from childhood and i was really going to become and then this acne came and gave me ugly scars, now no modelling agency is taking me. It destroyed my dreams, my career. I cry a lot sometimes. And of course, SELF ESTEEM!

Women and men find me to be a relatively attractive individual as it is, and so to have acne to taint my full potential of being as attractive as I could be really brings me down sometimes.

But that is not something that has been explicitly taken away.

I will rarely, if ever, go outside during the day (unless I had to for work or school.) The reasons for this are obvious: Sunlight makes acne look so much worse.

If bright lights are on in a room I will most likely turn them off or leave the room (in a social setting) just so people do not see my acne.

Sometimes I am so consumed by my appearance that I am unable to focus on the important tasks at hand.

Which is ridiculous and contradictory to my personality. I am a person who values truth and ideas, not physical form. Yet I allow this to shame me into a corner. It is absolutely ridiculous.

But I am trying my best in dealing with it. I just joined this site, and it feels great to unload some of these things. I will not talk about acne with ANYONE unless it is someone who has acne or a dermatologist. I am way to aware of my condition to stand looking someone in the eyes for too long.

My confidence,self worth, self love the list goes on ......acne and acne scarring is just terrible