Do you ever see someone in public that has acne, and get angry because you know that the person is probably wicked insecure about it, and feels so much pain because of it? I know I do.
I look at them, and it reminds me of looking in a mirror, and the anger and self-hatred that I feel is none that anyone else should have to experience.
It makes me want to cry, because I can sympathize with them a lot, even though my skin may not be as bad, it's acne nonetheless, and it's the same feeling.
I don't think this thread has any real conclusion besides the point of me being angry that acne even exists and prohibits the self love in those who have it... If you have any additional rantings or thoughts on this subject please leave responses!
What i noticed is that when you have acne, you notice it on people. When you don't, you don't really care if people have it.
Being insecure about a certain aspect of yourself lets your brain look for it in others as well. Sure acne gets you angry, but whats the point of getting angry if it won't benefit you anyway? Thats just my $.02
What i noticed is that when you have acne, you notice it on people. When you don't, you don't really care if people have it.
Being insecure about a certain aspect of yourself lets your brain look for it in others as well. Sure acne gets you angry, but whats the point of getting angry if it won't benefit you anyway? Thats just my $.02
I think the same can be said with all insecurities. I think the point of expressing anger is to sort it out, figure it out and make sense of it, and then move towards not being angry anymore. Thank you for your two cents.
I agree with you both...
Regarding other people...
You just never know... I've met some people - especially one co-worker recently, who seemed to emanate self love - her face was covered in acne and she didn't have on ANY makeup, and within a few seconds of talking to her, I realized I didn't even see her acne anymore. NO matter how I may have predicted her to feel about herself based on my own experiences, I quickly learnd that she is very much a happy person, and happy with herself. WHich is good - now i gotta figure out how to do the same for me. 
Anger for me has caused much grief, but also brough about much good. It's propelled me into taking action. The anger has been about different things - sometimes it was at myself, thinking that i somehow caused all the trouble i'm in. these days, it's about scar or scars, more so than acne. but i realized that is exactly what my emotionally abusive parents taught me - any time something went wrong, they turned it on me. literally anything in the world. so Im trying to undo that kind of automatic, toxic thinking but it's hard. acne...scars....can happen to anybody and (i would go so far as to say) everybody at some point in time....and it's not anybody's fault.
originally I thought that maybe because I'm angry, it's proof that I don't love myself. because let's admit it, no matter how we look or what's happening on the outside, we're always free to make the decision to love ourselves unconditionally. and lots of times i'm telling myself that i'll
wait until everything is much better and THEN i'll love myself by enjoying my life, but that just leaves me feeling miserable in the meantime...that's punishing yourself, really.
but then i have days when i feel like my anger is BECAUSE i DO love myself. i really do. it makes me angry to suffer, because I know i deserve better than to be suffering for years and years, over something kind of minor in the grand scheme of things -- but NOT to minimize my own or anybody else's suffering - it really does have terrible emotional consequences. anyway, anger and self-love can co-exist..and they've motivated me to keep trying and looking and researching options.
I guess I'm just exploring my own feelings - i respect that your post was originally meant to be a rant. I'm about to post a rant of my own soon on the forum Good to get those feelings out, rather than keep them bottled up -- that's so stressful..speaking of stress...there's a lot of myths out there about what causes acne, but no doubt, stress has definitely always worsened it for me. So better to get feelings off our chest!
I agree with you both...
Regarding other people...
You just never know... I've met some people - especially one co-worker recently, who seemed to emanate self love - her face was covered in acne and she didn't have on ANY makeup, and within a few seconds of talking to her, I realized I didn't even see her acne anymore. NO matter how I may have predicted her to feel about herself based on my own experiences, I quickly learnd that she is very much a happy person, and happy with herself. WHich is good - now i gotta figure out how to do the same for me.
Anger for me has caused much grief, but also brough about much good. It's propelled me into taking action. The anger has been about different things - sometimes it was at myself, thinking that i somehow caused all the trouble i'm in. these days, it's about scar or scars, more so than acne. but i realized that is exactly what my emotionally abusive parents taught me - any time something went wrong, they turned it on me. literally anything in the world. so Im trying to undo that kind of automatic, toxic thinking but it's hard. acne...scars....can happen to anybody and (i would go so far as to say) everybody at some point in time....and it's not anybody's fault.
originally I thought that maybe because I'm angry, it's proof that I don't love myself. because let's admit it, no matter how we look or what's happening on the outside, we're always free to make the decision to love ourselves unconditionally. and lots of times i'm telling myself that i'll
wait until everything is much better and THEN i'll love myself by enjoying my life, but that just leaves me feeling miserable in the meantime...that's punishing yourself, really.
but then i have days when i feel like my anger is BECAUSE i DO love myself. i really do. it makes me angry to suffer, because I know i deserve better than to be suffering for years and years, over something kind of minor in the grand scheme of things -- but NOT to minimize my own or anybody else's suffering - it really does have terrible emotional consequences. anyway, anger and self-love can co-exist..and they've motivated me to keep trying and looking and researching options.
I guess I'm just exploring my own feelings - i respect that your post was originally meant to be a rant. I'm about to post a rant of my own soon on the forum
Thank you for sharing your own introspective feelings, I definitely know what you mean about other people's acne looking far less obvious when they seem happy or confident, it's almost like it dissolves into their personality. I think that's why you can't let your acne hold you back from enjoying life.
I remember a couple of days ago I was in the car driving with my Mom, and I burst into tears because I was so frustrated about my skin and she was telling me to calm down and that it wasn't a big deal, and I was upset because to ME it was a big deal. In that moment, it was really affecting me, because I let it affect me of course.
I appreciate you introducing the topic of self-love, I think that's really important here.
SoulCandy, I think one of the WORST ways for someone to react to anything that makes us emotional, is to tell us it's not that big of a deal. That's incredibly invalidating. The fact is, to you it feels like a huge deal and I totally get your pain! We are here to support you and vent to us anytime