22 hours ago, EatsEverything said:

Most of my spots have gone now, it's just the odd pimple now and again. Although, I have the scars which are incredibly red and are as bad as the acne was, red, inflamed, and all over my cheeks. It ruins my confidence and I just want to feel normal, like I fit in but I know that I don't and it really shatters my confidence. Does anyone else feel like this? I don't know if I'm alone on it or...

Thanks

I'm sure lots of people wth acne feel the same way. My self confidence has pretty much been destroyed by acne. My skin's very changeable. Whenever i have a "good" skin day and see the acne clearing i get so happy and i'm like a different person. Then comes some dreadful breakout with 10 new painful pimples and i'm completely depressed again.
Sounds like you have got your acne under control though so that is good news. Red marks take alot longer to heal. Maybe look into some scar treatments - serums, microdermabrasion etc. ?? I know its hard when you want perfection but try to be grateful for the improvement you've had and don't give up.

Wow I can relate to both of you so much. I feel the same exact way and it's nice to know that others have a similar experience. I am so low right now, I have been breaking out badly for the past few months and I have zero confidence. I don't even want to go out or see anyone. It's so sad. I just want to feel normal and beautiful. I hate looking in the mirror. I try to do everything right by eating healthy, taking vitamins, washing and using products..you name it I have done it. My life literally revolves around my faceand what will make me break out. It's totally exhausting. I am so tired of worrying. I've had acne for 15 years and I'm depressed. I want this gone and I want my confidence back. You're NOT alone!

I can relate to everyone in this post also. I'm 33 years old and I've been dealing with acne since I was 14. That's more then half of my life! Acne still gets me down sometimes. Just about an hour ago I had a slight panick attack because I picked a blackhead that wasn't ready to be squeezed. I literally spent an hour obsessing over it and staring in the mirror. I know how hard it is on your confidence when you're struggling with acne. I know how frustrating it is to see new spots on your face when you are doing everything right like eating healthy, good skin care routine and exercising. I know- acne can be debilitating. We all need to remember all of the blessings and good things in our lives. What do you like about yourself? Stop focusing all of your attention on your flaw (acne). I know it's so hard to not obsess but you have to try to focus on positive things. Go for a run, do something you enjoy doing. Stress makes acne worse so if you're able to control your stress your acne will clear up a lot. Just remember, it's only acne. I know I shouldn't minimize it but in reality acne isn't going to kill us. It's not going to stop us from living (unless we choose to allow it to). Life could be so much worse. We all need to be thankful for what we have and all of the blessings in our lives. I have so many blessings and great things going on in my life and the only thing I hate is my acne. If acne is the only things stressing me out then life is pretty damn great. Go out there in the world and shine! Be happy, be confident, be yourself. Acne doesn't define you. You define you. You only have one life to live. Make it the best life possible. No one is perfect- we are all flawed!

Lastly, there is the woman in her late 20's that comes in the bank I work at about once a week. She weighs over 300 pounds and she has mild acne. She is the most confident person I've ever met. I often wonder how someone like her can be so confident. I'm 5'5, 125 pounds, mild acne, blonde and blue eyed. I should be confident but for the most part and on most days- I'm not. It's an attitude everyone. We aren't born with confidence. This woman has learned to love herself. She had accepted herself for who she is and she appreciates what she does like about herself. She doesn't focus on her weight or her acne. She's a real person. She's someone I aspire to be! She's pretty dang amazing and I enjoy speaking to her and watching her exude happiness and confidence. My point is that any of us can choose to be happy or be sad and focus on our flaws. I'm choosing to be happy right now. What are you choosing? Good luck!

16 hours ago, jenguard82 said:

I can relate to everyone in this post also. I'm 33 years old and I've been dealing with acne since I was 14. That's more then half of my life! Acne still gets me down sometimes. Just about an hour ago I had a slight panick attack because I picked a blackhead that wasn't ready to be squeezed. I literally spent an hour obsessing over it and staring in the mirror. I know how hard it is on your confidence when you're struggling with acne. I know how frustrating it is to see new spots on your face when you are doing everything right like eating healthy, good skin care routine and exercising. I know- acne can be debilitating. We all need to remember all of the blessings and good things in our lives. What do you like about yourself? Stop focusing all of your attention on your flaw (acne). I know it's so hard to not obsess but you have to try to focus on positive things. Go for a run, do something you enjoy doing. Stress makes acne worse so if you're able to control your stress your acne will clear up a lot. Just remember, it's only acne. I know I shouldn't minimize it but in reality acne isn't going to kill us. It's not going to stop us from living (unless we choose to allow it to). Life could be so much worse. We all need to be thankful for what we have and all of the blessings in our lives. I have so many blessings and great things going on in my life and the only thing I hate is my acne. If acne is the only things stressing me out then life is pretty damn great. Go out there in the world and shine! Be happy, be confident, be yourself. Acne doesn't define you. You define you. You only have one life to live. Make it the best life possible. No one is perfect- we are all flawed!

Lastly, there is the woman in her late 20's that comes in the bank I work at about once a week. She weighs over 300 pounds and she has mild acne. She is the most confident person I've ever met. I often wonder how someone like her can be so confident. I'm 5'5, 125 pounds, mild acne, blonde and blue eyed. I should be confident but for the most part and on most days- I'm not. It's an attitude everyone. We aren't born with confidence. This woman has learned to love herself. She had accepted herself for who she is and she appreciates what she does like about herself. She doesn't focus on her weight or her acne. She's a real person. She's someone I aspire to be! She's pretty dang amazing and I enjoy speaking to her and watching her exude happiness and confidence. My point is that any of us can choose to be happy or be sad and focus on our flaws. I'm choosing to be happy right now. What are you choosing? Good luck!

How do you know this? Maybe she's just really good at faking it. I'm continually surprised at the number of people i thought were really strong and confident, only to discover that they were nervous wrecks. I've often wondered if thats what we really want to be able to do. Maybe we just wish we were better at hiding our problems from other people?

Also, I really disagree that someone can choose to be happy or sad. You can control your attitude (i.e. how you hold yourself and treat the world around you), but you can't control your mood (i.e. if you're unhappy, you're unhappy). Just because someone is smiling, it doesn't mean they're happy.

Happiness is definitely a choice. I know this from my own personal experience. It's mind over matter. You can choose to be happy or not. You can choose how to react to something- good or bad. Of course there's going to be stress and hiccups in our lives but it's our choice whether we let it affect us or not. We choose how to react to each situation.

I'm not saying it's easy by any means to be happy. It's a lot easier to allow your negative thoughts to consume you and dictate your mood into feeling sorry for yourself. My mood/happiness was solely based on how I thought my skin looked for years. If I thought my skin looked good- I was happy, confident and felt beautiful. If I thought my skin was gross then I was depressed, angry, ugly and undeserving to live. Would you rather be sad/angry or happy?

If you want to be happy the choice is yours. Here's a few things that have helped me when I am feeling down about myself.

Come up with affirmations and say them out loud. Write them down on sticky notes and post them every where.
Exercise
Meditate
Write down all of the positive things in your life
Be grateful for what you have
Think of yourself less and others more
Consider volunteering
Stay busy so you have less time to focus on your skin
Show appreciation
Surround yourself with happy people
Have close relationships with friends/family
Change your perspective
Do things that you enjoy
Be silly, act immature and like a kid (this always makes me happy)
Most importantly, accept things as they are
Stop caring what other people think and stop worrying so much

No one's life is perfect and no one is perfect. We are all flawed whether it be a physical, mental or emotional flaw. I know acne can be emotionally distressing and it can strip our confidence. It's not fun and it's not easy but it's reality for us right now. We must accept the acne and put it into perspective. We must not allow acne to control our minds, moods and happiness.

Good luck! Best to all on this quest to be happy and rid ourselves of acne.

On 19 February 2016 at 9:34 PM, jenguard82 said:

Happiness is definitely a choice. I know this from my own personal experience. It's mind over matter. You can choose to be happy or not. You can choose how to react to something- good or bad. Of course there's going to be stress and hiccups in our lives but it's our choice whether we let it affect us or not. We choose how to react to each situation.

I'm not saying it's easy by any means to be happy. It's a lot easier to allow your negative thoughts to consume you and dictate your mood into feeling sorry for yourself. My mood/happiness was solely based on how I thought my skin looked for years. If I thought my skin looked good- I was happy, confident and felt beautiful. If I thought my skin was gross then I was depressed, angry, ugly and undeserving to live. Would you rather be sad/angry or happy?

If you want to be happy the choice is yours. Here's a few things that have helped me when I am feeling down about myself.

Come up with affirmations and say them out loud. Write them down on sticky notes and post them every where. -ok
Exercise -ok
Meditate -ok
Write down all of the positive things in your life - ok
Be grateful for what you have - how do you do this? why do you assume that people who are unhappy are ungrateful for what they have?
Think of yourself less and others more - ok
Consider volunteering - ok
Stay busy so you have less time to focus on your skin - this is just self delusion, not healthy in my opinion
Show appreciation - a bit vague, but ok
Surround yourself with happy people - often this is not an option, but ok
Have close relationships with friends/family - a bit subjective, but ok
Change your perspective - how? in what respects?
Do things that you enjoy - ok
Be silly, act immature and like a kid (this always makes me happy) - ok
Most importantly, accept things as they are - how do you do this?
Stop caring what other people think and stop worrying so much - how do you do this?

No one's life is perfect and no one is perfect. We are all flawed whether it be a physical, mental or emotional flaw. I know acne can be emotionally distressing and it can strip our confidence. It's not fun and it's not easy but it's reality for us right now. We must accept the acne and put it into perspective. We must not allow acne to control our minds, moods and happiness.

Good luck! Best to all on this quest to be happy and rid ourselves of acne.

Most of the examples you have given are examples of adopting a positive attitude, not examples of choosing your mood (some of the examples you have given are actually the end results - e.g.Stop caring what other people think and stop worrying so much - you're not providing any insight onhow to achieve this). A mood is how you feel inside, an attitude is how you present yourself to the world. Your not really choosing to be happy or sad, you're choosing to do things or adopt behaviour that may or may not make you happy or sad. There's a difference. Its the difference between your mood and your attitude.

I agree that you should adopt a positive attitude, but I find it condescending to suggest that you have an innate ability to "choose" how you feel whenever you wish. You have the ability to adopt behavior that may or may not affect how you feel. Asking yourself for anything more is asking yourself for too much.

The only reason I bring this up is that for a long time I genuinely believe that it was my fault that I was unhappy. I blamed myself for being miserable and being unable to change my mood. I know others who have felt like this and have succumbed to the guilt imposed on them by others when they are told to "just cheer up" or to "stop worrying" or to "stop feeling sorry for yourself". As so many people were telling me this, I assumed i was wrong and this led me to think that I was wrong as a person. I've since realised that I am right and I no longer bow down to their perceptions of life. I will quite often call people out when I think they are wrong. it doesn't win me many friends, but at least it relieves my anxieties.

What we're really talking about is pretending to be happy in the hope that it may lead to real happiness. You've given some good examples of this. I've been pretending for about twenty years, sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. I keep trying for the times it does work.

On 2/18/2016 at 8:52 PM, jenguard82 said:

I can relate to everyone in this post also. I'm 33 years old and I've been dealing with acne since I was 14. That's more then half of my life! Acne still gets me down sometimes. Just about an hour ago I had a slight panick attack because I picked a blackhead that wasn't ready to be squeezed. I literally spent an hour obsessing over it and staring in the mirror. I know how hard it is on your confidence when you're struggling with acne. I know how frustrating it is to see new spots on your face when you are doing everything right like eating healthy, good skin care routine and exercising. I know- acne can be debilitating. We all need to remember all of the blessings and good things in our lives. What do you like about yourself? Stop focusing all of your attention on your flaw (acne). I know it's so hard to not obsess but you have to try to focus on positive things. Go for a run, do something you enjoy doing. Stress makes acne worse so if you're able to control your stress your acne will clear up a lot. Just remember, it's only acne. I know I shouldn't minimize it but in reality acne isn't going to kill us. It's not going to stop us from living (unless we choose to allow it to). Life could be so much worse. We all need to be thankful for what we have and all of the blessings in our lives. I have so many blessings and great things going on in my life and the only thing I hate is my acne. If acne is the only things stressing me out then life is pretty damn great. Go out there in the world and shine! Be happy, be confident, be yourself. Acne doesn't define you. You define you. You only have one life to live. Make it the best life possible. No one is perfect- we are all flawed!

Lastly, there is the woman in her late 20's that comes in the bank I work at about once a week. She weighs over 300 pounds and she has mild acne. She is the most confident person I've ever met. I often wonder how someone like her can be so confident. I'm 5'5, 125 pounds, mild acne, blonde and blue eyed. I should be confident but for the most part and on most days- I'm not. It's an attitude everyone. We aren't born with confidence. This woman has learned to love herself. She had accepted herself for who she is and she appreciates what she does like about herself. She doesn't focus on her weight or her acne. She's a real person. She's someone I aspire to be! She's pretty dang amazing and I enjoy speaking to her and watching her exude happiness and confidence. My point is that any of us can choose to be happy or be sad and focus on our flaws. I'm choosing to be happy right now. What are you choosing? Good luck!

you sound like me. I admire very happy confident people and I think we need to learn to love ourselves:)

On 2/18/2016 at 1:06 PM, jwalk said:

How do you know this? Maybe she's just really good at faking it. I'm continually surprised at the number of people i thought were really strong and confident, only to discover that they were nervous wrecks. I've often wondered if thats what we really want to be able to do. Maybe we just wish we were better at hiding our problems from other people?

Also, I really disagree that someone can choose to be happy or sad. You can control your attitude (i.e. how you hold yourself and treat the world around you), but you can't control your mood (i.e. if you're unhappy, you're unhappy). Just because someone is smiling, it doesn't mean they're happy.

hey at least she can fake it...I can't even do that anymore:(

On 2/20/2016 at 3:12 AM, jwalk said:

Most of the examples you have given are examples of adopting a positive attitude, not examples of choosing your mood (some of the examples you have given are actually the end results - e.g.Stop caring what other people think and stop worrying so much - you're not providing any insight onhow to achieve this). A mood is how you feel inside, an attitude is how you present yourself to the world. Your not really choosing to be happy or sad, you're choosing to do things or adopt behaviour that may or may not make you happy or sad. There's a difference. Its the difference between your mood and your attitude.

I agree that you should adopt a positive attitude, but I find it condescending to suggest that you have an innate ability to "choose" how you feel whenever you wish. You have the ability to adopt behavior that may or may not affect how you feel. Asking yourself for anything more is asking yourself for too much.

The only reason I bring this up is that for a long time I genuinely believe that it was my fault that I was unhappy. I blamed myself for being miserable and being unable to change my mood. I know others who have felt like this and have succumbed to the guilt imposed on them by others when they are told to "just cheer up" or to "stop worrying" or to "stop feeling sorry for yourself". As so many people were telling me this, I assumed i was wrong and this led me to think that I was wrong as a person. I've since realised that I am right and I no longer bow down to their perceptions of life. I will quite often call people out when I think they are wrong. it doesn't win me many friends, but at least it relieves my anxieties.

What we're really talking about is pretending to be happy in the hope that it may lead to real happiness. You've given some good examples of this. I've been pretending for about twenty years, sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. I keep trying for the times it does work.

i like how you worded this.

Acne has destroyed my confidence... I hide myself constantly, lower my face. I notice when I'm with people I no longer have things to say because I just feel so overwhelmed with anxiety - when I used to be nonstop chatty and happy.

From the moment I wake to the moment I go to bed it's all I think about. I cry daily. I feel physically sick when I get home from work from the pure anxiety i've had all day being around people and looking at my face. I honestly came home yesterday and wanted to throw up.

all I want is what others are naturally born with. I'm so exhausted and tired of feeling like this, being ashamed of myself. I feel my anxiety must definately contribute to my skin issues, but it's a never ending cycle because i'm only feeling like this because of my skin.

1 hour ago, Lore91 said:

Acne has destroyed my confidence... I hide myself constantly, lower my face. I notice when I'm with people I no longer have things to say because I just feel so overwhelmed with anxiety - when I used to be nonstop chatty and happy.

From the moment I wake to the moment I go to bed it's all I think about. I cry daily. I feel physically sick when I get home from work from the pure anxiety i've had all day being around people and looking at my face. I honestly came home yesterday and wanted to throw up.

all I want is what others are naturally born with. I'm so exhausted and tired of feeling like this, being ashamed of myself. I feel my anxiety must definately contribute to my skin issues, but it's a never ending cycle because i'm only feeling like this because of my skin.

I feel you. I totally have been controlled by my acne. I spent all day on here...it is not fair, I've seen hobos and old ladies with nice clear skin.
im not even employed and frankly I can't see myself getting hired with the 0 confidence I have and the utter complacency that's taken over my life. Its a good thing I'm on meds cause I'd probably be super depressed if not.
I hope you feel better!