Hi everyone.

I often feel I need to get my acne feelings off my chest, but I don't want to bother anyone in my life with it. Heck, when I do bother someone with my acne feelings, I usually end up feeling worse because of their awkward reaction. So here I am, ready to share it all with you. I hope I can help some of you, and I hope some of you can help me.

I'm a woman in my mid-twenties with a stressful grad school life. I first got acne after puberty pretty bad, but it went away when I started taking combination oral contraception. My skin was great until I was 20 and had to stop taking the pill because of some migraine problems. I went on a progesterone-only pill at that time and my acne came back worse than ever. I stopped that pill after a year, hoping the acne would go, but alas, it has been raging on ever since. I imagine it like some evil faction antagonizing my face; some days lying low, but back the next day to wage a multi-front assault on my face and ego. Never resting. I digress...

After years of fighting the daily acne fight, I've got an accutane prescription lined up. I have to clear the iPledge stuff in the next couple of months, but I thought I'd get a journal going ahead of time since I have so much on my mind.

I tried lots of things to deal with it...

Ignoring it; this never really worked.

BP; never gave me great results and tragically ruined some of my favorite clothes of all time (RIP).

Tea tree oil, salicylic acid, and other naturals; never worked, variably stinky and irritating.

Supplements; this, along with diet changes gave me the best results. Zinc, B complex, vitamin D, vitex, fish oil, acidophilus. In the end it was too expensive. I'd like to get back on a few now that I am slightly less than broke.

Diet changes; I still avoid dairy, keep it as low carb as possible, and eat lots of veggies, but I have relaxed about this. I love food and cooking, and after 3 months of strict acne dieting with mediocre results, I had to ease up. So, I eat white rice and pasta now, I nibble cheese, and mango and pineapple are back in my life. I still don't eat refined sugar (except when I cave).

Doxycycline 20 mg 2X/day; my new derm put me on this one month ago to take until I can finally start accutane in November. So far, not much has changed in my skin, sadly.

My skincare routine is just washing twice a day with Avalon Organics vitamin C cleanser, using some 10% BP on my inflamed spots at night, and Eucerine Daily Protection SPF 15 moisturizer in the morning. Sometimes I do a minty green tea honey mask thing which feels nice and cooling and exfoliates a little.

Now for some feelings... I won't be able to start the pills til November 11. I have faith in accutane, and I believe I will come out clear on the other side. Still, the matter of waiting has been hard to handle, and strangely I have been feeling more sensitive about my acne than ever before. The last three weekends in a row I've broken down and cried about it in front of my boyfriend. Today I told him I didn't want to come to a party (that I promised to attend) because I didn't want to meet all his friends looking like I do. I teared up in the bathroom at a wedding last weekend because the bright light in there made my fresh breakout look so bad. It feels good to be alone right now with no one looking at me. It takes a lot not to think about my skin when I am talking to anyone, even friends and family.

...there you have it. Thanks for reading. These photos are from today.