Yup, this has happened to me on several occasions. I've come to realize though that very few people have decent skin in harsh lighting...but yeah, can definitely relate. I feel like if my acne scars were replaced with surgical scars or some other injury scar, I would receive sympathy, but for whatever reason, I only receive judgement for my scars JUST because they were caused by acne. Like I constantly have to justify the state of my skin and explain that I didn't pick or anything and that severe acne IS a disease and CAN leave someone with disfigurement. Honestly, I think that's the worst aspect of acne scarring..if people at least felt bad instead of asking questions I'd feel much better. Too many people are ignorant on acne scarring and how it's caused.

Do you have any deep scarring? I used Dermaflage on my two deepest scars, and just covering those two scars instantly transforms my entire face. It may be worth looking into. I also use a glycerin based face wash and pore tightening toner before applying makeup and it drastically improves the appearance of my scarring.

ugh i can relate to you because there have been times when i have been outside and looked in a mirror and caught a glimpse of my skin that just made it looks like my scars were so much worse and its just devastating. nobody can ever understand what it feels like unless they have been through it themselves. the hardest part is knowing that you wont ever look the way you used to look and that hurts so much because its like you want things to go back to how they were before so bad. it really is crazy how people can think you are vain when they have absolutely no idea what you are going through. my own mom said that one day i wont care so much and that its not a big deal but yet she goes on and on about her wrinkles which arent very hard to correct. everybody ages not everybody has scars ya know?

the only thing i can tell you is to delete those pics and just try to focus on all the good things about yourself and keep busy. for me keeping busy really helps because it gives me less time to dwell on things and also working out helps to keep me sane. one thing i can say is that scars never look as bad to other people as they do to you. hang in there and if you ever need to chat pm me.

Oy vey.... my thoughts exactly. Every time I think I've made progress, I catch my reflection in different lighting and immediately all those horrible feelings start welling up inside me. I've put myself through so much anguish by doing many many aggressive procedures. There were times when I made things significantly worse and it took even more time and money to correct the damage. Like you said, it has literally changed who I am as a person. It literally consumes most of my thoughts each day. I'm so sick and tired of researching, planning, and hiding out. I feel like a shadow of my former self. I've lost a lot in my scar journey, and I'm not even talking about the tremendous financial strain it has put on me. It has pushed me to the brink emotionally so many times.

What drives me crazy is that in this day and age with all the advancements we have made in all other areas of reconstructive surgery, acne scarring treatment, especially for the severe kind, is still so behind. People absolutely judge acne scarring differently then other kinds of disfigurement. I've experienced just the most hateful and awful comments from complete strangers about my face and that shit will eat you up inside. The last few years have been such a dark period in my life, and I'm only now coming out the other end and rebuilding.

Acne and the scarring that happens to the more unfortunate ones is dismissed and trivialized. People just do not understand the damage it does to your psyche and how it can literally change the course of a person's life. Dating, career choices..... hell just living the way you want to becomes difficult because you cannot get past that mental and emotional hurdle. I've read so many accounts of people who's lives have been turned upside down by this, and it is so depressing to see how some of them were so distressed that they made terrible choices and then came out truly disfigured. At one point, I was teetering on that edge myself after suffering worse damage from aggressive treatments.

All we can do is try our best and to support each other and hopefully our collective experience and wisdom can help someone from making hasty decisions with lifelong consequences.

I know we shouldn't dwell on the negative but it feels good to just let that shit out sometimes....

Please, don't stress!! Even if it sounds weird, photos can make person look much worse.

I have very similar experience like you. When I used my Samsung Galaxy phone camera and took pictures of my face, I freaked out. It brought out all the details, sharpened the edges, increased the contrast of my skin and made the saturation of my red marks so high! I was devastated. But then I checked pictures of my friend in my phone (she has flawless skin) and I could clearly see her wrinkles (which for me didn't exist) and her skin shined oily and was full of pores. The same for my boyfriend. On some pictures my skin looked even better than his (even he has no pimple or scar).

So pictures CAN lie The most important thing is to focus on the healing and repairing process.

I know it can be devastating and frustrating. I just got a reply on my "dream job" application, which I've send 1 and half year ago, that they are interested in me and I can come for an interview. This job requires a professional look and all I can say to this job today is GOOD BYE, because when I applied for it, my skin was flawless and my confidence high. Today, my skin is full of scars and I am hiding them with hair and I mostly don't even go out. BUT I know, that there is a solution. I am going to try needling and I know it will be a long journey and will be not easy. But there is a hope!

Because where the hope ends, the hell begins...

Good luck to all warriors! We will win this battle

So eloquently said and I can relate so much. It is a silent tragedy we experience every single day. And I agree that there is more shame in acne scarring than if the scarring had happened from an accident or some other sympathetic event. Yesterday I had a consultation with a plastic surgeon, and those can often leave you feeling ten times worse. But he was the nicest man and when he asked how this impacted my life I was so surprised, not expecting someone to actually ask me, that I started crying. He told me that I am pretty and it is not as bad as I think and not to let it control my life. I think that is true for a lot of us.

Don't believe those pictures. They illuminate unevenness artificially and no one in natural light will see your skin that way. And Liberte, I think you should go on that job interview. If you can build yourself up and speak to the best of your ability you will feel confident and happy that, despite everything, you can still be the person you truly are. I had a job interview on Tuesday and felt that way afterwards. Regardless of whether I get it, I feel I did my best and my words were focused on more than my scars. I think as we work on our skin, we also need to work on projecting confidence and continuing to face the world.

Wow thanks guys for all the supporting words. I really appreciate it. You guy's are the only people who truly understand and quite possibly ever will. I am so thankful for this online community we have formed where even on our darkest day's we can seek support from one another. I really try hard to remain positive and optimistic all the time but sometimes you just have those gut wrenching day's where you just need to let it out, just like blahblah said.

Liberte, your comment truly saved me! Knowing that you had the exact same experience makes me feel like I'm not crazy. I was using the same cursed camera you did, Samsung Galaxy, and you're right everything was ultra magnified! Even super, super fine lines, invisible to the naked eye, looked deep and obvious. And like you mentioned, my cheeks looked really oily even though they never are. Maybe it's just the camera? I was using front facing camera and I'm sure anybody who saw Ellen's monologue knows what that's all about. From now on I am just going to stick with monitoring my scars progress in the lighting & angles I have practically memorized.

And Liberte, I am so happy to hear you got a reply back from your dream job but so sad to hear that your skin is holding you back from it. Truly breaks my heart </3. I know it's easy to say just go and do the interview (although, that's what I would love for you to do) but I know it is extremely difficult to actually take that step. Although, if you ever do find that inner strength to go it would be awesome! I remember there was a time when I was so self conscious and depressed because of my skin, I actually considered leaving my wonderful job to work as a warehouse shelf stocker so I could be seen by people as little as possible. But in the end, I didn't leave my job and along the way have met co-workers who have become such good friends of mine.

Michi, your plastic surgeon sounds like a keeper. I am just as surprised as you to hear that he actually asked you about the impact of the scars on your life. Most dermatologists never even care to ask. This surgeon seems like he really cares about you as a person and not just your money.

Missamu, I've tried dermaflage in the past but did not like it much. Maybe I will try it again sometime. But I am really interested in trying out some glycerin soap. Thanks so much for sharing that tip with me!

Tracy, I took your advice and deleted those pictures. Out of sight and hopefully will be out of mind

Again guy's, thanks so very much for all your lovely words, relatable experiences and support! It's the best feeling in the world to know that people actually understand what you're going through and can truly relate. Makes ya feel more sane. Don't know what I would do without you guy's!

A little bit of a tangent, but MIssauma I totally agree that minute changes can make a huge impact. Our eyes are trained to zero in on deeper defects and it's surprising how addressing just only the deepest scars can instantly, and exponentially improve our appearance. There's a saying that "beauty is measured in millimeters" which is so true.

Yup, this has happened to me on several occasions. I've come to realize though that very few people have decent skin in harsh lighting...but yeah, can definitely relate. I feel like if my acne scars were replaced with surgical scars or some other injury scar, I would receive sympathy, but for whatever reason, I only receive judgement for my scars JUST because they were caused by acne. Like I constantly have to justify the state of my skin and explain that I didn't pick or anything and that severe acne IS a disease and CAN leave someone with disfigurement. Honestly, I think that's the worst aspect of acne scarring..if people at least felt bad instead of asking questions I'd feel much better. Too many people are ignorant on acne scarring and how it's caused.

Do you have any deep scarring? I used Dermaflage on my two deepest scars, and just covering those two scars instantly transforms my entire face. It may be worth looking into. I also use a glycerin based face wash and pore tightening toner before applying makeup and it drastically improves the appearance of my scarring.

Blahblah, I always think to myself if only my deepest scars would improve ( I have about 3) then I could make peace with the rest of my skin. But aren't those harder to fix? I just really hope dermastamping will level them out eventually.

Can I ask what treatments you've gone through? I'm about to hit my 2 year post Accutane mark and going to start some treatments. Subcision, dermastamp and saline injections are at the top of my list since those are the cheapest options and least invasive compared to more aggressive treatments. I'm just worried I'll do more damage than good if I get desperate enough to try laser resurfacing..

Oy vey.... my thoughts exactly. Every time I think I've made progress, I catch my reflection in different lighting and immediately all those horrible feelings start welling up inside me. I've put myself through so much anguish by doing many many aggressive procedures. There were times when I made things significantly worse and it took even more time and money to correct the damage. Like you said, it has literally changed who I am as a person. It literally consumes most of my thoughts each day. I'm so sick and tired of researching, planning, and hiding out. I feel like a shadow of my former self. I've lost a lot in my scar journey, and I'm not even talking about the tremendous financial strain it has put on me. It has pushed me to the brink emotionally so many times.

What drives me crazy is that in this day and age with all the advancements we have made in all other areas of reconstructive surgery, acne scarring treatment, especially for the severe kind, is still so behind. People absolutely judge acne scarring differently then other kinds of disfigurement. I've experienced just the most hateful and awful comments from complete strangers about my face and that shit will eat you up inside. The last few years have been such a dark period in my life, and I'm only now coming out the other end and rebuilding.

Acne and the scarring that happens to the more unfortunate ones is dismissed and trivialized. People just do not understand the damage it does to your psyche and how it can literally change the course of a person's life. Dating, career choices..... hell just living the way you want to becomes difficult because you cannot get past that mental and emotional hurdle. I've read so many accounts of people who's lives have been turned upside down by this, and it is so depressing to see how some of them were so distressed that they made terrible choices and then came out truly disfigured. At one point, I was teetering on that edge myself after suffering worse damage from aggressive treatments.

All we can do is try our best and to support each other and hopefully our collective experience and wisdom can help someone from making hasty decisions with lifelong consequences.

I know we shouldn't dwell on the negative but it feels good to just let that shit out sometimes....

Any and everything you can think of. I've been around the block and back that's for sure. Surprisingly enough, chemical peels and dermarolling / stamping are the only ones I haven't really tried. Subcision, fillers, co2 laser, TCA cross, excisions, and also spot dermabrasion. The dermabrasion was by far the most aggressive and toughest recovery. Mind you, I've never done full face treatments because my scars are only prominent on the cheeks. I've had improvement, but some treatments I had did not heal well, so I had to expend a lot of effort (and money) sometimes to get back to square one. A lot of setbacks on my scar journey for sure..... I'm at a place now where it is the best it's looked in years, but the scarring is still bad by most accounts.

hey blahblah82 you mentioned above you had spot dermabrasion? how did you that work out for you? i plan on getting it done in a few months on my chin for the raised scars. i have already tried peels, erbium yag laser and 2 sessions of co2 (100% ablative not fractional) laser on that area and it didnt do much so this is the next and last thing to get done to try and smooth down these scars. they arent that raised but they look very odd on my chin so the new plastic surgeon i saw said that this is really the only thing that would help. he did say since they are in the dermis he doesnt think he can get rid of them but that he can smooth them down enough that they will blend in more with the rest of my skin. he did mention the healing was like the co2 but i just wandered if you had good results from it and if it was worth it.

It was a really hard recovery for me because for whatever reason I had delayed healing. Typically if the dermabrasion is done correctly it should be completely re-epithelialized by 10 days. Anything over 2 weeks to heal is when you know something has gone wrong. Luckily, my doctor intervened quickly so we were able to get the healing back on track. Initially the result was pretty amazing, but as the months progressed it did diminish.

From what I've read, dermabrasion is good for sculpting raised scars flat. It is better for this purpose than for atrophic acne scars because in that case you'd have to sand down a lot of the normal skin to the level of the scar. Imagine the topography of your skin as hills and valleys, so essentially you are trying to sand down the ridges or "hills" down to the level of the valleys so you reduce the shadowing. If they are not too raised like you say, I think it will work.

Cool thank you so very much for the info. I really appreciate it!!

Wow, that definitely sounds like a long and hard journey you've had to go through. How were results from the co2 laser? I've had my eye on that treatment if all else fails.

Any and everything you can think of. I've been around the block and back that's for sure. Surprisingly enough, chemical peels and dermarolling / stamping are the only ones I haven't really tried. Subcision, fillers, co2 laser, TCA cross, excisions, and also spot dermabrasion. The dermabrasion was by far the most aggressive and toughest recovery. Mind you, I've never done full face treatments because my scars are only prominent on the cheeks. I've had improvement, but some treatments I had did not heal well, so I had to expend a lot of effort (and money) sometimes to get back to square one. A lot of setbacks on my scar journey for sure..... I'm at a place now where it is the best it's looked in years, but the scarring is still bad by most accounts.

u cant win this battle ...the only time we will ever reach happiness is when we leave the hell called our life

It has been a long, hard, and often lonely thing to go through, because other people don't even try to understand. The deepest conversations I've had about all this has been with people on here that I've never met, and yet they understand completely where I am coming from.

As for co2 laser, I feel like I got mixed results. I only did one session, so it wasn't really enough to make a big impact. I feel like other people who really committed themselves to the treatment like Inspired and Slee are probably better equipped to give their opinions on that particular modality.

Did you have the traditional co2 laser or co2 fractional? I apologize if I come off uneducated on laser resurfacing, there are so many and even after two years of research I still get a little confused.

Also, for the people on this post... most of my scars are very shallow (aside from a few VERY deep ones), and by that I mean that many of them actually look like hyper pigmentation in most lighting except in sunlight, where you can see that they are an ever so slight indentation. My problem with these are that despite the fact that they are shallow, they are all wide, at least an inch and some over an inch, so they are still noticeable. No amount of makeup covers them..surprisingly, it just looks like a persistent "shadow" on my skin.

Has anyone had success with tightening any of their super shallow scars? Or what might be better referred to as badly textured skin? My deepest ones I can at least cover for the most part with the Dermaflage but the shallow ones are still very obvious and since they cover most of my face it makes my skin very dull and my cheekbones much less contoured looking. I had very prominent cheekbones prior to all of this scarring, and while the structure of my face is obviously the same, my scarring completely distorts the contours of my cheekbones and makes my face shape look completely different. It's incredibly frustrating.

Thank you guys for those warm words I'll go for the interview, just to try.

Rob, I think you CAN win the battle. There are people, who did Just don't lose the hope.

Missamua, did you try loose powder? I realized that liquid foundation makes the edges of my scars somehow sharper, but the loose powder makes them blend in. It is hard to explain, but it works for me better

my face is probs the insanest thing ive ever seen. >~< im so fuking tired of all those new effects and looks it gets, idk what its actual shape and state is anymore ffs =_= i just know its bad af. well sometimes itll look fresh and young like its supposed to. 12-15 yrs even and then i go somewhere else and who the fuck is that?? i dont know this person! they looks like needs to be hospitalized asap, meth addict of a 20 yr exp. idk its also a such a fuking tease. like ill finally capture myself looking somewhat acceptable by my standarts tht i wouldnt be ashamed to even post on fb fe or even rly like wht i see, but then i just remember wht if they see me irl nd i look like a corpse thts falling appart right there??? bitch ppl will start spreading rumors nd i dont need none of this shit, i just wanna be pretty in all places nd lightnings nd they better see tht but i dont think its fuking gonna happen? cos nothing damned works..im just loosing my mind when i should be loosing fat and acne!!

i will be happy being single ) girls are just to superficial these days ...but ...the way the younger generation are towards values etc i'd rather be single lol

Unfortunately, I think most people are superficial, not so much a gender issue in my experience.

I can't and don't even want to count the amount of times I've been rejected over my skin or have had guys say I'd be pretty if I didn't have scars (behind my back). One thing I will say is that men can pull of some scarring and texture issues and look "rough" and sexy but with women it's much harder to pull that off.

Regardless, scarring sucks for anyone that has it.

i will be happy being single ) girls are just to superficial these days ...but ...the way the younger generation are towards values etc i'd rather be single lol

Wow, this thread is scary. It is like reading the story of my life. I can definitely relate.

I have some of the most severe acne acarring on this forum, however, I have never heard any negative comment on my skin, I'm probably lucky because it would definitely be devastating for me.

Ive become obsessed about my skin to the point where I think about it all the time. Im afraid to meet new people, and when I do, I always try find a place with a good lighting that will hide my skin issues. Sometimes I cant focus on anything they say, I just wonder if they can see my scars and judge me.

^ God, reading this made me feel like a total nutjob. This is sad.

Sometimes I wonder, though... Maybe its all in my head?

Last week I went out clubbing with my friend and met a few guys who said I'm handsome and one girl who called me "beautiful", lol. It was def a confidence boost for me. For a few hours I forgot about my problems and it felt amazing. But the next day it all came back.

think of it this way ...most people don't know what the elle there talking about anyway