This post is more for me than anything. I heard it is always good to let things out. I hope by so, something good will come out of it.
I have suffered with acne for about 15 years and it has really taken a toll on my life, more than I thought it ever would. It started getting bad in HS and then worse in college. I always put on heavy makeup to cover up my face and of course it made it worse. The horrible thing about makeup was that while it was helping me feel somewhat normal on the outside, it was making my acne much worse. I also felt like I was living a double life. In front of people, I tried so hard to be happy but inside I was depressed and I hated life. I kept that up for years and years. I am a christian and had a great group of friends. But I felt judged at church for wearing makeup and it felt unfair. My faith in God is still the most important thing to me but that taught me how people can be. I started getting ice pick scars and from that point on I felt less confident and somehow that things weren't going to be the same anymore. I was so angry inside and had so much bitterness towards my parents who just thought it would go away naturally. They didn't see what it was doing and the damage it would do down the line. It was eating away at my self-esteem. I graduated from college and had a horrible experience at my first job. I ended up quitting and that experience traumatized me. From then on, I haven't been the same. I feel like an idiot sometimes, like socially, emotionally, mentally, I've atrophied. My skin is under control now but I have no friends. Whenever I have tried to open up, I just burst into tears or feel that I will. It's horrible. I am such a sensitive person and a part of me feels like I will never have the kind of life I wanted. It seems like all my friends in HS went to great colleges and are doing something amazing with their lives. They are married, with kids, and I am still stuck. I have no friends and I worry about so many things... I am in school wanting to change careers so who knows how my next job will be, how I will make money, have friends, how I will be in general. It's really sad. I used to have best friends from elementary school and I don't have them anymore. But I still pray and have faith in God's goodness. My skin is clear now but I am such a broken person. I honestly feel like sometimes the whole world is against me even though it's not. I have had so many negative experiences in life. But as I'm writing this, I just want to throw all of this up into the air and let it all go. I don't want this to define me anymore. I'm tired of holding onto it. I hope I can make good friendships and even find a great guy. I find myself wanting to get married and hope someone will come around who will love and accept me for who I am and vice versa.
reading this made me cry, its so sad that you had to go through all that love!
I felt judged when I went to the mosque to pray as well I guess people will always be judgemental no matter wher they are. am glad that your skin is clear now but please don't feel sad and depressed, your young and yu can do so much in your life and achieve so much if yu believe in yourself. and am sure yu will make friends who will be ther for yu and a loving guy too when the time is right........keep your faith in God that's the most important thing
I'm so sorry that you have to go through this T.T Not having any friends is tough and probably very lonely. I can relate to the whole parent thing. I can't stand it when parents don't take things like this seriously!!! My mother would say I broke out becuase I was a "sinnner", didn't give money to the church, or just make up some other bogus excuse -_- but think of it this way.. You can make new friends! You can start that part over. Sorry to hear about the job thing. I sorta hate my job as well.. lol.. very stressful.. I have to worry about making others look nice /: and worry about my boss as well.. every little mistake will make me look bad. But speaking of jobs, I have some coworkers who are very heavily scarred from acne.. but they are actually really sucessful at doing hair!! They make a lot of money and have a lot of clients!! So whenever I have a breakout I don't panic about what others will think becuase.. if they can do it so can I. I also stopped caring so much about what others may think.. yeah it's nice to feel pretty but.. at the end of the day there's just so many other things to focous on. You have a chance to live your life! Even though most of the world is against us.. we will win becuase.. God is on our side and He already won the fight. Hope you can feel better soon! xD
its so sad, i can feel it too, live with scars in whole my face,just make me down, now im 22 and i even dont have bf, somtimes i got sad when people staring at me, and i know what their looking at my ugly face, sometimes i i hope someday my skin can be more acceptable, i already try dermaroller, prp, and fractional laser, and i didnt get good result with it.
Your storys abit like my own but at least you have faith. I belive i'm the embodyment of the realife job from the old testament and lost faith in gods doings a long time ago. I've had crap skin since I was 15 and i'm now 30. I've the same mentality towards my family, my parents said it would sort it's self out especially annoyig seeing my mom was a nurse. I got the best dermatologist in Northern Ireland on the case about 2 years ago and sure enough 10 months of roaccutane and his guidance my skin was looking pretty good but i've a tonne of rolling scars.
All I want in life is a boring existance of wife,kids and mowing the lawn on a saturday but thats a pipe dream until I can prove to myself that I can beat this crap as the one thing in life I wouldn't wish on anybody is to get the skin I've been delt and it would break my heart to watch a kid go through all the shit i've had to put up with.
I wanted to let you know your not the only one thinks like this and i'm sure it's really common. I'm glad I read your story as it's nice to know i'm not completely nuts as there is somebody else who thinks like me out there.
Stay strong and the saying in my head that always keeps me right is "haters going to hate"
Hi Dreamers --- your post really got to me. I can feel your pain and have known it myself. What you're dealing with is post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)...a very common effect of chronic serious acne. The best thing is to talk with a therapist about this, if you can. There are specific things that help with PTSD and you can read about them on the web.
You're soooo lucky your acne is better now. I envy you! My acne has continued my whole adult life unless I do serious antibiotics or complicated regimes like the one below. It has taken a serious toll on my self-esteem because acne is supposed to go away when you're older and mine never did. But then I look around and realize there are many other people in far worse shape. On my morning walk I passed a house with two women on the front porch. One was a young woman in a wheelchair being fed by another woman. It was obvious that the handicapped woman was a quadraplegic. Okay that put things in perspective! Who knows why God gives us certain challenges in life? I heard once that we choose our lives in heaven before we're born, knowing full well what our lives will be like.
I'd say take it slow, Dreamers. Reach out to someone who is struggling...someone with a serious handicap. See if you can help that person in some way...by maybe being a friend or a helper. Look around and see if there is someone who is sitting all alone and sad. Offer to take them to lunch and listen to their problems.
What I'm saying here is that your struggles may be helpful to others, in that you will understand their anguish. And you can be an "angel" for someone else. What goes around, comes around. Someone will reach out to you!
@CVD you are right about the PTSD thing. I have become so overly sensitive and defensive throughout the years. Whenever I feel really down I do think of others that have it worse. At least I can walk and talk and am not bound to a wheelchair etc. When I see others less fortunate than me it is definitely a reality check. Although I do admit it doesn't make me feel better about myself. I feel so selfish sometimes ya know? like this person is on a wheel chair and I'm over here worrying about these scars on my face. my brain is a mess.
Who knows why God gives us certain challenges in life? I heard once that we choose our lives in heaven before we're born, knowing full well what our lives will be like.
Ha-ha! You make me laugh...in a good way! Yeah --- I'm not sure I believe that one but if it's true then there must be a greater purpose to things and our souls are much stronger than we think. However I often anguish over myself and my skin despite seeing others worse off than myself and trying to put things in perspective. I think the PTSD happens because acne is on the face and so visible. It's hard to miss! And we're not supposed to worry about it because there's the myth that it's just a teenage thing. A person in a wheelchair gets sympathy and help...they are visibly handicapped...their anguish is accepted and understood. The same is not true for acne. Women's magazines go on and on about how if you just cleanse right or whatever your skin should be clear. But in reality that's not true for real acne sufferers! And so besides the visible acne to deal with, there's also the mental anguish and then anguish over feeling anguished to begin with. Vicious cycle that makes one crazy! It's a wonder any of us with chronic acne maintains sanity (...or not...).