I feel like ever since I got acne scars I obsess over my appearance a lot more. Like my shitty skin made me care about the rest of my looks a lot more. These indentations just consume way too much of my time and energy.
Can anybody else relate? And if so, how did you break out of the obsessive cycle? Like I'm always looking at my indentations and the rest of my appearance and worrying that I look bad when I'm in public because of potentially bad lighting.
Maybe I just need to fix the scars. I gotta get on that for real.
Even when I had clear skin I had horrible acne scars that on my pale skin were very red and visible. I stared at them obsessively in the mirror and started feeling like the state of my skin made me more insecure about the rest of my features. All of a sudden I didn't like my hair color, my body, my clothes, all these superficial things I had never been overly concerned with. I started thinking my eyebrows were too sparse, my eyelashes not visible, etc. I had this mindset that since my acne was bad that was all anybody would see even if i did fix these other things. No matter how nice my hair or style was it wouldn't matter because my skin was shit and people would see that. So i didn't even try and fix these new things i was obsessing about. I'm still trying to break that cycle but here's some things i've learned in the process.
There are lots of treatments to help with scarring depending on the type of acne scars you have. But when it comes to your physical appearance it's important to remember this. Do whatever you need to do to feel good - dress up, put on some makeup, etc. - but don't tell yourself that you need these things in order to be presentable. It's totally normal, especially with acne scars where you feel like it's the ghost of shitty skin's past haunting you, to obsess over and focus so heavily on them that you begin to do the same with other aspects of your appearance.
For me things that exacerbate that feeling are mirrors and pictures. I limit my time in front of mirrors so that i don't become obsessive and instead spend that time with friends gaining confidence and being comfortable. The more I hang out with people without makeup the more i forget my scars are there. People don't focus on imperfections as much when they like the person they're talking to.Personality is better than an instagram filter and shines through stronger than you know.
Hope this helped!
Yes. I will compulsively take pictures of my face from all angles. I make sure to be under lighting so they look their absolute best. I feel that scarring is actually worse than acne itself. At least with acne you had an endgame cure insight. With the scarring it's not so certain. I feel like mine is so bad that treatments wont make a difference.