Thanks so much for this post. It's nice to see some positivity on here.

@FromScarredtoFreeHey look I totally get it. I used to enjoy Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and hard contact sports, but because my skin gets so dry and weak and full of cysts, I'd often bleed or pop a cyst by accident. It ruined sports for me during college and I havent returned to it in years. Due to that, I feel like I lost a giant part of myself that I couldve seriously enjoyed.However I'm making the effort to not let it take anymore away from me.

Also i've realized a painful truth about scarring treatments- It will never give you the results you truly want. These scars are here to stay. We need to accept that. Don't bother obsessing over them, because it wont satisfy you.

What will satisfy you is the life experiences you have with these scars. Keep finding moments to enjoy your life and do all the things that make you happy. And guaranteed the more enjoyable experiences you get, the more you slowly can accept the scars. Because then you realize that it was never the scars that made you unhappy, it was truly yourself.

i'll give you an example, I met my first love after having scars. The reason she didn't care? Because I didn't care. I also made her laugh. I also was romantic. When I finally confessed later in the relationship that I felt insecure about my scars- she said she didn't care. And that my scars made me beautiful. Ever since then, i realized beauty is truly in the eyes of the beholder. And if you don't let your scars destroy you, but rather strengthen you, and make you a positive force, others will take note of that positive strength FAR more than your scars. They will be drawn by it. Its truly a mental thing. Its the energy you carry.

For instance, I put my positive strength into this post- and that drew you. There is something undeniable about being absurdly positive that can help overcome our demons. Try it. Put it in your dance, your relationships, your sunny days. It may not be immediate, but there will come a time when you truly dont care about your scars because you are enjoying yourself.

14 hours ago, omgacnefml said:

Also i've realized a painful truth about scarring treatments- It will never give you the results you truly want.

This isn't true. A lot of people have had great success with scarring treatments.

14 hours ago, omgacnefml said:

The reason she didn't care? Because I didn't care.

Are you sure about this? Because two sentences later you wrote...

14 hours ago, omgacnefml said:

When I finally confessed later in the relationship that I felt insecure about my scars

... which suggests that you actually do care about your scars, otherwise you wouldn't feel insecure about them. Do you mean that you pretended not to care?

14 hours ago, omgacnefml said:

but there will come a time when you truly dont care about your scars because you are enjoying yourself.

Are you there yet? Or are you still insecure about your scars? If you're not there yetand you are still insecure, how do you know that there will come a time when you truly don't care?

@jwalk

lol my man with the essay analysis, ok il try to answer:

1)Scar treatment results vary ALOT for people. And In my personal opinion, considering the high cost, i don't find it particularly worth it at the moment. So its a personal opinion that is gathered from a lot of stories i've seen online. Considering that results vary, I believe you shouldnt stake all your hopes on it.

2) Let me rephrase the "I didn't care"- it was that I didn't let it stop me from living my life and being my best self. When she met me, she felt I was confidant and funny and not at all bothered by my scars. Was it pretending? Yes and No. My motto is "Fake it till you make it"- so I've learned to fake my confidence enough to actually FEEL truly confident at times.

3) But yes I do still have insecurities from my scars when I look in the mirror from time to time, but as I live my life and gain more enjoyable experiences, It gets easier. When I say "there will come a time when you dont care and you are enjoying yourself" I'm not sayiing you will FOREVER get over yours scars- thats completely up to you and i'm definetly not there yet either- I mean to say, you wont care about your scars as much and you will occasionally have good times in your life where you completely forget about them.

Ultimately i'm trying to say that if you live your life and seek good times- it gets EASIER. You may still have insecurities, you may still feel sad about it once in a while, and thats ok. Not everything gets solved right away, life is never that simple. But i'm saying there will come times that you completely forget about your scars because your living in the moment. There will come times you realize you can still have fun and enjoy life regardless of your scars. And in those moments, you realize it wasn't your scars preventing from enjoying life, it was just your fears and doubts and insecurities.

4 hours ago, omgacnefml said:

Let me rephrase the "I didn't care"- it was that I didn't let it stop me from living my life and being my best self.

I think this is what I was getting at. There's a difference between not caring and pretending not to care. There's nothing wrong with pretending and I agree with the "fake it til you make it" philosophy, but you should really call a spade a spade. You haven't stopped caring, you're pretending not to care in order to live your life in the way you want to live it. That's absolutely fine.

4 hours ago, omgacnefml said:

And in those moments, you realize it wasn't your scars preventing from enjoying life, it was just your fears and doubts and insecurities.

To be honest I think everyone in the world knows that its primarily down to your fears, doubts and insecurities. The question is how to remove them. There seems to be a belief that you can just stop thinking and feeling in a certain way, but I don't think that's true. You can always behave differently, but your feelings are beyond your control.

I am also a sufferer from severe acne scars.

I totally agree with you that nobody does not care about the scars. It is always just me who cares about it.
I know about it and I try to be positive but it is damn too hard.. I think it is just impossible for me. I do not think my life can be happy with these severe scars on my face.

I am planning on treating my scars.. It will take at least a year. I am going to spend my whole 2019 on treating my scars and it will be my last time trying to fix my scars. I just don't want to regret.. I will at least try my best before I give up. It will be painful and expensive but meh.. I will get over it.

But as you mentioned, I also know one guy who has bad scarring but he seems to live his life happily. Sadly, I just can't live with this scars on my face.

Hopefully everything works out very well for both of us and all other scarring sufferers.

@jwalk you are very right, feelings can be extremely hard, and at times impossible to control. Totally agree. There are times when I feel shitty, i dont feel comfortable doing certain things and I just wont do it. And its ok to do that sometimes. Its important to feel like doing something, so that you can actually enjoy it.

But I suppose the message I'd like to give is that just as feelings fuel your actions, actions can fuel your feelings. Ive seen studies on it as well experimentation with myself. It essentially falls into the "fake it till you make it" idea. By which I mean, even though you may not 100% feel like doing something, if you do it, it might actually make you FEEL better afterwards.

For example, i've had days where i was too depressed to get out of bed. And sometimes i think its ok to stay in bed and take some time for yourself. But overall its unrealistic to do that everyday. At some point I had to push myself out of bed and go to class or to work. And ironically, there were some days that start out with me being too depressed to get out of bed that actually end up being good days where I do something productive that I'm proud of or I do something fun that makes me forget my troubles. So whileI wasn't necessary feeling like I could have a good day, the actions I took allowed me to still have one.

So therefore I believe it's important to still TRY things out from time to time and stepping out of your comfort zone, even if you're not fully feeling it. It won't be all the time, but it has a chance to lead you to a better place emotionally than before.

@GimozziI understand. It can be hard to be positive. And I definetly hope your treatment goes well! Please let me know if the results are what you wanted!

But I do feel the need to say, that you can be surprised what you can actually live with once you reevaluate your standards. I don't necessarily mean lower it, but focus it on different parts of yourself, like your personality, your work, your social life, etc.

I dont mean to come off like some wise Yoda or anything, because clearly I'm still young and dealing with it myself. But I dont think you should limit yourself on what you can or cant live with. Its all about perspective and having healthy outlets to release any negative energy and stresses.

either way hope you find the peace you're looking for.

Hey, some good posts here guys, its so difficult when you see perfect skinned people everywhere.

I didn't really have any scarring before college; fast forward a few years and my face is destroyed with the shit. But in a weird way, having adult acne in the working world is a bit easier, people are more mature and aware of their actions. They dont care about your skin and most people dont notice your scarring.

Going to try cut out alcohol until Xmas,I remember reading somewhere that is a somewhat toxic liver that affects our skins ability to heal, which makes total sense. I've also been doing liver detoxing (flushes and herbs), to help any scar treatments I do. Gonna start drinking bone broth again because I found it works amazing for my skin and gut issues, perhaps the collagen from that will aid scar healing also?

The most important thing is to not give up, DO SHIT YOU ENJOY! I rejoined a gym this week because I love working out and I've a pretty decent body and decent genetics other than having bad skin.

I'm also a huge believer in positive energy, that it actually draws good people and situations into your life, but also negative stuff if thats what you focus on. But for it to work for you, you have to FEEL & THINK positively at all times, even in the worst or saddening situations which is the hardest part. Read up about the law of the attraction, I've had too many coincidences this year for this to be classed as new age bogus crap. Visualizating the good things that you want in life, positive affirmations will help too. Conor McGregor, Jim Carrey among others are huge believers of this law, and it worked for them because they had their mindset geared perfectly towards their goals.

Comforting to see a new thread on this on the site, knowing others are going through the same thing. What keeps me alive is family friends and you guys, so lets keep fighting this together.

Hey guys a lot of good posts on this topic and Id like to chime in. I think its a little bit of an overstatement to say "nobody notices yours scars". I totally agree on the fact that 99% of people aren't looking at someones face to specifically try to find scars like us acne scar sufferers and I agree that generally for the most part they don't look at someones face and in their head say "ACNE SCARS", unless they are really severe to the point where they overtake someones entire face. I think the real judgement or impressions is a subconscious one. I think when someone looks at your face they take in the whole picture, and they make a judgement based on what they see to decide how attractive you are. Acne scars can be more so of a subconscious variable in peoples eyes where they might think your less attractive overall than someone who has baby smooth skin but it isn't something that they look for specifically to determine your attractiveness. A great example Ive found is with male baldness. I am in my 20s and luckily never lost any hair or worried about hair loss but I do realize that hair loss in men is a HUGE issue that affects a lot of guys and can cause a lot of the similar pain we feel as scar suffers because treatments for hair loss are very expensive and not always effective. Since I never worried about hair loss I literally would NEVER notice if someone is losing hair or is going bald. When I see a guy or girl I literally don't even think about it. But in the mind of someone with thinning or losing hair they probally think that everyone notices. People who are struggling going bald probally look at everyone elses hair to see if they are going bald. Although I don't specifically notice hair thinning or hair loss, when I look at someone who has it my brain subconsciously makes assesments based on what I'm seeing. Sometimes Id look at a guy and wonder "why do I feel like this guy is older than he is?" And I would start looking at their facial features, body type etc until I realized "ohh theyre losing hair" which in my mind equates to being older. I feel like this is the same premise when someone looks at someone with acne scarring. They aren't fully focused on your scars at all but they might deem you to be less attractive or even more attractive (a lot of girls say they like guys with a rough and rugged look) based on what theyre brain tells them right when they see you. I saw a statistic that says people decide within 5 seconds of looking at you whether they are attracted to you or not. As scar suffers we spend hours looking at specific parts of our face finding the tiniest scars or tiniest shadows and worry about people judging us on those. Sure, if you get in a relationship with someone over time through different experiences and them seeing you in different lighting they might see more and more scars but at the end of the day the first impression is really the most important one.