The Price People With Acne Have To Pay

I know you feel left behind, alone, unwanted. I know you feel like nobody cares, like nobody understands what you’re going through. You are spending your most beautiful years in pain, worrying about acne. You tried opening up to someone about your problem, you shared your deepest feelings with friends, but they don’t get it. You regretted talking to them in the first place. You’ve become depressive and suicidal, because you feel like nobody would like you the way you are and you are right. Nobody likes seeing people with acne.

If you cannot bear staring at your own face in the mirror, why should others? Since you got acne, people saw you differently. They started saying bad comments, asking “What’s wrong with you?” I know—I have been there, but the real question is “What’s wrong with them?” They know they are hurting your feelings by reminding you every day that you don’t have a clear skin, but they still do it. What’s wrong with them? Why can’t they accept you the way you are? Why can’t they understand that it’s not your fault that you’ve got acne? Why can’t they see behind your skin? Why do they leave you? Why can’t they see that you are a good person?

Time flies. You’ve become more damaged. You don’t let anyone near you and you spend most of your days in your room, alone. You continue telling yourself to be strong, that you have to be strong, while you cry, but a part of you just wants to end it. You are hurt, you are disappointed, you are tired, you are hopeless… So you go to a dermatologist, you take drugs like benzoyl peroxide, salicylic acid, doxycycline, even isotretinoin, the most strong and dangerous acne-clearing drug.

You don’t care that you dry and burn your skin, you don’t care that you have chapped lips, that you have headaches, that you have trouble sleeping, that you are sun-sensitive and if you don’t use suncream, you get burned or you might even get skin cancer. You don’t care that you get tenderness of your bones, that you have hair loss, that your eyes are red and you see blurry, that you have stomach cramps, that you damage your liver, your whole body. You don’t care about your mental health, that you suffer more from depression and suicidal thoughts. You really don’t care about yourself, don’t you?

You just want to be accepted, to feel normal. So you finish your treatment and you feel great for a few months, your self-esteem is back and people treat you differently. They don’t ignore you when you say something, they actually see you and like what they see, they ask you to go out and you might even get a boyfriend/girlfriend. I wish this was it and you lived happily ever after, you have suffered enough, you don’t deserve to suffer anymore, but life is pain.

Your acne came back and you decided to be strong enough to handle it without medications. You changed your diet, you drank more water, you tried using olive, soda, eggs, honey, everything natural that was recommended to you. Still nothing and you welcomed back the depression and the suicidal thoughts. Your significant other left you. You have no one. What’s keeping you from killing yourself? You know that you will never get rid of acne, that you have to use drugs your whole life if you want to fake that you are normal. So you go back on the drugs. You struggle every day with yourself and you hate the fact that you are you. You wish you were an ordinary person and not have to worry about your skin, but you wake up everyday with your acne-infested skin and you feel miserable.

You know that your skin is going to get clear with all of those drugs that you use, but you can never stop using them and you will have to pay all the side effects, with more severe illnesses that may be just around the corner because of the drugs. If you are a woman, you can’t get pregnant while using them because they cause birth defects, so that means you will have to sacrifice having a baby. It’s sad. Everything you do to have a clear skin. Is this all worth it? What’s going to happen after 5 years? All I know is that you can’t handle another breakout anymore. You are hurt and you would rather die than suffer everything back again.