Acne and Loneliness

Acne can affect more than , I’m here to share with you my personal story about the loneliness and depression that I went through when I was suffering from acne…

I felt like it really singled me out.  But the worst part was that acne didn’t make me lonely.  I think it was me who made myself lonely.  The truth was that a lot of things happened when I had acne and I really felt like they happened because of my acne.

Eventually, I would rather just be alone than with the hurt that acne caused.

So did acne CAUSE loneliness with me?  I wouldn’t say it was a direct correlation, but I would say that physiologically, it does get to you… especially after years and years of suffering from acne.

ACNE CREEPS UP ON YOU 

If you’ve really suffered from acne to the point, like I did, it seemed to seep in deeper than just my skin. I really think acne started to affect me at a subconscious level.

There was a time when everything that I did felt less satisfying because it was tainted by my constant worry about my acne and my face. I really hard a time enjoying activities because most of the time I was still up in my head worrying about my acne scars, how awkward my whiteheads looked, or how the lighting was hitting my face.

Sometimes it would feel like I had a spotlight on that new pimple that forming on the tip of my nose or on my skin.

I would have to excuse myself to go to the bathroom every so often if I was out with my friends because I wanted to make sure that my skin was “still okay.” It was worse if there was somebody that I had a crush on in the group because then my self-consciousness was supersized.

If people would look at me too long or if I got nervous in these social situations I would sometimes break out with sweat on my face. Acne was beginning to become more than just pimples on my face, it was starting to become a social inhibition.

BEING MADE FUN OF BECAUSE YOUR ACNE

There would be many times when I would be out at a social setting and my friends, who probably didn’t mean to do it at the time because I don’t think they fully understood how much an effect acne had on my life, would call me names like Scarface, pimple boy, or acne man.

In college, I even had a friend write a song about my acne. There was a part of the song which made fun of how I worried about my acne so much. At the time, I laughed it off because it was the appropriate thing to do.

And plus, the rest of the song wasn’t that bad. But deep down inside, the part about my acne hit a pretty sensitive spot. I didn’t hate them though, none of them really had acne like I did and they probably didn’t know that I had struggled with acne so much, went through all these different kind of treatments, and spent so much money, time and effort only to have even worse skin.

If you’ve ever been made fun of because of your acne it probably is a sensitive subject for you too. It’s sad because I don’t think a lot of people know the kind of pain and the kind of mental suffering behind this semi-disfiguring condition that just won’t go away no matter what you do.

There were many times when I actually wished that I was fat instead of having acne. Because at least if I were fat, I could hit the gym and work it off. But with acne, I was trying all sorts of things and it didn’t matter how hard I was working. At least if I were fat I could go running, burn the calories, eat healthy. There would be some sort of solution or progress that I could see happening. With acne, it seemed like I was getting nowhere.

Do you work out and take good care of your body? Do you think that it’s unfair that you put yourself through all this hard work and still have less results than you want? Have you ever wondered why your friends don’t do anything at all and still have the clear skin that you want? I used to wonder these things all the time.

As a matter of fact, I think it’s because of acne that I tried to compensate in other parts of my physical life. If I couldn’t have the clear skin I wanted, then maybe I could improve other parts of my body. I worked out… a lot. I don’t know if it was entirely because of acne but I actually did end up respecting my body a whole lot more in the later years.

I COULDN’T MOVE ON IN MY LIFE FROM ACNE

Have you ever felt stunted because you just couldn’t get passed this stage? I admit it, acne a wall that I really struggled to get myself over. It seemed no matter how I convinced myself that looks weren’t important and that it didn’t matter that I had acne, the constant reminder, ups and downs, being clear and then breaking out again really started to take a toll on me after a few years. And even though there were other parts of my life that progressed, I really felt that in a lot of ways, my life could’ve been more “complete” if I never had to go through something like acne, just like some of my peers.

I think that all teenagers go through a stage of being self-conscious. I just think that have acne accentuates that bi or even tri-fold.

I missed out a lot of stuff.

It’s true that I could’ve still gone out and had fun despite having acne. And maybe some people could do that. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that I never had any fun because of my acne. There were some nights when I forgot about having acne. There were some nights when I could let go. However, the majority of the times that I went out, after years and years of being with acne, and the constant reminders every time I stepped into the bathroom, it was hard to forget.

I DIDN’T WANT TO GO OUTSIDE

After a while, I just thought it’d be easier to just stay home. Many nights I wouldn’t go out because it wasn’t a “good night” for my acne. I would wait until I couldn’t find any pimples forming or there weren’t any acne scars in any important areas on my face before I would go out.

Have you ever done something like this? I would actually plan things around my breakouts. Looking back now, it seemed really silly. However, back then, it was very serious matter. If I had a pimple on my nose or on my forehead in the just the wrong spot, I wouldn’t want to go out because I didn’t want people to see me like that, to have their first impression be of the guy with the giant red mole on his nose that they couldn’t take their eyes off of.