Makeup. One of the ladies in the play was a Mary Kay consultant, & offered her sample kits up as stage makeup for the entire cast. Now, this was 2001, & Mary Kay had ONE type of foundation back then: thick, oily, greasy, liquid foundation. My skin was clear & beautiful up until I was in that play, & then all of a sudden it was like some beast that had been lying dormant in a cave somewhere had been unleashed to wreak havoc on my skin. The result was something FAR beyond normal teen acne. I mean my face was HURTING, I had so much acne. And it seems like, for whatever reason, ever since then it has been an uphill battle to try & have clear skin again.
I tried everything all throughout high school. I tried normal soap & water scrubbing with a clean wash cloth, I tried Acnefree, I tried the Clinique three-step cleanse, I tried Proactiv, you name it & I probably tried it & was disappointed by it. I figured, "oh well, I'm a teenager, this is just what happens to us, & when I'm in my 20's it will go away." Not. I couldn't figure out whether the problem was oily skin, or dry skin, or hormones, or diet, or what. My Mom always told me not to touch my face, because that was what was causing it. But you try not touching your face when you have a bunch of big painful zits everywhere!
Eventually, I gave up trying & figured I'd just have acne my whole life. In 2009 I finally saw a dermatologist as one last try in my acne battle, who prescribed both a topical treatment & medication, neither of which seemed to fully work. It slowed down my breakouts, but didn't stop them. That trip to the dermatologist, though, was the first time I ever heard about hyperpigmentation. "Do I have WHAT?" I asked when she first mentioned the word. "Hyperpigmentation," she repeated, "Do you find that after a zit is gone, it leaves a red spot on your skin for several months afterward?" I looked in the mirror behind her head & realized for the first time that I actually only had about 5 or 6 active zits; the rest were spots left over from previous breakouts. I didn't actually have as much acne as it looked like I did! Somehow, even though my prescription didn't work, I had a little bit of hope that maybe I could beat this thing after all.
I went back to trying everything I could to get rid of my acne, from different soaps & scrubs, to wipes 3 times a day to remove excess oil, to changing my pillow case every other night, to not wearing makeup, to wearing full-coverage makeup, & everything else you can possibly imagine. Finally, just a few months ago, someone offered up an unused Proactiv set on my church's freecycle site, & I thought, "Why not, I'll try it again. It's free, after all." After using that for about 2 weeks, my active breakouts had diminished enough that I thought I could finally try microderm abrasion treatments to help lighten the hyperpigmentation. The fact that I had gone from 3 or 4 new zits a day to 3 or 4 zits per week gave me massive hope that if I could just get rid of the leftover red spots, I might have some semblance of clear beautiful skin again! After all, I don't have alot of scarring from acne, it's just those stupid red spots that just seem to stay & stay for months on end making me look like I've got the worst acne you've ever seen in your life.
So why am I writing all this now? Not that I'm writing to anyone in particular, since I think this blog has been all but forgotten by everyone who has ever read it at any point in time (& I'm okay with that, quite honestly). I'm writing all this now because I am FED UP with acne! I'm 25 years old! I'm over it! I've been over it for the past 11 years! And I am doing everything I can possibly think of to make sure that this time next year, June 14, 2013, I will have clear skin, free of breakouts.
And this is what I'm going to do to make sure that happens!:
- Use any & every Proactiv product I can get my hands on
- Take Biotin & Omega 3 pills daily
- Drink LOTS of water!
- Drink green tea
- Do weekly microderm abrasion treatments for 7 weeks
- Get an enzyme peel
- Eat more whole grains, fruits, veggies
- Eat less sugar
So I'm writing all of this down because I want to see a difference! I want to keep myself accountable & be DONE with acne. I'm GOING to see an improvement in my skin, & soon. I'll do whatever it takes. I've already been using Proactiv twice a day & I'm on my third micro treatment (I have my first enzyme peel next week!), & the other day one of the bartenders at work said to me, "Are you doing something different with your makeup lately? Your skin looks amazing!" No one has ever told me I have great skin. Never. Not in my whole life. I could have just cried & hugged her for noticing a difference, because sometimes I get discouraged & wonder if all of this is even going to make a difference.
This is how I feel:
//End Rant.
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