My Struggle With Acne

By Gabrielle Gullotti

I have had acne since I was 13, I am now almost 18. Having acne STINKS, especially while your growing up. At 13 the majority of my friends all had clear, beautiful skin.  I felt like no one could understand me and none of my classmates could relate to me.  It seems like the people who would show their acne only had 1 or two small pimples which would be a huge improvement compared to the amount of acne I had. 

At 13, I was begging my older sister to let me wear her foundation so I could cover up the acne on my skin. I hated how I didn’t feel beautiful naturally.

Without makeup on, I felt dirty. I wasn’t into makeup, but was desperate to cover the red bumps on my face. “Its not noticeable!” or “they just blend in with your freckles!” were a few things people often said that rarely made me feel any better about my skin.

Almost daily before I headed to school, I would go into my sisters room, and she would take her soft makeup brush and swipe powder on my face. My acne was less noticeable, but I was sick of covering the problem, rather than fixing it.

Once I entered high school, I began trying out liquid foundations as well as powders. They were okay, but too often I had to go to the bathroom and wipe the oil off my forehead, or dab parts of my face with a wet cloth so it didn’t look so powdery.

Although I washed my face everyday, I noticed that my pores became very big. Around the sides of my nose, the top of my nose, between my eyes, my forehead, and my chin were where my pores were most noticeable. Essentially, everywhere but my cheeks.

With the stress of school, my skin worsened, and when summer came around, it got a little better. The point is, I'm sick of not having control over my skin. If my skin is having a bad day, I have a bad day and seems like a vicious cycle of acne and bad days. Its hard not feeling self conscious when you feel like everyone is disgusted by my acne.

So now I am a senior, and I still struggle with acne. I have tried so many products, I can not remember them all. I have spent so much money trying to clear my skin, I don’t even want to think about it. I’ve seen doctors, and even they haven’t been able to help me much. 

However, as I got older I've been noticing a stronger presence of the acne community and skin positivity community on instagram which helps me feel a little better about my skin.  At least there were other people who's acne I could relate to who have skin like me. 

Along with having acne, I've also been noticing some of my larger pimples were giving me acne scars and leaving red marks that would stay on my skin for months.  So even if I only had 1 or 2 active breakouts, the whole side of my face would still look like I had a lot of acne because of the redness and texture.  I hope that one day I can get my acne under control so I can work on fading the acne scars too.