Struggling with Acne and Insecurities

By Alvina Chowdhury

Everyone goes through terrible experiences at least at one point in their life, whether it’s because they were overweight, or they are harrier than others, or are short, or have an oddly shaped feature, regardless, I too went through various terrible personal experiences, and that of course has to do with my severe acne.  My acne was something that couldn’t be covered up by layers upon layers of foundation and makeup, because if I did, it somehow made my acne appear to be more visible. 

Therefore, my struggle with acne was a journey I have faced publicly, because it is something everyone saw.  By memory, I can remember three vivid and terrible experiences that I have encountered in my 21.5 years of living due to my skin condition. 

One was when I was in the tenth grade.  During my sophomore year of high school, my entire school and I encountered a Myspace page that was created anonymously by a person who wrote something terrible about almost each individual that attended my school.  I had no enemies at my school, but neither did many people who were talked about on the page, yet my name along with many others were mentioned in a disgusting manner on the page. 

Sadly enough, I didn’t find out on my own, my friend is the one who had mentioned to me that I was mentioned on there, and unfortunately, I was mentioned negatively because of my acne.  I will never forget, it said “Alvina Chowdhury needs to go get her skin checked”.  I was traumatized terribly and thought to myself, why me?  I wasn’t the only one with acne at that school so why me? 

And then it hit me, it’s because my acne was the most severe, abnormal, and most noticeable.  And I’m sure my insecurity was visible in how I acted, therefore I was an easy target to be noticed when it came down to my skin.  Second was when I saw my boyfriend at the time after one year.  We spent the day at Universal Studios, and when I came home at night, he told me that my acne on my chest at worsened. 

You can only imagine how much that crushed me, especially from the one person whom my looks mattered to me the most.  Third, was an incident with my mom’s friends that took place 1.5 years ago.  I was so hurt and crushed by what she said to me I wrote about it on my online journal, I titled it “My Biggest Insecurity and Flaw”

“I'm so annoyed and hurt at the same time. Jhimli Auntie as in Fahim Rians mom randomly was staring at my face and then came up to me asking about my acne and what I put on it. I'm SO tired and SO fed up of people asking me about my acne. She's not the first auntie who has done this, she's the millionth. Let alone aunties, she's the millionth person. It just never ends, it sucks. I just stood there & didn't even know what to say when she asked me what I use. What sucks the most is everyone who has pointed out my acne always points it out when I have makeup on and when I feel like I've gotten better, THAT’S what hurts.

If I didn't have makeup on, then EVERYONE would stare at me. And it just makes me wonder, like everyone who has acne, do they go through people staring and asking them questions too or is it just me. I don't know it just sucks. I almost started crying at the party and it just got awkward because my mom and sister noticed, but thank god we left the party right then. Whatever, I have to get over it, can't do ****ing shit about my skin disease that is in my blood that I was born with genetically.

Has anyone else felt the same way or is it just different for me?