What Does Having Acne Teach Me

source : RD.com

When I enrolled to university I would never imagine to have growing acne on my face – because I never had such in my life. My face skin was a normal one, with common hormonal acne problem that only struck once period comes. Later on, after 2 or 3 months freshmen year passed, acne started popping out from my face like mushroom.

A real horrifying mushrooms.

At first it grew on certain areas alternately, such as the middle part of my cheeks then it went to chin, as well as forehead and nose. Quickly in a month my face changed into a field full of acnes. Since it was this reddish tomato type of acne – papules and pustule – later on I found it was not easy to be covered by typical drugstore foundation or BB Cream I had at home.

Irritating. At one day it appeared to be this small zit, but at the other days it could be disgustingly red pimples with this yellowish, liquid pus at the center of it.

Long short story, I have tried everything people shared out there to deal with this acne problems – fixing cleansing habit, changing pillow’s sheet, using only natural ingredients on my skincare regime – all hacks you can mention, I have done it all. Some worked, some not. Those which worked kept staying as my skincare routine up to date, and those which not should be left behind since it did nothing but irritating my skin.

During that long war, fighting back zit that still coming up to today, I have learned several precious experiences that left deep impression to me. Some of them are :

It taught me how to take care of myself well.

I used to experiment my skin – face, especially – with all kinds of cosmetics and skincare products I could find in department store (my favorite is Guardian) without giving a second thought about its ingredients and how it might affect my skin. Instead of picking the one that would suit my skin the most, I chose randomly – mostly those with cute packaging or luxurious jar. I should have browsed for the review first. I should have prioritized my skin’s need first before anything else.

Now before I purchase something I always remind myself to look up for the ingredient list and check whether it has inflammatory or irritating source because, who wants to fall for the same pit, again and again? I also maintain to have good diet so pimples won’t come rapidly just like before. Well, there are still many good habits I have developed because of this incident.

It taught me how to love myself through my good and bad.

It was not too long after the acne-thingy-accident hit me I became emotionally unstable up to the point that I could weep hysterically like a mad baby anytime new zit appeared. I started to develop self-hate feeling. I was scared to death to check out my reflection on mirror – I hated mirror too. One day I stopped doing anything, like literally anything. I didn’t wash my face after I went home from school, I went to bed just like that – with a face fully covered by make up – and I purposely forgot to do my skincare routine. I did it all. I even grew a negative thinking such,”I am an ugly duckling who’ll never be a beauty swan.”

But, everything has changed. I admit how stupid I was before. I should have not became such a villain for myself. I should have tried harder instead of giving up in the middle. I should have loved myself more than anyone would do. And I am, now.

As the continuation of lesson number 2 : It made me realize people’s love were changing time to time.

By the time my outer appearance began to change, the way people’s look at me was changing too. I was not surprised because, well I hated myself too, remember? It was not a big deal to lose people who never liked me since the first time. Fake friends were everywhere, but true friends amazingly were there too. I was always extremely nervous to walk down the corner to buy groceries with bare face, but when I was with my friends – hey, they even didn’t say anything about it. Sometimes they might talk about how serious the problem I had with this and suggested me some of useful hacks they knew. Guys, I appreciated you.

There was nothing much changed between us, because our affection to one another was real.

I could give you a comparison for worst example. A guy I developed crush on during second semester made me berserk through our chat room because he noticed me because of my skin problem. “You were not … encountering any skin problem during our freshmen year, weren’t you?”

That left me impressed, in a bad way. Things couldn’t go worse, please no!

All in all, thing happens for reason. So does this acne thingy. It happens for reason. It also will have impact to my life. Through its good and bad, I know it will give me valuable lesson which can not be obtained in anywhere else.